1986: My Happy Life in Provence

Chapter 501 A Dazzling Variety of Wedding Photo Themes
Ronan and Zoe took their wedding photos in Aix-en-Provence, while the dessert competition on Mirabeau Boulevard was still going on. Naturally, the young couple wanted to visit Leah first during their trip to Aix-en-Provence.

This was the first time Leah had left Lourmaran alone, and she stayed for several days. Not only was Louis worried, but Zoe also often missed her mother, always afraid that she wouldn't adapt well to being alone outside.

To my surprise, Leah was in excellent condition, with a rosy complexion and full of energy.

With Ronan gone, she became the backbone of the women and girls, not only perfectly replicating the two competition entries, but also creating many other dessert styles available in the restaurant. Ronan even saw a dazzling array of breads at their stall, all of which had been featured in the bread competition and were not part of their original plans.

As soon as Ronan appeared, he immediately got to work, washing his hands and styling the desserts:

"Thank you for your hard work these past few days."

The dessert competition is drawing to a close, but the number of visitors has not decreased significantly and looks about the same as it did a week ago on the day of the competition.

The start of June means that summer vacation is just around the corner.

The most 'lively' months of the year in Provence are about to officially begin.

Soon, this land will be truly overrun by tourists.

"It's not hard work at all. We're just happy that everyone likes it." Leah picked up a new basket of eggs. "Thank goodness, everyone likes everything we make. Our turnover in the last few days has exceeded ten thousand francs."

"You must have sold quite a bit of bread, right?" Ronan asked Leah, working smoothly with her. "It's just that we didn't sell as many desserts."

The process of making desserts is relatively complicated and requires a lot of time for styling. There was only one professional pastry chef on site, Leah, and even if she worked 24 hours a day, she couldn't make that many things.

But bread sold much better.

They come out of the oven very quickly, and thankfully they keep well. Last month, the bread they brought from Lourmaran for the Mena Village bread competition was gone as soon as it was put out.

“That’s right!” Leah laughed heartily when she mentioned it. “It was Isabel who suggested making some bread to sell together. I remember the recipe you used in the bread competition, so I’m more familiar with it. Customers who sampled the desserts would take some home.”

Isabel, who was helping customers calculate prices and pack bags, joined their conversation:
"That's because Leah is skilled, fast and good, and Ronan's bread is so delicious. Don't waste such a good opportunity to showcase it."

A customer overheard their conversation and offered the following advice:

"Your bread is excellent, no worse than those decades-old shops, but I heard that your restaurant in Lourmaran no longer sells bread, only desserts. This promotion has ended. If I still want to buy some, what should I do?"

Ronan's restaurant mainly serves Chinese food, so bread is naturally not among the main dishes.

Even professional French restaurants don't offer many types of bread; they mostly offer dinner rolls. For example, the pork floss bread, spicy seafood bread, and rosé bread that Ronan introduced at the bread competition have become 'limited editions' and can no longer be bought after the competition.

Ronan considered for a moment, then said to the customer:

“I will seriously consider your suggestion and find an opportunity to launch the bread.”

"Ah, Leah, Ronan!" A timid girl squeezed in and asked nervously, "Can I take a picture with you?"

Ronan looked at Leah and asked for her opinion.

He, of course, didn't care; he had long since become a ruthless cameraman. But Leah...
“No problem, darling.” Leah rubbed her hands on her apron and leaned her head toward the girl across the table. Seeing that Ronan still hadn’t come over, she urged, “Come on over, Ronan, don’t keep the guest waiting too long.”

Ronan paused for a second before putting down the butter:

"Ah, good, here it comes."

Isabelle was incredibly clever; she immediately noticed Ronan's change in expression and found an opportunity to quietly tell him—after he left, many customers came to chat and take photos with Leah because their names had appeared so many times at the dessert competition that Leah had become a 'limited-time' star on Mirabo Avenue.

At first, Leah was indeed as bewildered and nervous as Ronan had predicted, but after a few days, she had adapted.

Isabel added that, based on her observation, Leah even seemed to be enjoying it.

