My friend is getting married on August 26th in Lille, France - a small town near the border of Belgium. It's closer to Brussels than Paris. I would like to get airfare or packages to Brussels but unfortunately prices are really high. I would rather not go to Paris as French trains tend to go on strike a lot. Can I expect prices to drop, ie last minute deals to Brussels?? Any suggestions?

Sorry - forgot to add that I live in NYC.

Lille has about 200,000 inhabitants, not exactly a small town. It also has an airport, Lille-Lesquin.

You might look for a JFK-LHR flight and then a Ryanair or some other low cost flight to Lille or vicinity.

Gate 1 Travel has air & 3 nights hotel (w/breakfast) from NYC to Brussels for $999 for 8/24 departure...Also, I was playing around on British Airways website & you can fly RT from NYC to London for $340-370 end of August & the flight from London to Brussels is only $79 RT...might be worth checking into that. It might be a pain but it looks like it might be worth it! I saw this tip on some sight on how to save $$ flying to popular places in Europe...they said get flight to London & then separate flight to wherever...looks like they were right!

Lille is a stop on the Eurostar service from London to Brussels. Waterloo > Lille is 1h45m, or less time than it would take to get to Heathrow and go through security.

Flying to Gatwick would be just as easy...into Gatwick, express to Victoria, short hop by taxi to Waterloo (bonus: gives you a quick peek at the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, the Thames and London Eye on the ride over) and Eurostar from Waterloo to Lille.

Actually, you can get to the Ashford (Kent) Eurostar station by train from LGW in about an hour and a half; the Eurostar from Ashford to Lille takes less than an hour.

Trouble with LGW from NYC is that nobody flies there from JFK, only Continental and Virgin from Newark, so competition is limited.

What is it about Lille and weddings? We were on the Eurostar a couple of years ago and the entire train was full of bachelor-party-hearty lads going off to Lille for the stag party. I gather the ladies were on the previous train.

The train ran out of beer somewhere in the tunnel. Totally. Out.

Thanks all for the tips! I will definately check into them. I checked the british airways site - the $340 airfare is one way not RT. With taxes and surcharges the total flight comes to $800 which is a bit too much if I am not even near france. I'll keep looking around.

>I would rather not go to Paris as French trains tend to go on strike a lot

That's more than a bit exaggerated. The probability that your flight gets cancelled is much higher than that there is a strike of the French Railway. I think you are confusing it with Italy.
You can buy a flight ticket to Lille - but the last piece (Paris to Lille) will be on the train.