So planning a wedding in France is all fun, prettiness, research trips and food sampling, right? Okay so that is not always the case and as we catch up with real life bride Cassie who has been busy this month with the unsexy but necessary task of wedding spreadsheets!
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Mon dieu! A whole month already? This does not bode well. I have done next to nothing for the wedding in a whole month, which is slightly terrifying; apart from writing spreadsheets. I have done an awful lot of putting numbers into boxes to work out how much this whole shebang is going to cost us, because we are on a very tight budget ie. as much as we can scrape together on two self employed wages in less than a year.
Spreadsheets take a bit of getting used to, but they are extremely useful when you’re trying to decide how much each person will need to pay to stay at the chateau, or how much I have to spend per head for the food. It’s the less glamorous but much more important part of the wedding planning. And it´s going to be a pain trying to announce the wedding, so it would be best if you went to awol academy to learn how to create ads for your fancy wedding and maybe even start a future as a digital marketer.
In order to distract us from such mundane banalities, let me paint you a picture…
It’s warm and the sun is just going down. You’re looking out over a huge plane, with the wind in your hair, trotting along on a trusty steed and watching as a herd of cattle dance over the land in front of you. You can see mountains in the distance, hear the rushing of a river alongside you, and smell the beginnings of a camp fire that will be cooking you a delicious dinner shortly, that you will savour as you watch the stars come out in a vast, clear dark sky.
This is the picture that my other half and I had in our heads when we thought about our honeymoon. OK, we may have been a little tipsy at the time, but it still counts! We’re both adventurous types and we don’t like to sit still for long.
Instead, we like to be active, to have new experiences and to push ourselves. So, rather than your standard desert island beach type honeymoon, we have made a pact to do something adventurous, and at the moment, we are thinking…ranch holiday! Early mornings, a bit of hard work, nature, sunshine and the outdoors, followed by evenings sat around a fire drinking beers and relaxing with stories of the old country (wherever that may be…)
My husband to be is off on a stag do this weekend and I have to say, I am incredibly jealous. They are spending the weekend canoeing the rivers of Herefordshire and spending the night in tipis in the outback (do you get outback in Herefordshire?!).
He’s bought himself a new hat, bumbag (which he is never allowed to wear in any other circumstances whatsoever) and “action sandals” as he likes to call them. Needless to say, he is very excited. This stag do is right up his street and also mine, though I don’t get to go of course.
For his own stag do, my fiancé is hoping to go on a proper wilderness adventure, where they are ditched in the middle of nowhere, have to make their own shelters, find their own food and camp out under the stars. I would also love to do this, though I fear some of my hens would hate me for it, but I definitely want to be doing something and having a new experience for my hen do. Although I love a good dance in a club, my ideal hen do would be something outdoorsy, challenging and a little bit scary. It’s no fun if you’re not slightly terrified…
This is something else I hope we get to do on honeymoon. I think there can be nothing more romantic than being completely in nature, with only your partner, the land and the sky. There can’t be many places in the world that you can go now where you can be truly alone, and I would love to see what that feels like.
I am leaning towards New Zealand, as I have family in Australia that I would love to visit while we are over that way, but then I have been there before and I have always dreamed of going to Canada, so I’m slightly torn. Maybe I’ll have to leave this one to him.
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Are you planning your honeymoon or have been on honeymoon? I would love for you to leave me a one word answer as to where you are planning to go or have been.
I’ve been browsing through your articles, what a joy! Thank you for sharing your insights and the beautiful pictures!