Marianne's wedding blog AKA mushy stuff

Wow, what a month. It's been bloody hectic after the wedding to say the least! I've been meaning to write about the big day for a while now, but just haven't been able to find the time. Better late/r than never eh... It's all becoming a bit of a blur by now though, here's hoping I can piece together the events in a somewhat accurate manner still.

So yes, I managed to get about 3 hours of sleep before I had to wake up and face the music. After a quick shower and breakfast Susanna and I headed off to the venue to finish off the decorating, while the boys went to get the table balloons filled at a balloon shop. After Annis and the 'catering crew' had arrived and started frantic preparations, it was time for us to check into our honeymoon suite at the hotel. And rather nice it was too! We didn't get to enjoy it for very long though as Sooz and I had a hairdresser's appointment get to. The two and a half hours we spent at the hairdressers was lovely actually, just a very welcomed break from all the panicking. I was very pleased with my hair and make-up, even if we did have a bit of a friendly argument with my hairdresser over whether I should wear a veil or not. In the end I won and got to keep my veil. :D It was only tiny anyways! I figured that since my outfit was so 'non-weddingy', the least I could do was to have a veil so that I would be recognisable as a bride.

Up until this point the weather had been lovely, sunny and summery, but when I stepped out of the hairdressers it was absolutely pissing it down. I couldn't believe it! Everyone kept reminding me about a belief that rain on your wedding day guarantees a happy marriage. I bet that 'saying' was dreamt up by someone who had their wedding ruined by rain!

The next stop was to pick up my bouquet. I had gone with a simple bouquet of small white calla lilies, despite some people saying calla is more of a funeral flower. I was very pleased with the way the bouquet turned out. It was stylish and understated and went with my top perfectly. I'm so glad I stuck to my guns on that one (as well)! :)

We headed back to the hotel to get dressed. This was the point where the focus started to switch a bit for me, it wasn't so much about organising any more, it was about celebrating. Johanna, who was the photographer, stayed and finished helping me dress while Susanna headed off to the venue with the groom and some volunteers to fill up the rest of the balloons (we had gotten a funny mix of helium, which only kept the balloons up for about 7 hours so we had to leave the filling to the last minute!).

 

It was still raining when we arrived at Påkas with Johanna. This was bad news as we were originally supposed to get married outside. At this point, we still had about an hour to go until the ceremony was supposed to take place, so we were all crossing our fingers for the rain to stop. It sort of did for a while, but then it started again. There was a lot of umm'ng and ahh'ng going on in the last hour leading up to the big moment. About 10 minutes before the registrar woman arrived we made the decision to move the ceremony inside. Most of the guests had arrived at this point and were standing outside wondering what was happening. There was a frantic dash to rearrange some furniture, and balloons, in order to create a plausible space for the ceremony. And then all the guests were ushered inside by Miikka and Susanna.

When we walked up the stairs and into the house with Stu, we were squeezing each other's hands like mad. It was quite a nerve-wracking moment, especially since the logistics of the ceremony had changed so suddenly. The room felt small and full of people. There was an air of awkwardness about the situation, which wasn't alleviated by the stiff accent of the registrar. But we did manage to reply in the 'affirmative', and that moment did feel very special. Miikka forgot to give the other ring and I had to ask him for it, which made people laugh and lifted the atmosphere somewhat.

Afterwards we headed back outside for champagne and the obligatory congratulations and hugs. Stu and I made a little speech saying that this was a very informal affair and how everyone should just eat, drink and enjoy themselves. Somewhere around this point we realised that Stu had forgotten the ice at home and to the amusement of the guests Miikka sped off in his van to get them. Even if he didn't make a Best Man's speech, he certainly did provide the comedy relief for the day. :P From then on it all started running more smoothly. I started finally registering all the people that were there, before it had been just a blur, and ran around hugging people I hadn't seen for a long time. Even the weather decided to pick up (good timing huh), and it didn't rain again all night.

Eventually we headed inside for food. Everyone found their places and the seating plan seemed to be a success, I had even managed to accidentally sit people, who had (unbeknownst to me) known each other as kids, in the same table. That was kind of cool. We got a lot of praise for the decorations, and the bubbles and party poppers turned out to be a real hit, which meant it had been worth it lugging them back from the UK. I have to give it to Annis though, the food was delicious. There was something for everyone and I think most people went for back for seconds. The only shame was that, in the end, Annis didn't have any time to actually join the party. That was always the risk with having a friend do your catering, which is why I didn't want to go down that route to start with. But even so, I am very pleased I did, as the food and attention to detail couldn't have been better.

