Phew – that’s a long title isn’t it! 😮
In this article, I’ll detail how I helped a bride and groom to make their wedding reception work when half of the guests were English, and the other half were French.
A little personal note….I didn’t like studying French at school many years ago. I just didn’t understand as a teenager exactly where it was going to fit into my later life. If only I’d had a crystal ball!
The wedding in question was my first at my now favourite and possibly most visited venue, The Old Hall in Ely.
I met with the bride and groom several times before the wedding. It’s part of the service, and because there were some out of the ordinary requests compared to most of the weddings I was working on at the time…I wanted to get things right.
The main problem (for me), was that the bride and her family (les famille I believe), were French.
As already mentioned…I struggle with this particular language. Where else on earth is a table male and a chair female? (did I get that the right way round?)
Without wishing to cause insult though….you can probably see where I’m coming from.
The music for the night of course was going to be a mixture of English and French – not a problem at all…I’d been given a list of the French tracks, duly obtained and listened to them. That’s the easy bit.
However….how was I going to communicate with the French guests during the evening?
I’m not always a “chatty” DJ. I don’t believe in using the microphone just because it’s there. But there are times when it’s needed, especially to announce the cutting of the cake (or the croquembouche), and to run something called the “shoe game” which the bride on this occasion wanted.
What is the shoe game? I hear you ask….
It’s an American reception game in which the bride and groom are sat back to back with a shoe from the bride and a shoe from the groom each (this can be done with pink and blue ping-pong bats as well!), and asked a series of potentially embarrassing questions. They then hold up either the bride or the groom’s show to indicate who is most likely to fit the question.
An example? “Who wears the trousers in the relationship?” or “Who’s going to be the first to go to sleep tonight?”.
The problem…how do the questions translate into French and still keep their meaning?
The solution….I worked with the bride’s brother who was obviously French, but also had a very good understanding of English. As I asked a question in English, he translated…we both had microphones and bounced off of each other….it worked and the guests were in stitches 🙂
As for the rest of the evening? Quite simple really….I took the time to brush up on my conversational French so that I could communicate with the French guests at least at a basic level. It may not have been grammatically perfect, but it was enough to get the message across, make the bride feel that I’d worked hard for her and more importantly, made her family feel included in the celebrations whilst in a foreign country.
Oh, and in the words of the bride herself…
Wayne is absolutely fantastic, super nice chap and incredible value for money! I could not recommend him enough.
He did our wedding at The Old Hall and definitely went the extra mile. Nothing was too much to ask! From the crazy late texts at night, the reassuring meetings, the super user friendly online playlist tool to the organisation of a really fun question/answer game for the bride and groom that went down like an absolute charm and that people are still laughing about to date! That allowed for unforgettable pictures of our guests cracking up! Wayne even brushed up his French skills for the benefit of my own family.
Just first class! Thank you Wayne!
Have you got special requirements for your wedding reception? I can’t guarantee to learn every language on the planet, but hopefully the post above will show that I’ll work with you to find a solution to enable all of your guests to feel included in the party. Why not get in touch to discuss your party plans today?
