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
Get Marriage Licenses
So here's how it'll go for Stu.
He needs to get an Impediments for Marriage certificate with an Apostelle stamp from the British Consulate. He'll need to phone up before hand and book a time. He'll need to take both of our passports and cash with him. Then he'll have to fill in some forms and swear with his hand on the bible that he hasn't been married before (is that a crime?). After the visit an announcement of our marriage plans will be placed on the noticeboard at the consulate. In three weeks time he can go pick up his marriage license - he'll need to book a time for this as well.
Instructions from someone who's already been through it. :P I'm glad we won't get married in a church as it'll get even more confusing then.
I think I'll just get one from the registry office.
Book the ceremony at the registry office (or somewhere else?)
The original date was 20.07.2007. Then we changed our mind to 07.07.07. And now I'm thinking of going back to the original again (which pleases me more) and pushing the road trip to October. It's still quite warm in most of the middle parts of America then isn't it? We'll have to make our mind up about the date this weekend really.
Also need to think about in what language we should do the ceremony.
Research and book a venue
We have some possibilities in our mind and hopefully we can go look at some of these places this weekend. Especially if the date would be 07/07 I think we'd need to book fast as that Saturday is going to be in high demand... It's tricky trying to find a venue for a very small amount of people that would still be somewhat festive.
Book catering
Let's get a venue first. Hopefully we could get catering in the same deal.
Transportation & accomodation
How to get all the English people (and us!) to the venue and where to accomodate them.
Guest list
By far the trickiest and most stress-inducing one of the lot so far. We want to (and need to) keep it small, original goal was 20 guests tops. But what with Stu's big immediate family and my two sets of parents + brothers there wasn't really any room for friends. And I'd like to have my closest/oldest friends there... but god damn is it difficult to decide where to draw the line. Who's closer than who? And if you invite that one will the other get offended? Ack. We just have to try to keep our feet on the ground though, every extra head costs money we don't have. Also, quite a handy tip from my mother: 'Remember to include yourselves in the headcount for catering and venue'. :| Well damn. I suppose mother's do know some things best...
Clothes
Stu wants a suit. My 'dress' depends completely on the amount of weight I manage to shed by next summer. :| I know I don't want a traditional wedding dress though. But something gorgeous obviously.
Rings
Have to find a wedding band for me, Stu's ring needs to be engraved with the wedding date.
Photographer/s
I've got an idea. Will let you know later if it's feesible.
Invites
Something simple. I've got plans for utilising the skills of the maid of honour here.
Gift(list)
Well, after living together for seven years we certainly don't need anything. Apart from money towards the road trip. Have to think of an eloquent way to ask for some...
Paperwork
Need to change my name on a whole lot of different things, starting from my passport and driver's license. Pushing the honeymoon to October would make things a lot easier on figuring out these things as well... (my passport runs out in October and when going to the US it needs to be valid for 6 months after the trip, which would mean I'd need to get a new passport twice next summer if we were to leave instantly after the wedding...)
The first stage of planning our road trip was to buy this book on USA. There were so many different ones, with varying levels of confusement-inducing approaches to choose from. This one seemed the most straightforward and helpful, with practical maps and information.
What we know at this stage is that we have three weeks of holiday in July to do our trip in. We want to start from Portland, OR (where Stu's uncle lives) and finish in New York. Must see places on the way are L.A., San Francisco, Las Vegas, Colorado and St Louis. We're still not entirely sure if three weeks will be enough time for this trip, but it should be feesible, and it's the longest I can take off work in one go (usually I'm only allowed two weeks in a row tops).
What we don't yet know is how to finance the trip, what paperwork we need to do, who to fly with and where to, how to rent a car in Portland and drop it off in NY...etc. So there's a lot to find out in the next 10 months.
- Marianne
So after we went public with the engagement there we got a lot of lovely reactions from people. My mum to Stu: 'You're brave'. My dad to Stu: 'That heat must have made you crazy', which, after a stern look from me got changed to 'I mean it made you come to your senses!'. :P I think on the whole everyone seemed to be very pleased though and we got a lot of gorgeous cards (all of which I'm going to save, I'm starting a scrapbook soon!) - thank you for those. <3
While in England we got treated to a celebratory dinner by Stu's parents. Which was very nice indeed. The whole importance of what happened really hits you when you see how it affects the people around you. I've always felt very welcomed by Stu's family, but it's still a different feeling thinking that I'll be actually officially 'one of them', by name and all. A nice feeling. I can only hope I'll live up to it! :P
Right after getting engaged we were quite adamant that we wanted to have wedding ceremony 'just for us'. As we're planning a roadtrip across the US next summer, one idea was to go and get hitched in Las Vegas. The classic kitch option. :D But in the end we came to the conclusion that we couldn't, and wouldn't want to, exclude our nearest and dearest from the day. So, what's most likely to happen is a small (and I mean small) ceremony in Finland after which we'll leave for our 'honeymoon' roadtrip. Provided of course that we can afford both... Not having family there on the day would just somehow seem wrong, especially after all the support we've received.