After the meal we headed outside for some wedding portraits with Johanna. I'm surprised she got such lovely pictures of us since we found it quite difficult to concentrate on looking beautiful while Susanna and Pasi were trying to blow soap bubble at us and Stu's dad was putting us off by trying to capture it all on video. Goes to show that a good photographer can work miracles!

The party really switched into second gear after the (yummy) cake and coffee, when we put the beers and punch out. In fact, both my brothers helped me make the punch, which was lovely. We have never really related on that sort of adult level before, it seems like they have just now suddenly grown up to these... men! That was probably my favourite part of the party actually, just being able to hang out with them a little bit.

I think I might have made the punch somewhat strong as it seemed like all of the sudden most of the wedding party were just completely pissed. I didn't really drink that much myself, as I would have probably fallen asleep right then and there, so it was somewhat amusing watching people getting plastered. We did indeed hook up Singstar at some point (would it be my wedding without karaoke?? :P), but it turned out it was hard for anyone to get a look in as no-one could tear my mother away from it. Oh well, at least she seemed to enjoy herself. :D All in all, I think everyone seemed to enjoy themselves (despite my mother's singing).

Time went into overdrive, and before I knew it, it was time to start getting people transported over to the hotel for the 'after party' at the night club. Miikka organised taxis, while Sooz and I started clearing the tables, as we had to contractually get the venue cleaned by 1am. Originally Stu and I were supposed to head to the hotel with the first of the guests, but since we (or do I mean I?) were so sober we felt like we ought to really help Miikka and Susanna clean. We did get the place into the state we originally found it in by about quarter to one. It was quite surreal sitting outside in the dark waiting for a taxi and realising that it was all behind us now. More than six months of planning and stressing, and it seemed to have gone in a flash. I felt like I'd ran a marathon. When we finally got to our suite, we entertained the thought of going downstairs to the nightclub for about 3 seconds. The combo of a hotel room, chocolate, a bed and a new husband won hands down for me. (However, we did feel slightly old the next day when we learned that Stu's nan had stayed in the night club until 3am...)

The next morning we didn't have to check out of the hotel until 2pm. Also, we got a really fancy breakfast in bed. It was blissful to turn a blind eye to the world for that period of time and just stay in bed and reflect on how the day had gone. The wedding was already starting to turn into a beautiful memory and instead our marriage was starting to feel like something concrete, a start to a new phase in our life.

I'll write about our 4-night honeymoon in Rome a little bit later, when I get all the pictures together.

It's 5am on the morning of the wedding. I can't sleep.

Wow, what a hectic week it's been! Everything changed into second gear last weekend when we commenced 'operation cleaning' in order to get ready for the arrival of the overseas guests. On Monday me, Stu and Annis went on a day trip to to buy all the alcohol for the wedding. That was a very long day indeed, and all the drama would require a whole entry of it's own, but suffice to say that even though it was exhausting and Stu was crippled, it was worth it – not only for the saving we made on the booze, but also for the fun that was had.

Stu's family and my Maid of Honour arrived on Wednesday. In the evening Miikka surprised Stu with a boys' night out as – even though it was in the planning at some point but proved impossible in the end – no-one from the UK had been able to attend Stu's stag weekend. Us girls opted for a 'quiet' night in with some pizza and Bailey's.

Yesterday morning the Groom and the Best Man (who crawled home at around 2.30am the previous night) were looking a bit on the green side when we started logging all the boxes of stuff over to the party venue. It turned into a very long day of decorating and preparing for the wedding. We didn't get back home until 8pm, and we still had the 'diary book' – where all these entries and pictures of the hen/stag do's etc. end up – to put together, not to mention that Stu hadn't even started writing his story of the stag weekend yet. We opted for a sauna and some dinner first, and finally got stuck in the task at hand at about 10pm. We were still at it by 1am… By 2am some of us were getting a bit delirious so we decided to go to bed. And now, here I am three hours later, wide awake. My head is adamantly running through lists of things I still need to remember to do, even though my body would like nothing better than to be unconscious for a few hours at least. Oh well.

It's all so scarily close now. I suppose it's getting to that point where it's out of our hands now. In a day it will all be just a memory. I sure hope it will be a good one.

