I attended the most chaotic wedding ever

I still define the story I’m about to tell the worst marriage ever.

So, my curious interlocutors challenge me:

“But how is the worst? There is a death or almost I hope! ”

No, not nearly.

A discrepancy that makes itself felt

That year, student as I was, I needed some butter in my ham shells.

So I jumped at the chance to become the official photographer for a friend’s cousin’s wedding. I would have taken advantage of a sunny weekend in a mansion on the Cote d’Azur to make some money at the back of the love. What else ?

Nothing suggested that, in hindsight, I would have preferred to stay in the rain in Normandy to witness the second opera of What the hell have we done? with a packet of soft potato chips. That means!

After a few hours on the train, I stored my suitcases the day before D-Day on an immense, splendid property, a dream setting for the best day of his life.

Yet I feel out of place. I was warned by my friend: it will be an old-fashioned Catholic Church weekend. But the purebred atheist that I am was definitely not ready for this series of traditions that seem a bit old to me in France.

The spouses address their parents in a formal way. The priest strongly militates against premarital sex during the two and a half hour ceremony and I shake my head, haggard, when someone talks to me about “pelenate” (I realized at the end of the weekend that it was a contraction of the national pilgrimage) …

The couple in the spotlight are stressed out, I only get a few insights into the work I have to provide. I’m just informed that they want me to make me “invisible”. The portraits will be difficult to shoot from the grove, but I follow the rules.

The day before the wedding, the atmosphere is good then I am happy to see these people, certainly different from me, but happy to celebrate this union.

A wedding … and a funeral

The worst, however, is yet to come.

I spend a pleasant night in the family property where I am extremely well received. I’m going to do some location scouting in the church to better capture the most important moment of the day in the eyes of the newlyweds … without knowing that just at that moment the decisive moment of the weekend was taking place.

Back from my escapade, I see the firefighters, all flashing lights out, crouched on the lawn of the building. The bride’s uncle just passed the gun left at the breakfast table where I was feeding 1.5 hours earlier.

Guests acknowledge the shock with religious chants, as the old man is transported to his room, right in the house where the evening celebrations will take place. The day then turns into a wedding / funeral wake, and I should photograph everything.

I don’t know which side to be on, I laugh nervously, smoke, distressed by this unusual proximity to a rigid.

If I had believed in a god who communicates messages to mortals, I would surely have interpreted it as a way of saying EVERYTHING, NOW, NOW, with yellow and red neon lights and possibly a skull emoji.

But probably due to budgetary and logistical reasons of difficult gathering of 200 guests or other strangers, the wedding was not canceled.

And it’s time for me to go photograph the preparation of the wedding.

A ceremony in which guests collapse

The sequel to this ceremony is vaguely reminiscent of a film with Pierre Richard, filled with stunts of guests falling like flies and embarrassing moments bordering on burlesque.

As I catch the moment when the groom puts on his jacket, I see through my lens, in the background, a group of guests in grand splendor gathered by the pool: the bride’s aunt has just fallen into syncope. But as soon as we collect it’we have to leave for the church, and let it jump! The damn wedding will only be forty minutes late.

While waiting for the happy couple to arrive, I put myself to the left of the altar, looking for an angle that guarantees me the best shots with a minimum of visibility.

This is the moment when the priest chooses to throw not one, not two, not three or even five, but a nice big dozen I greet you Maria in memory of the deceased uncle. I watch with terror the eyes of the whole assembly turn on me, or rather on the statue of the Virgin Mary in front of which I was, to begin their prayer.

Of course, I don’t know a word about it, and instead of simply changing places, I remain there, with my arms dangling, staring into space, fiddling with the mass booklet with immense embarrassment.

On the tenth rep, I try an unconvincing yogurt that earns me amused glances from my friend, sitting in the front row.

Once the bride and groom are there, the religious ceremony can finally begin. I decide to photograph the guests. Eyes in the lens, I start a trolley along the pews of the church, when suddenly a head is missing.

Looking up, I discover a second aunt of the bride with her four irons in the air, surrounded by an army of fans who tell me to shut up, so that the bride and groom do not notice this new twist of fate.

At this rate, this marriage will compete with the Red Wedding of game of Thrones.

Terrible marriage, indestructible love?

The saying goes: rainy marriage, happy marriage.

So, if the marriage is truly catastrophic, is it possible that he is not happy but ecstatic? I dare to hope in the newlyweds, even if they have given me a hard time all day anyway.

I worked twelve hours straight before I went to bed with a stomach full of reheated pizza (I wasn’t on the guest list and they didn’t have anything planned for me, so I had to eat the leftovers from the fridge in the kitchen, like Cinderella).

It almost made me regret the friend award I made him, but never mind, I won a neat story that gives me the grade in the evening.

The wedding photos were very popular, certainly because they looked like the fairy tale they had imagined and not the nightmare that actually unfolded.

However, at present, the two lovebirds still intertwine perfect love, while my sister’s fabulous wedding in the same year lasted no more than six months.

Photo credit: Emma Bauso / Pexels