“That’s good.” After listening to Isabel’s account, Ronan stared at Leah, lost in thought, seemingly preoccupied with something.

"Ronan, stop what you're doing and get down to business." Leah, who was busy, suddenly realized that Ronan wasn't here to help out today; he was here to take wedding photos. Why was she wasting so much time here?

Her eyes then began searching through the dense crowd:
"Zoe said she went to buy lunch for everyone, why hasn't she come back yet?"

Ronan and Leah had a great understanding, as did Leah and the women. Zoe stayed at the stall for a while but couldn't get involved at all, so she left to buy lunch for everyone.

"There are a lot of people, so there might be a queue." Ronan also started looking around.

The number of tourists in Aix-en-Provence is so large that all the restaurants near Mirabeau Avenue are probably full, and you'll have to wait in line for a while.

Another ten minutes or so later, Zoe appeared carrying two large bags:
"God, the restaurants around here are so popular. I had to walk two blocks to find one that didn't have a long wait."

Leah quickly took the bag from her daughter's hand:
"If you ask me, you should have just come back. There's so much bread and dessert here, we can just grab a bite and talk about it tonight."

Can dessert vendors really starve?

Zoe suppressed a laugh and turned around, revealing another figure behind her:
“If I hadn’t gone two blocks away, I wouldn’t have encountered this lost ‘child’ on the street. You can ask a stray dog ​​on the street and it will lead you to Mirabo Avenue. But this person just wouldn’t ask anyone and was wandering around like a headless fly in that area.”

"My God, Vieri! What are you doing in Aix-en-Provence!" Leah rushed over. "Why didn't you come with your sister and the others?"

Vieri put down the four packing bags he was carrying and took off his satchel.

"I learned it from my dad."

My father, Louis, was a master of surprises!
"Son, how did the exam go? I heard from your dad, blah blah blah blah—" The 'limited-time' star on Mirabo Avenue instantly transformed into a doting mother, incessantly asking about her son's recent situation, whom she hadn't seen for a week.

“It’s all good, everything’s all good. Mom, you go eat first, I’ll take over for you for a bit.” Vieri struggled to break free from his mother’s clutches, his eyes constantly glancing at Isabel.

"You don't need to help. Go eat first, with your sister and the others," Leah stopped her son.

Vieri's face turned from red to green, and his expression was extremely unpleasant.

Zoe crossed her arms and giggled incessantly, looking on like she was watching a show, but she refused to come to her brother's rescue.

Ronan, Vieri's good brother-in-law, couldn't stand it any longer and pulled Leah to a chair, forcing her to sit down.

“Let’s eat first. Zoe and I will leave after we finish. Zoe said she has a lot to tell you.” Vieri had worked as a waiter in a restaurant and also sold goods at the market. He could handle selling desserts and bread quickly.

However, his trajectory was somewhat 'strange'. He was originally staying near his mother, sister, and brother-in-law, but somehow he ended up next to Isabel.

Isabel didn't even look up, as if she were talking to thin air:

"Congratulations! You've finally graduated from high school and become an adult."

Vieri didn't look up, continuing to work with both hands:

"Thank you, but I'm already an adult."

"What adult gets lost? What would you do if you didn't run into Zoe? Call the police?"

"I think you're the minor. How could you find Mirabo Avenue by yourself? You've been to Aix-en-Provence less often than I have."

"But I won't get lost."

Am I here yet?

The two of them bantered for a while, and after they felt good about it, they fell silent again.

After a minute or two, Isabel spoke again:
"You finished the exam yesterday, and instead of resting, you came out today?"

Vieri wiped the table cleanly and efficiently:

"That's how we create a surprise; nobody will expect me to come today."

Isabelle gives the customer her change:

"You learned this from your dad, to create surprises for your mom?"

Vieri remained silent for a long time. Except when he was actively arguing with others, he was like a block of wood most of the time.

This is also why Isabelle enjoys arguing with him so much.

But this person just finished his exam, so spare his life!
Isabella finally looked up, glancing at Vieri diagonally in front of her for the first time. After a few seconds, she said:
"Go eat quickly, your mother misses you a lot and mentions you many times every day."