When Susanna and I had the idea of having a Hen Night for me in London, I didn't honestly think that many people would make it. I couldn't stand the idea of a 'traditional' Hen Party so Susanna came up with ideas that I would actually like doing. She also promised that there wouldn't be any humiliating games or silly dressing up. Just some good fun. I was very surprised and touched to find out that all of 6 people from Finland had signed up to attend, with a further 5 from the UK. Crazy really! The planning and anticipation lasted a long time, but the day finally arrived on the last day of June.

It was a rather gloomy start though. was rainy and gray all week and a day before the party I got word from Annis that she hadn't managed to book any flights as they were all sold out. Early on the morning of the party Johanna texted from the airport, upset, as she hadn't gotten on her flight since she'd forgotten her passport at home! Not only had she left it at home, she'd also realised that she hadn't actually changed the passport into her married name yet... She could have gotten an expedited passport at the airport but it would have meant she wouldn't make her flight and… yep, all the later flights were full. The mood was a little bit sombre that morning when Susanna, Jenni and I traveled to the supermarket to get the last of the party supplies in the pouring rain.

Luckily, everyone else did manage to get themselves to – even Eve who realised only the previous day that her flight was leaving from Tampere, not Helsinki! In the end, there were 10 of us in all: myself, Susanna, Riina, Jenni, Elisa, Eve, Helmi, Nikki, Amy and Angela.

Susanna had really pushed the boat out with lovely pink decorations, pink cocktails and lots of finger food to kick the evening off with. The centerpiece was a funky chocolate fountain, which proved to be quite a hit. She'd also made a box full of blank pink cards decorated with butterflies, where the guests were told to write thoughts and advice to the bride to be. There certainly were some, erm, interesting tips that I got! :D

It's funny how time works, this party was six months in the planning and when the day finally came, the time seemed to fly by. Before we knew it, a huge white limousine was pulling out in front of the building. In the rush to get out I forgot my only piece of 'hen outfit', a sparkly pink cowboy hat, behind. Luckily Amy, Nikki and Angela had brought me an ever so lovely penis shaped whistle, to make my outfit a bit more festive. :P It was my first time ever in a limo and it certainly was a cool experience. A big bottle of champagne and balloons were included in the price, and we made the most of both. :D Despite the rain, it was nice to see from inside of a limousine and it was especially amusing watching tourists take pictures of us – not being able to see who was really inside! Things got a bit scary a couple of times where the streets were too narrow and the driver had to reverse in order to turn corners, almost hitting people walking by – and when we came very close (about 4cm) to the side of a truck.

The limo dropped us off at a private karaoke club. A few people had been a bit dubious about the whole karaoke thing, and ascending the stairs to this place probably did nothing to alleviate their doubts. :D All the walls in the corridors were painted black and all you could hear was muffled wailing from the different 'chambers'. It was quite surreal. We got assigned room no.5 (my lucky number) and a after brief introduction were left to our own devices. Riina instantly took charge of the playlist machine and after putting our drink orders in we got straight to the job at hand. And what do you know, it was so much fun! For two hours most of us sang our hearts out. The good thing was that you couldn't really hear your own voice that well when you sang so it didn't really matter how bad it might have been going, it was just collective fun with everyone joining in on choruses they knew. Nikki's & Angela's Grease Medley and duet of Total Eclipse of the Heart by Susanna's & myself ranked quite high up there on most memorable moments scale. Two songs were dedicated to the groom; they were Come on Eileen and I think We're Alone Now. :D. I think in the end most us did sing, even a few who's attitude had been 'absolutely not' to start with, and at the end of it everyone agreed it had been great fun.

From the karaoke club we continued to the Pitcher & Piano for something to eat. The mood was temporarily dampened by standing in the rain for half an hour waiting for a bus that never came. We did get to the restaurant in the end, even if it meant taking the tube and missing the 'London at night' experience Susanna had planned had the weather been more co-operative. So, it happened to be that we were ten minutes late for our table reservation and they claimed that the kitchen had closed and that we couldn't eat. Susanna, having done a stellar job all night herding us around, took charge and demanded to see the Manager. The food arrived in record time after that and the Manager even came to ask if everything was alright with our meal! My chicken burger was lovely, and everyone else seemed to enjoy their choices as well. At some point during the dinner Amy, Nikki and Angie presented me with yet another lovely gift - what self-respecting lady would drink their drink through anything else but a penis shaped straw, I ask you! :P

After the meal there was a little surprise game for me where there were 10 random items on the table and I had to guess which of the participants had brought what. Some of them were very easy, and most quite obvious, but being somewhat flustered it took me quite long to work things out! I did manage to pair most people up with the correct items, but got two wrong which was silly as it made perfect sense the second I realised I'd gotten them wrong. Anyways, some nice memories were conjured up there.

