FrenchHusbands.com

I don’t have many funny French anecdotes to deliver to, but in the meantime I thought I’d answer the most popular question I get about living in France: “How did you meet your husband?”

Well, like all great love affairs of our time our romance began on the internet. We met quite clumsily and by accident. I had just left New York City and was trying to settle into rural life in upstate New York. I was friendless, jobless, and bored silly. After 8 weeks in the wilderness I began formulating my escape plan to get out of not only the state of New York, but the US in general. Quite randomly I picked Italy as a destination. I went full steam ahead with my escape plan to get an Art residency in Italy. I bought about 10 “teach yourself Italian” books, and joined an International chat group where I never actually spoke one word of Italian and ended up talking to the other Anglophones. At some point I stumble upon a French guy’s profile that had a funny quote on it from a Seinfeld episode. I shot him a one sentence e-mail to say hello and then promptly forgot all about him. He returned from his vacation in the US to find my e-mail and replied. No sparks flew, but we just really liked talking to each other. Finally after a few months of chatting I begged my mother for $600 to buy a plane ticket to France.

I got off the plane at Charles de Gaulle and there he was. We spent 4 or 5 days in Paris together. He took me to the top of the Eiffel tower for my birthday and then bought me a “gaufre” with powdered sugar and whipped cream as a stand–in for birthday cake. The next day we jumped in his car and drove to the south of France where we spent a few days wandering through Aix en Provence. At the end of the trip we drove back to Paris where we tearily said goodbye at the airport not knowing when or where we would see each other again.

For the next year it was back and forth transatlantic flights every 1-2 months. And although we accumulated a mountain of frequent flyer miles, it was exhausting on all levels. In hindsight, I think the real reason we got married was so we could stop spending all our money on airfare. Long story short, a year after we met we ran off and got hitched without telling anyone except two of David’s friends who acted as our witnesses. David wore a hilarious 3 piece pinstriped grey suit. I wore black patten leather knee-high stiletto boots, a black mini-skirt, a white blouse and a goofy white H&M flower pin in my hair. (Don’t believe me? I have video footage.) At the time I didn’t speak French, but David convinced the deputy Mayor that I did. I didn’t understand a word of the ceremony. I did however manage to say “I do” at the right moment because David squeezed my right hand so hard that he almost broke my pinky bone. This is the only photo we have of our wedding day.

Since David is an only child, and I’m my mother’s only daughter, we immediately went about planning the religious ceremony for our families. (Plus I just wanted a big fancy white dress.) In May 2005 we finally professed our all encompassing undying love or whatever for each other in front of family, friends, God, and a few pigeons & squirrels that were in the park with us.

My mom performed the ceremony. We jumped the broom. It was fab. My family and a few friends flew in from the States and stayed for a week and we all partied it up with David’s family.

So just to recap, I never learned Italian or got to make art in Italy, but I did marry an adorable French boy, and I spend my days working on my artwork in France.

Close enough.