My wife’s wedding
That’s it: I’m a married man. And it happened almost as I expected. First, all our friends were exceptional in planning the event: our MC gave an Oscar host-worthy performance (talking about the years when they do have a host), our bridesmaids and best men were, well, the best, our DJ’s handled more than we ever intended them to, mixing away into the night, our families gave speeches that were significantly more elaborate and full of pictures of our younger selves we didn’t want anyone to see but couldn’t do anything about… what they call proper wedding success.
Then my brother came into play. He was not only one of my best men (obviously), but he was (equally obviously) taking part in the family speeches, plus helping DJ’s with audio wiring and everyone with a laptop presentation — not to mention he tended the bar. But the craziest thing he did was this: as we got out of our building to have lunch with our bridesmaids and best men before the ceremony, we noticed that Jordane Saget, a Parisian street artist we love, had decorated our door. Since he does a lot of work in the neighborhood, we just figured we were incredibly lucky he picked the right door to decorate that day.
Then came the ceremony: as we left city hall, we noticed he’d decorated the bus stop opposite us. Then, we crossed the street to go take pictures in the adjoining park, we saw more of his work. All the way to the top of the hill in the center of the park, where there is a small neoclassical temple that had an entire side of its staircase fully drawn on by the man. And, somehow, our photographer always noticed those things, pointed at them if we hadn’t already seen the work, and suggested we take a picture right there and then.
A little while later, as we got to the venue we were having the wedding party at, most of the windows of what is already a beautiful pre-revolutionary rotunda had also been decorated by Saget. I don’t know about my wife (she’s usually quicker than me), but that’s when I finally decided this wasn’t just coincidence: something had happened and the artist had somehow been made aware of our little ceremony and chose to get involved. It got even crazier (to me, a bona fide fan of the man) when I noticed that he’d even signed his name on one of the back windows, along with his best wishes for the happy couple.
When my brother finally gave his best man speech, he explained what had happened: months ago, he’d contacted Saget because he knew we were fans, and asked if there was a way to get some of his artwork as wedding present. Then, they’d become friends and devised, together, a way to make the experience truly unique: instead of my brother simply handing us out a piece of art, our entire wedding day would effectively be illustrated by ephemeral works of the artist throughout our journey in Paris’ 19th arrondissement (we don’t get out much). Then, to cap things off, we also got a beautiful painting of the man to keep. And I have absolutely no idea how to ever make it up to my brother.
But the main difference for this blog is this: from now on, my fiancée is my wife. Got a nice ring to it, don’t ya think?
Ps. We also wrote a wedding song (because of course), and you can find it here…