After the restaurant, the UK-based contingent headed off to catch the last trains, but not before Susanna had given everyone a lovely sparkly heart-shaped cake, which she had ordered especially for the party, to take home. So sweet! The Finns of us headed back to Susanna's for some Singstar, which was quite adamantly demanded by Eve. Well, what can I say, Singstar is always fun, so how could I complain.

All in all, it was a very fun night, even if the ones who didn't make it were missed. I can't sing Susanna's praises more, I was really taken with the care she had taken to organise it all and how she kept the night rolling like clockwork. Thank you so much, my wonderful Maid of Honour, and thank you to everyone who attended!

Oh my, only a little over a month to go. The pressure is most definitely on. On Monday we went to check out the venue with Johanna, who's going to be taking pictures on the day. It was still quite nice, although it felt a lot darker inside now since it's so sunny outside, unlike in the autumn when we first saw it. She took a bunch of tests shots, all of which I looked absolutely terrible in. Must have some last minute plastic surgery or something I think...

On Tuesday we met for the first time with the lady who will marry us to discuss the whole event over. Oh yeah, I should probably reveal that, being as fickle as I am, we did in the end decide to cough up the extra cash and have the ceremony at the reception venue instead of the register office. What... I'm allowed to change my mind a million times, it's almost my responsibility as a bride. So far only the people who were supposed to be at the register office have been informed of this change, the rest of the guests will be treated to a little surprise when they get to the venue thinking that we have been married already. Unless they read this obviously. But yes, the registrar woman was very nice indeed. S and I probably came off as a bit thick as we hadn't really thought the whole thing through previously at all. She wanted to know where to walk and stand and all sorts and we had to kind of make it all up on the fly. :D I'm sure it'll be fine on the day... The ceremony is going to be slightly confusing as she's going to say everything first in Finnish and then in English, and apparently we'll say the 'I do' bit in English, which was news to me. Oh well.

And since I was boasting in the last post about having all my clothes ready, of course it's only natural that I've had a major panic attack since then and it's all changed. What happened was, I was originally going to wear this pink silk kimono type top thing, which to be honest is quite nice... but only with jeans or black trousers. Everyone I talked to seemed kinda weirded out about the possibility of the bride wearing either, so I bought these white trousers, which I thought would save the day. And tried them on with the top. And what happened? I looked like the love child of a moomin troll and a care bare. Seriously. It was bad, very bad. And it kind of ruined the whole thing for me, I just couldn't wear that top any more without thinking I looked like a giant marshmallow or something. Major panic. So eventually I did find something else to wear, and I'm quite pleased with the whole outfit now (I just hope not very many people are going to ask if I'm pregnant - the only minor flaw in the shape of the top), but of course this time around the top has quite a lot of black in it. But you know what, screw that. I have decided that from now on I will just refer to the fact that traditionally a Finnish wedding dress used to be black. So there. The whole white wedding dress thing came to Finland from France, via England, only in the early decades of the 20th century. Perhaps I'm just not ready to jump on that bandwagon yet. :P

Being too 'strict' about etiquette and traditions relating to weddings is just silly in general. When ever someone says to me, 'it's not customary to do that...' I think 'where?'. All modern western wedding traditions are just a big mish-mash of customs borrowed from different cultures in the first place, and the customs practised vary a great deal even between just European countries, not to mention around the world. I think all that matters is making the day relate to who you are and creating personal memories that will mean something to you, not following some rigid etiquette.

Well, well, well, things are certainly picking up some speed again. There's only a few months to go and we're finally getting into a stage where all the details are starting to fall into place. Susanna and I have decided on a the colour scheme/theme and I've found a whole bunch of bargain decorations on eBay. eBay really is a life-saver when it comes to that kind of stuff. You can pretty much find anything that pops into your mind, and usually at a fraction of the price that it would be in a dedicated 'wedding' store. Actually, just today I received about four packages of different wedding-related stuff that I'd ordered. It's nice to have something concrete in your hands to plan with!

This week we also managed to pop into the register office and fill out the non-impediment and name change forms. I'm so not looking forward to the whole kerfuffle of changing my name in two different countries. Especially when I still have to be flying between the two countries while having different names in both. Fingers crossed it'll all work out without too much pain and hassle.