This time, the blockhead actually opened its mouth:
"It turns out that only my mother missed me."

Isabel stared in horror, unable to believe that these words had come from the mouth of that blockhead.

Vieri realized his words were a bit off, but it was too late. His face flushed, he fled the scene.

"I brought you a gift, I'll give it to you in a bit."

Isabel worked indifferently for a while, then suddenly made a "V" sign without warning.

Although she didn't know what had happened in the past few days, and although Vieri was still annoying most of the time, she felt that Vieri seemed to have changed?
With Leah doing well and Vieri looking quite good, Ronan and Zoe finally felt relieved enough to leave Via Mirabeau to pursue their main purpose for coming to Aix-en-Provence—taking their wedding photos.

The French tradition of taking wedding photos originated in the mid-19th century.

In 1840, a French photographer named Calgier made his first attempt at wedding photography in Paris, but due to limitations in equipment and exposure time, he only managed to capture a few posed images without any stylized scenes.

In 1870, the wet plate collodion technique reduced exposure time to 30 seconds, sparking a craze among the French bourgeoisie for taking wedding portraits.

The first large-scale wedding photography service in France appeared in 1882 when Galeries Lafayette launched the first appointment-based wedding photography salon in France.

However, this was a service that only the super-rich could enjoy, because a single photograph cost around 80 francs, while the average monthly income of an ordinary worker in Paris at that time was only 100-150 francs.

Wedding photography didn't become widespread in France until around 1900, thanks to Kodak's introduction of the Brownie camera, which reduced the cost of shooting to 1 franc per photo. Although the cost was reduced to a level that ordinary people could afford, only Paris had professional wedding photography agencies, and the business was still nonexistent in other regions of France.

The real turning point came in 1954 when all the nation’s major magazines and newspapers simultaneously published Brigitte Bardot’s wedding photos in Saint-Tropez.

At this point, most French people heard for the first time that this was how weddings could be done.
So taking photos doesn't have to be done in a studio, but outdoors?

By the 20s, the rate of wedding photography in France had reached over 95%. Even people living in the countryside of Luberon knew that it was essential to take a set of photos as a memento of the couple's love when they got married.

Moreover, the themes are quite diverse.

Louis and Leah's wedding photoshoot was themed around the Roman Colosseum. In Zoe's living room, there was a picture of Louis in Roman armor and Leah wearing an olive branch on her head, sitting at opposite ends of the audience, gazing at each other across the distance, their eyes seemingly filled with the stars and the sea.

Freddie and Trosie's wedding photos, themed "Industrial Prosperity," were taken at the Marseille Port petrochemical plant and under a large gantry crane, creating a unique and charming atmosphere.

Ronan had also seen Henry's wedding photos. That's right, the old guy had wedding photos taken when he got married. Young Henry, wearing a double-breasted captain's suit, was arm in arm with shy Josephine, who was wearing a sailor striped shirt and a white veil with a train. Their theme was "Voyage of Expedition," which was said to be the most popular choice for newlyweds in that era.

Villagers used to joke that Henry always wore his captain's hat because he didn't want to forget how he felt as a groom.

In short, the wedding photography scene in Provence during that era was incredibly vibrant, with an abundance of themes.

There's nothing they can't film, only things you can't imagine.

I heard they can even handle Star Wars themed projects.

The photographer who took the couple's wedding photos was Zoe's college classmate. After graduation, he worked as a freelance photographer in Aix-en-Provence.

Frankly, Ronan and Zoe had many options.

The village of Lourmaran is home to talented photographers, and Cotillard could also find a top-tier photographer from Michelin magazine to photograph Ronan and Zoe.

After much deliberation, Ronan and Zoe decided on a photographer named Hakimi because his area of ​​expertise aligned with the wedding photo theme Ronan and Zoe wanted.

“I swear you two made the right choice. In Provence, wedding photos should definitely have a rural theme. Don’t lose interest in it just because it’s part of your life.” Hakimi adjusted his yellow beret a couple of times and said confidently, “There are more beautiful details than you can imagine. Okay, go change your clothes. Our time is very precious. We’ll be changing several scenes today.”

(End of this chapter)