Chocolate and Louboutins and, finally, someone else's vows

A view from the outskirts of Geneva, just a few minutes away from the home of Nicolas's father's long-term girlfriend/partner.

A weekend of chocolates and Labradors and Louboutins (not mine!): not a bad little getaway if I do say so myself. And I couldn't complain that finally, the wedding excitement was buzzing around somebody else. There's certainly a bit less pressure when you're no longer the eye of the storm. We both enjoyed finally taking the back seat at a wedding in 2017.

Such good boys! Our weekend companions, Nicolas's dad's girlfriend's furbabies.

We were in Geneva for the wedding of Nicolas's father's girlfriend's son, who you could think of as Nicolas's almost-step-brother (aka my nearly-brother-in-law?), though Nicolas and Philippe's lives came together as adults. I must have spent half of the weekend just trying to understand how all the guests were connected to each other. Between marriages, divorces, new partners, and adoptions, the family lineages were anything but straightforward. But that didn't stop this mostly Swiss crowd from coming together to throw an excellent party. While most of their wealth was discreetly showcased, like in the flashes of Louboutin red underfoot, their lakeside mansions let on that the wedding budget probably hadn't required strict adherence.

Finally attending a wedding that's not our own! And yes, I rocked that fascinator. I don't care if we weren't in the UK.

We, on the other hand, had to be careful to keep our purse strings drawn tight. When we meandered through the city, window displays casually invited us to drop a month's (or year's) salary on a single accessory, and it didn't seem to deter the regular streams of shoppers slipping in and out of the shops. There is such a disconnect between that society and the "real world" as we know it.

A stroll through historic downtown Geneva.

The Swiss don't only know their way around a bank account. And their chocolatey delicacies are still within the realm of financial accessibility for mere mortals like us. Capping off the weekend with a cognac-flavored truffle from Auer chocolatier was certainly not a bad way to go.

Yum.