Summoned by Bells

Written by Cressida van Zyl-Pithey

Thinking of getting married this year? It's a good idea to get some expert advice. Cressida van Zyl-Pithey explains

Whether you'll hear bells at church or just traffic noise outside the mairie with no religious ceremony to follow you'll be excited on the great day. Afterwards - soon afterwards - you might be less happy and the respective families also. Why so? Well, getting hitched is expensive, although in France most people underestimate the cost of their wedding by up to twenty per cent. Celebs have shown the way: Posh and Becks forked out a mere half a million dollars, looking mean compared with the $1.5 million spent by Madonna and Guy Ritchie to fund their ill-fated union and the “staggering” $2 million tab that was picked up by Eva Longoria and Tony Parker. Coming down to earth, the average cost of a wedding here is €15,000 compared with Ł20,000 in the UK. In these credit-crunched times you need to be even more careful if your budget isn't to run out of control.

A complex matter

So who do you ask for advice? Within our local community the obvious answer is Peter Mackley. A long-term resident of the Coast, Peter is best known as the MD of Riviera Organisation and is himself a talented animateur of social occasions. “That's how I got into the wedding business,” he says. “I attended a lot of receptions and quickly picked up on the problems people have experienced. Organising a wedding is a complex matter and involves many decisions like choosing a venue, finding a caterer and then other suppliers like a photographer and a florist. Let's be frank, this is a marvellous place to live but there are quite a few of those proverbial shady people out there. They'll pad their bills or even go in for more barefaced scams. I came across one caterer who brought in empty bottles and then used them to justify an inflated wine bill.”

So what can Peter Mackley do for you? “I'll take over the entire running of your wedding if you like. The advantage is that I really know the field - who's competent, who's trustworthy, who's to be avoided. Then there are the pitfalls I can help you get round. If you've no experience with this sort of thing you could end up choosing a seemingly attractive venue, which turns out to have inadequate parking or no provision for wet weather. And, of course, my concern is to keep the outlay within your budget which we will have discussed previously in detail.” And Peter has a final piece of advice to be taken on board seriously: “If you're planning on having your wedding in late spring or summer you've got to start making firm arrangements now or you could run into trouble. You know the old saying about marrying in haste ... apart from anything else it could cost you more than if you get things moving well in advance. Like now.”

From Reporter Issue 131: Feb/March 2009

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