I'm starting to really look forward to the hen night now. There will be 12 of us girls altogether (thanks so much to those who are flying in from Finland, you've really blown me away!), so it should be a fun night. I was suppose to fill ya'll in on the details, but actually, I think I'll write about it after the fact, so I can include pictures and stuff.

I think I have gotten most of what I'm going to wear at the wedding together as well. Not completely casual, but definitely not formal either. From the start, my inspiration was Cameron's Ungaro gown at the Oscar's (in 2000 I think?). I remember when I saw that dress on the night and fell completely in love with it, I think I even entertained a vague thought of 'If I ever...' back then already. Unfortunately that sort of dresses really need to come with some sort of device attached, which would suck your body into Cameron sort of dimensions. Alas, my outfit only lends its inspiration from the gown, but is in fact, nothing like it. Since it's not even a gown and includes trousers. Erm. But yes, I'm quite happy with it in any case. It's comfortable and relaxed enough, and best of all, I don't really have to stress about losing weight or that sort of bobbins as it all fits me fine already. I'm still trying to decide wether to include a veil or not. It will most likely depend on the hairstyle I decide on.

Another piece of good news it that we did in fact book a little honeymoon. Four nights in Rome. I know it's hot like hell in July, but the hotel has air conditioning so... We're going a week from the friday of our wedding. To be honest, I can't wait! It's been ages since I've been to Rome and Stu has never been there. It's gonna be lovely.

I guess 'soon' is a rather relative term... But yeah, sorry it's been a while. To be honest, not that much has been happening in the meanwhile however. I guess we've been stuck in this winter hibernation mode for a couple of months now where the summer and the wedding seemed like light years ahead. I also suffered a bad spout of 'wedding angst' at the start of the year, so much so that I was seriously wondering if it would be worth all the panicking. I just got to thinking how I swore that if I ever got married again I would do it privately, somewhere on a beach far far away. That it would be a day just for us and not a 'show' for other people... That resulted in a bit of a slashing to the guest list and a firm decision on actually just having the ceremony at the register office instead of at the reception venue (like some people were trying to persuade us to do). And in the end I did come to the conclusion that, yes, I want to share the day with the people closest to me, but no, it won't be a stuffy 'weddingy' wedding but rather a laid back party.

I think most people already know that we've pushed the road trip into next year, as we decided to relocate back to the UK this year instead. I'm hoping we could afford to go on a little two- or three-night city break somewhere after the wedding though, just to get a bit of a sense of a honeymoon this year. Although when the road trip actually happens, it *will* be the ultimate pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, so to speak.

Realising that it's only four short months until the wedding, I had to seriously start moving things along. The place to start was making the invites. We got as far as getting the text down (two different languages, four different versions - it wasn't easy!) with Stu, but after having printed all the materials out, I really wouldn't have managed to finish all the compiling of the invites without Susanna. She is a whizz with scissors and tape!

All in all, she's really been an all around perfect Maid of Honour. She's scarily organised, with notebooks full of plans and tabs and lists, which put me to shame. Although having seen all her preparation did give me the kick I needed to get a bit more on the ball myself. So now we have matching wedding notebooks that are filling steadily. :D

I should really do a whole entry of its own about her and the Hen Night she'd been organising for me. It's going to be so much fun! (And I seriously never thought I'd feel that way about a hen night...)

Anyways, today I checked the invites one last time, closed the envelopes with a heart sticker (see, I'm classy like that :P) and glued stamps on all of them. I ordered these special stamps that have a picture of our engagement rings on them. Although, there weren't quite enough of them for every invite, so some will receive just ordinarily stamped envelopes... sorry about that. It just wasn't cost effective to order 20 more stamps for the 5 or so left over invites.

I think I'll mail the invites at the start of next week. It's quite early I suppose, but then again the wedding is in the middle of holiday season *and* on a friday night, so I want people to have enough time to get organised.

I guess that's it then as far as throwing a wedding party is concerned. Once the invites are in the post, there's no turning back. :)

There's a slight change to the name of this blog and username as you can see. I think it's quite obvious that I'm more active here than Stu and I started feeling a bit strange writing and commenting under our 'joint' name. So yeah, he can still write here if he wants to obviously. :) This just makes me feel a bit less like a split personality on here. :P

Updates coming soon!

