Destination: France

WITH STACI DUNN OF THE CAKE LADY CUSTOM CAKES

Is it your dream to have a destination wedding? Maybe a lovestruck sunset ceremony on the beach in Honolulu or an enchanting castle in Ireland or maybe a romantic wedding in the beautiful French countryside?

Obviously, there are positives and negatives to any destination wedding. On a positive note, it will be memorable!!! On the negative, it could be very expensive. If you are familiar with the destination, it may be a bit easier to plan, prepare and budget. But, let's say you're not familiar with it, but plan on doing it anyway. Where do you begin? Taking a look at the culture and local traditions might be a fun place to start. And because this whole issue is dedicated to France, let’s look at those.

1. You can say the wedding weekend concept started in France. It's tradition for couples to have two ceremonies over two days: a civil ceremony and a symbolic service.

2. During the symbolic service, the groom is escorted down the aisle by their mother, and at the alter the wedding party is swapped for "witnesses." The reception is referred to as the wedding meal, which can go on until dawn the next day.

3. The wedding meal is kicked off with a special dance between the bride and her father.

4. Champagne towers got their notoriety in France.

5. Wedding entertainers are commonplace.

6. Wedding desserts consist of macarons or profiteroles (think: cream puffs filled with vanilla cream). So it follows that with no wedding cake, the cutting of the cake and feeding each other is replaced with swapping bites of croquembouche (profiterole pyramids bound by caramel)

7. The wedding meal (which consists of plenty of food over the hours-long festivities) concludes with a late night soup served before guests leave in the morning.

8. Guests leave with special favors that might include local products, and most certainly a pouch of what is commonly referred to as Jordan almonds.

And remember regardless of where, when or how you get married, love is an international language and as long as you continue to dream, the romance never ends.

Photo courtesy of Pnina Tornai