- Marianne
In theory, this will be the fourth post today. :D Erm. But not really, because I have slept in between and done a full day of work and stuff. Anyways, never mind. I'm sure I'll slow down once I've gotten the foundation stuff out of the way...
We got the rings back from being sized and engraved today. It's nice to finally have proper rings and no funny 'practice' ones (which made S's finger green :D). Of course, mine is too big... When we went ring shopping it was really really hot and my fingers were obviously swollen or something. I knew the size was bigger than my normal but the saleslady insisted that it can't be any smaller... :| One day I'll learn to trust my own judgement. Don't know how much it'll cost to make the ring smaller, but in any case I'll just have to cope with it for a while since I'm leaving for England on friday and have no time to sort it out now.
Finding rings was an impossibly difficult task. I thought I had a clear idea of what I wanted, but all the more chunkier styles that I'd been thinking about looked awful on me! And each ring that I could have fallen in love with was waaay over our budget. Well, I can't help having expensive taste can I. :P It was the maid of honour who suggested I try this ring on, it wasn't something I would have even looked at myself... and as if by magic it looked really nice! I never thought 'my style' would be so traditional looking.
I've never owned diamonds of any sort before in my life. There's a few teeny tiny ones on the ring (which we can change into a massive one when S gets rich, obviously. :P) and it sparkles like mad. It's strange. I keep on glancing at my finger all the time. While waiting to get it I was really worried I'd done a hasty decision (never mind that we went to way more than 10 jewelers) but now that it's on my finger I'm very pleased. Love it. :D
- Marianne
How cute were you as a baby/child? Let's see those baby pics!
I was probably more impatient than 'cute' as a child. :P Not much has changed.
Growing up, I was always bummed about not having a 'baby book' where mum would have written stuff about me growing and glued pictures in etc. So, on my 18th birthday my mum surprised me with a brand new (pink, of course) baby book where she'd gathered all her favourite baby pics of me and written down everything she could remember about me as a child. It was the best present ever! I will always cherish it.
S was obviously very cute, if deceptively innocent looking, as a child. :D
He never used to have *any* pictures of himself as a kid, but for his 25th birthday I trawled through all his mum's photo albums and scanned in almost every pic of him i could find and compiled his very own baby album. I think he liked it. :P Well, I at least think it's the cutest thing ever, especially since he's a twin and two babies are always cuter than one eh?
P.S. He's gonna hate this entry. But it was the 'Question of the Day'! Not my fault...
- Marianne
While on holiday in Italy in July 2006 (to celebrate my 30th birthday) we stayed in Venice for one day and night. It was hellishly hot, especially during the day, but we managed to get the most romantic hotel room ever - with air conditioning! From the get-go the whole 24 hours we spent in the city seemed somehow... perfect. I did think it would be such a perfect place (and date!) to get engaged, but S seemed oblivious to my thoughts...
I was so happy to be with him in Venice because I'd always wanted him to see this magical place, it was gorgeous finally being able to watch how the city charmed him. During the day we went for a lazy ride on the Vaporetto, just taking in the scenery and letting the breeze of sea air cool us off a bit. We went for strolls and took a lot of pictures, and returned to our hotel just behind Piazza San Marco for cold showers and a blast of air con when ever the heat got the best of us.
When the night fell and majority of the tourists abandoned the city we went for a long walk, getting blisfully lost on the narrow alleyways, discovering lovely little cafes and restaurants around the unlikeliest of corners, feeling like we were lost in an old romantic movie or on the pages of a novel.
Eventually we found our way back to Piazza San Marco, which looked truly magical with all the lights glistening and the candles on the tables of cafes flickering. We decided to go for a drink in one of the cafes, knowing full well the prices were astronomical, thinking it would be worth it. And it certainly was... even if we had to pay a premium for the musicians at the cafe and even though we could have gotten at least three times the amount of drinks somewhere else for what we paid there. It was totally worth it. For a brief moment I truly felt like a film star, or one of those heroins in books. The atmosphere was something else!
To be honest, that seemed like the perfect ending to a perfect day and at that point I'd kind of given up hope on any sort of proposal - but it was ok. It was then that S got a bit peculiar and wanted to go somewhere to eat. I didn't feel like eating at all because it was so hot, but I went along with it. We had a nice little meal on a campo close to the hotel. Afterwards S insisted that we go for a little walk along Canal Grande. I thought he was acting a bit funny at that point. :P We walked in silence for a while and then I stopped underneath the column of San Marco to admire the beauty of the Dodge's Palace at night when S came up behind me and whispered in my ear 'Will you marry me?'! I was completely thrown off and managed a meek 'OK' as a reply (I did say 'Yes' properly later). :D When a few minutes later it chimed 11pm from the bell tower, I realised he'd waited until my favourite time of day (22:55) to do it. Gobsmacked I tell you! No matter how much I wished for it, I certainly never saw it coming.
So... that was the story of the proposal. It was certainly the most romantic, perfect day of my life thus far. <3
The next day, on the train away from Venice, I felt so blisfully content. I'd had the most perfect day and night, was newly engaged, had cold water and a good book. It was one of those rare 'I'm in this moment and I appreciate how perfect it is' realisations that give life a meaning.
- Marianne