It's been a while since there was anything to report! It's been quite a stressful month trying to find and secure a venue that ticks most of the boxes. At some point we thought we'd found the the perfect little private cabinet at our local hotel, but after we've already been there to see it and were in the stages of arranging catering etc. we got told that actually, their conference department is closed for the whole of July. Erm. I obviously threw a hissy fit and demanded to know why we got so far in the negotiations without them ever 'realising' this before, especially since the first thing I did was to ask for a free space for that specific date. Well, then they relented and offered us the possibility of just renting the space but providing our own catering, decorations etc. with the exception of having to pay for one of their waiters and buying all the booze through them (paying through the nose obviously). I got slightly desperate just thinking all those zeros they add to each bottle.

The good thing that came out of that mess was that I finally came to my senses and decided to ask Annis to do the catering. Originally I didn't want a friend of mine to be involved in the 'work' side of the wedding as I'd rather have them as guests. But hearing her ideas and advice really put my mind at ease and I decided that yeah, actually I do want someone I know, and who knows me, to be in charge of that side of things. So with that decision we went out trying to source more places.

So, yesterday we went to see Påkas. We actually went there once before, but being stupid, it was the wrong day and we couldn't get a look inside. I sort of decided that it looked too big just from the outside, but what I didn't realise at the time was that they actually rent out just three rooms and a kitchen not the entire building. And what do you know, it was lovely! Really beautifully restored with gorgeous wallpapers throughout. Big functional kitchen with all full service for up to 75 people. I knew it was 'the place' the minute I set my foot inside. Of course there was that one terrible moment of anxiety when the 'matron' realised we didn't have a booking yet and said 'Oh but everyone's already booked for next summer' - followed by the ecstatic sense of meant to be when it turned out our day was still available. So I booked it then and there. Phew. What a weight of my mind!

Now that we finally have a place Susanna can knock herself out planning how to decorate it. :D I want gold and silver balloons though! Are balloons naff? Do I care? :P

When I was in England last I got this (small, not an A4 folder type thing!) My Wedding Notes notebook thing and finally I have something to write into it. Yay. :D I like the feeling of being organised. Even if it's just an illusion.

Seriously, the crap you can buy in these 'wedding planning shops' is beyond belief though. For example, you can get do-it-yourself or personalised made-to-measure invites/thank you cards/other stationery, wedding planner software and folders in all sizes, dried petals in the colours of the rainbow, sweets, poppers, bubbles, balloons, a huge variety of the naffest thank you gifts you've ever seen, and even underwear embroided with 'Bride' etc, under one roof. And that's just the top of the ice berg. Truly frightening places.

Yeah so, wow, I managed to finally book the time for the wedding at the registry office. The wedding date is now officially Friday 20.07.2007. Scary huh. :P

And there are some good news as well. Apparently, since Stu's registered in Finland and has a finnish social security number, he doesn't have to get a marriage license from the consulate after all. Whee. No standing on one foot with hand on the bible action to be had after all. :D So that's one thing to wipe off the list. All we need to do is to take our passports with us a few months before the actual wedding in order to obtain the certificate of non-impediment. Easy peasy.

Another piece of good news is the fact that Johanna agreed to take some (casual) pictures at the actual wedding and that Chris Weeks agreed to take our 'official' wedding portraits when we get to L.A. on our road trip (oh and yes, we decided we'll do the road trip in October). Even though it's apparently Fashion Week there just at that particular time he said he'd make time for it somehow. How cool is that. :D Hello diet! :P

So those were the positives. The biggest negative at the moment is the fact that we just can't find a venue that would suit us/we could afford/wasn't already booked... It's starting to get really stressful actually and we're already getting into arguments over what each of us wants or doesn't want. Uhh. I had this great idea about possibly having the reception at our favourite Thai restaurant, but when we went to talk to them today it became clear that they weren't ready to give us the whole space (without other customers) even for just a limited amount of time. And especially the other half of us is adamant that we should have a completely private venue. Which is easier said than done, since our wedding party is going to be so small... not many places are willing to close for that amount of people on a friday night. So yes... still waiting for an epiphany on that front.

- Marianne

M forgot to mention below that on top of all the form-filling, swearing on bibles, and paying of money I shall be expected to attend the British Consulate with my left trouser leg rolled up, show my right nipple and perform the secret ceremonial handshake.

I sometimes wonder if it's only the British that have to put up with this sort of bizarreness, I mean Finns can do bureaucracy just as well as us - if not better - but they don't have this strange need to couple it with throwbacks to tradition or religion  - Seriously... swear on a bible? Thats certain to stop any determined bigomist in his/her tracks isn't it?

Personally I'm suspicious that all this additional hassle is just their way of justifying the UNBELIEVABLE amount of cash they want to charge me for a marriage license... It better had be a bloody nice Bible.

- Stu