A roomful of lobsters - Une salle de homards.

Anyone, like myself, who grew up in the 'Friends' generation will know exactly what I mean when I say that Mr Peach is my lobster. I'm his lobster too - we lobster around together.

And what do lobsters do on Sundays?....well the ones getting married (some of them) go on a course all about preparing for marriage - learning what each other want and expect out of marriage and how they're going to step into it together. Our course was run through our Church - not technically compulsory, but we didn't think wise to risk not attending!

Honestly, I was a bit nervous as I'd heard a few scare stories before that it was all heavy religious stuff, that you have to discuss your sex life & other intimate details, but it was really nothing like that. In fact it was a far more practical day about working through the 'pinches' you might be likely to come across in marriage. As the course leader put it, a 'prevention is better than cure' attitude!

The best thing about the whole day was the other couples attending too - we were so lucky to get such a friendly, talkative and at times hilariously funny group. There were six couple in total. At a rough guess I'd say most were about our age (somewhere around the 30 mark) - one couple seemed a bit younger and one I'd have guessed were a bit older. One of Mr Peach's oldest friends and his fiancee were there too - which was lovely (we'll call them Mr & Mrs Cruise...because they work in cruise ships). In fact, Mr Cruise is somewhat responsible for me and Mr Peach ever being together at all, as it was his fault Mr Peach was there on the night we met....but that's a story for another time.

In the breaks we chatted a little to the other couples. Those sat either side of us, we found out, are also having two best men, which was funny. It was really touching and reassuring to hear all the family problems and things the other couples have had over their weddings. Family fall outs, people interfering and other people stressing out unnecessarily are, it seems, not just unique to mine and Mr Peach's wedding planning lives. It was a great relief to be reminded of this - sometimes you just get sucked into a wedding world where anything a bit problematic seems like such a big deal....you end up thinking 'why me?' and forget everyone has the same kind of problems!

Back to the lobsters - I'm a complete sucker for fate and observing other couples, learning about how they met and what got them together....I was in my element! It was just so adorable to see all of the the couples bouncing off each other, joking about all those little things as couples do. But every couple also seemed to have that kind of balance and synchronicity that you learn when you're in that kind of lasting relationship.We even said that if all the boys and all the girls had been in two separate rooms we could have pretty much guessed the pairings, straight up!
You see, they got their lobsters! It was so lovely to feel a part of that with Mr Peach too. Sometimes in the daily grind and the everyday, when you socialise with the same groups and rarely meet new people as a couple, you forget what a force (of humour in our case) you can be stepping out into something new together.

Now look away if you dislike the cheesy.....It reminded me just how much, now I've found my lobster, I know that, good or bad, so long as we have each other we'll always be a force to be reckoned with!

OK - cheese over.
But back to those lobsters - I love so much reading stories all over the blogosphere of how others met their partners and started their lives together.

If you got your lobster, go give them a little pinch to remind them how much you love them....go on!

Adieu,

Mlle Peche x