Our wedding

An invitation...

Our wedding was held at Bidache in France. It is a small Basque village in the Pyrenées-Atlantiques. We had the good fortune of organising the wedding in a large 18th-century country house belonging to Amelie's family. It certainly added to the charm of our small Basque wedding.

Our invitation cards were designed by Trixie and put together by Joanne, the Photoshop expert. The photo was taken by Joanne in Paris last summer, can't remember the exact location but it was not too far from the Eiffel Tower.

We arrived at Bidache on Tuesday night. After that was 3 full days of cooking! Yes, we decided to cater for the wedding ourselves. It took Trixie one whole week to pore through all her cookbooks (and she has a ton of them!) and to decide on the menu. An enormous feat, we were exhausted every night, but we made it thanks to everyone who chipped in - our parents, Joanne, Joel and especially the head-chef, Aunty Lina. Our dear friends, Astrid, Lenka, Marianne, Philippe and Xavier, came on Friday to help out too. They were exceedingly efficient! After this experience, they were speaking of starting up a company specialising in organising weddings, so to those getting married soon, remember their names!

The menu:

Starters: Bacon-wrapped sausages, prunes stuffed with foie gras wrapped with thin slices of dried duck magret, yogurt balls rolled in a mix of coarsely ground red, green and black peppercorns, smoked salmon and radish canapes, grilled peppers and feta canapes, foie gras and apple-raisin compote canapes, roquefort and walnut canapes, grilled aubergine-mozarella-basil roll-ups, melon and mint wrapped in Serrano ham, anchoide with figs, spiced chickpeas, zucchini dip, blackened aubergine dip, parmesan puffs, sausage rolls, mini chorizo and tomato frittatas, roasted cashew nuts with rosemary, almonds with cocao powder and Espelette chili, pastry parcels filled with tomato and olives, sausagemeat and applesauce, goat's cheese and pesto.

Mains: Goat's cheese, leek and walnut tart, onion and rosemary tart, smoked salmon and dill tart, vodka-marinated steak, seared encrusted carpaccio of beef, zucchini salad, spicy roasted pumpkin, beet salad with balsamic dressing, minted potato and green bean salad, potato and pea salad with pesto, barbequed meats - sausages, duck magret, beef, pork ribs. To accompany the barbequed meats, there were shallot and mustard butters, shallot and spiced red wine confit, and salsa verde. Salsa verde goes especially well with grilled beef.

Desserts: Almond cake, snow-topped spice cake, torta alla gianduia (Nutella cake), chocolate fondant with liquered cherries, lemon tartlets, raspberry mousse.

We had lots of fun in the kitchen!

Everything was DIY. Wedding souvenirs for the guests were hand-made by Joanne and us. With these personalised wine glass tags, our 80 guests would recognise their glasses easily.

Mass booklets were printed and tied.

Our wedding day started bright and early. After a good breakfast, we started assembling the canapes for the party. Everyone helped out and the few hundred canapes were done in a flash.

In the meantime, the tables were set, candles were put out, etc. More and more people arrived, and the house was getting lively. Philippe went to pick up the flowers. Bao had a knack for making bridal bouquets.

The wedding was at 3pm. We got into our wedding gear. After 3 days of non-stop running around, it was show time!

The church was beautifully decorated by Sharon and Hoon Yung the day before. Christine and Albrecht brought the barley stalks for the pew decorations. The delightful church music was played by Jennah on the flute and Leigh on the piano. They were very accomodating to our demands (Leigh was ready to strangle us during the rehearsal 3 days before). Felix was our lead singer and Jennah sang the lovely Salve Regina.


The bride arrived at the church at about 3.15pm. She was accompanied by Joanne, Aunty Lina and parents.




The bridal entrace was Bach's Cantata 208. Trixie and her father were preceded by Camilla, the flower girl and Erik, the page boy.


The mass began. It was carried out in english and french, as our families spoke no french and the priest, Père Dunate, spoke no english. The mass booklet (produced again with Joanne's expert Photoshop skills) was thus prepared in both languages. Despite not speaking a word of english, Père Dunate was very kind and accomodating, putting the non-french speakers at ease during mass. Sharon read the first reading in english, Christine read the psalm in french, and Joanne read the intercessory prayers in english.

Ginny, Tony, Sharon and Leigh were our witnesses. We're very touched they came all the way from Singapore and Jersey to share this day with us.

Erik did a wonderful job as our ring bearer. The pretty pillow was made by Alice who also did a great job on Trixie's dress.

We exchanged rings....


signed the register...

And now as Mr and Mrs Shankar Sachidhanandam, we debarked on our journey together.

We exited the church under a shower of bubbles. It was so pretty. Bubble-blowing continued outside the church. We had our unanticipated share of rice and confetti too.

After the church ceremony, we all walked back to the house through the picturesque main street. Bidache had its typical Basque red and green windows. It was a beautiful day and the bubbles, laughs and fun continued all the way.

The party at the house was kicked off with champagne, along with the starters, while Blue Perspective (our very own special guests from Jersey) got their gear hooked up for the music. In no time, we were entertained with classy jazz music, whipped up by five very talented young musicians - Jennah, Anthony, George, Henry and Thomas.

The traditional "bouquet throwing act", well executed by Trixie, resulted in Jennah being the next in line to be married, according to tradition... Unfortunately, we were unable to get away from the typical "Yam Seng", which was faithfully initiated by Leigh.

Throughout the evening, food and drink flowed, accompanied by fantastic music. Blue Perspective was accompanied at several occasions by Peter and Leigh. Felix and Joel joined in too. Everyone was so impressed with the band. We were certainly very lucky to have them play at our wedding. Unable to resist the catchy music, dancing followed.

While the majority of us were too busy eating and drinking, a determined "BBQ crew" was out digging a pit and getting the fire going, in preparation for the great cookout to come. Succulent duck and beef was soon to follow, along with juicy sausages, to be washed down by dark Bordeaux reds. A slab of pork ribs topped up the meat platter. This was by far the best BBQ we've ever had. The meats were grilled to perfection under the expert hands of Marianne and Nico. By the way, Marianne is from Argentina and has BBQ in her blood. By the time we had the cheese and desserts, we were so stuffed!

The party wound down at about 2 am, but a small group of us stayed up talking, drinking and laughing all the way to 5 am. Many of our guests brought sleeping bags to stay overnight, some even camped in tents in the garden. The next morning we had a good breakfast/brunch with the leftovers. We had originally planned scrambled eggs and sausages but didn't in the end as there was just too much food left. Nico commented that we had catered for 200 instead of just 80. (In fact, we were eating leftovers for 3 weeks after the wedding!) At mid-morning, people started leaving as some had come a long way. Our families stayed with us for 3 more days, enjoying the Basque countryside. And we had a BBQ dinner every night!

We left Bidache on Wednesday, after the week-long wedding celebration, preparations included. We had the time of our lives, and we hope that our guests did too. We're very touched that they made the journey from Singapore, Australia, USA, UK, Germany, Amiens, Grenoble and Bordeaux. We're also eternally grateful to the people who helped out during the wedding, our dear families and friends who cooked, served, cleaned, and made sure everything went smoothly, leaving us, the newly-wedded couple, to fully enjoy every second of our special day. Of course, we cannot forget our photographers, Igor and Joel, who gave us such beautiful souvenirs. Lots more photos can be found on http://www.flickr.com/photos/trixshank. Enjoy!