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So, here’s the deal: Getting married is not easy.
First, apparently you have to explain the why to everybody. Then, the why in a church. And then, plan it.
Trust me, we don’t want anything special. We don’t want to rent a car and drown it in ribbon. We won’t serve food with names longer than our own. We won’t spend 33453465,6534987€ on a photographer, or a DJ, or anything. We won’t have white invitations with golden rings and a heart embossed. And that’s why it’s SO DIFFICULT to plan the wedding.
Example of a conversation with someone’s family member (not giving names here!)
SOMEONE: So, I know about a florist who makes these beautiful arrangements with candles and roses and they’re only about 30€ each.
ME: Don’t we put food on the table? I didn’t think of the centerpieces, but maybe you’re right… we should put something there. We’ll think about it.
SOMEONE: Ok, think about it.
2 days later…
SOMEONE: Have you decided on the flowers?
ME: What flowers?
SOMEONE: The centerpieces.
ME: Oh! Yes! We’re so excited! We’ve had the best idea ever! We’re going to collect old wine bottles and cut them and turn them into vases and then the day before we’ll get some pretty flowers off the forest and put them there! Don’t you love it?
SOMEONE: Go get your brain checked.
See? It’s really hard. We’re making our own invitations, and they’ll be hand-stamped and they’ll include jokes. If I had a cent for each time I’ve heard “But they won’t look nice, they’ll look like a kid made them, it’s not formal enough!”.
The cake toppers. “We want R2D2 and C3P0 there”. “You should put something romantic, like two little birds”. “But we’re dressing them with a veil and a bow tie!”
The food. “You should serve at least 5 courses”. “We’re having a rice buffet with different kinds of paella so all the people coming from abroad can taste some typical food”. “All that people coming from abroad will think you’re cheap and ungrateful”.
The registry. “You need a registry. People won’t want to give you money, they’ll prefer to buy you something”. “I live in a 60 sq meter apartment and have everything I need or want. Unless I put CDs or DVDs or books in the registry, I won’t do it.” “But you have to”. “Wait. How about people buy me food for a couple of years? That’d be neat!”
Up until there, it was quite easy to just ignore the comments because Eric and I were on the same boat. But then came the time to choose music. We’re planning on having our iPod be the DJ (he gave us a good quote and is willing to work extra hours for free, what could we do). We decided to start making playlists now because we knew it would be tricky to choose music for so many hours. And we both instantly knew there was no way we could pull off playing the music we tend to listen to every day at the wedding. See, Eric is quite the perfect guy in most ways, but he listens to Metal music. That’s his biggest flaw. In the recent years my taste has changed quite a bit and right now most of what I listen to has the label “indie” somewhere in it. Is not that we can’t play metal at the wedding (well, actually, we can’t. The bride would die) or indie (it would be goooood!) but that we hate each other’s taste in music. So we had to come up with a plan. And the plan resulted in us choosing music that we would like to listen to AND that the guests would like to listen to. After all, the party is for everybody, otherwise we wouldn’t have invited anyone. So, right now the playlist is chockfull of Beatles, Rolling Stones, Jerry Lee Lewis and the Beach Boys. Oh, and Queen. But this is a lot harder than we thought! At least our parents will know each and every song, though.
And it tasted like cheese.
We had a great time, I came back with a rash caused by the freezing temperatures and we saw hot firemen going down the Eiffel Tower. What else could I ask for?
Oh! And The Pioneer Woman picked one of my photos again! What else could I ask for, I repeat?
You can check it here. There are lots of amazing photos featured there!
I’ll try to upload a few more photos soon.
Oh, and by the way, now that I’ve purchased a VERY EXPENSIVE dressing gown, I’m officially a bride-to-be (already a bride?) I have no idea.
PS.: Eric got to do his “OOOOOOOOOHHHHHHH CHAMPS ELYSEESSSS” dance
If this works, you’re going to be tired of reading me in no time!
Look! The Pioneer Woman chose my sunset to be on her site! I feel important!
So, people. Thanks for emailing me about the blog disappearance. It looks like bluehost deleted all databases that looked corrupted without even checking first or at least notifying their owners before or after they did it, so the whole blog is gone. Thankfully, Google, the Big Brother who is scarily watching us, had most of it in cache. Not the comments, but the content, so it’s not all lost. Actually, I’m only missing the first two posts or so.
Now Eric and I are going to Paris for a week, so won’t be able to put all those posts back up, but will do it after we’re back.
On the engagement front, I’ve already been dress hunting. I must say, I felt a bit silly inside a 3,000€ dress, what can I say. My car isn’t worth that much.
And have been since New Year’s Eve. Eric didn’t wait until the end of dinner to propose. With a ring made of foil and with a raisin instead of a diamond, he asked me if I would marry him. After about 150,000 “really?” and “for real?” I said yes and spent the rest of the night jumping up and down around the apartment. Suddenly I wasn’t so sour that Eric had insisted on not joining our friends for the evening.
The date is August 14th. We are so, so happy! (And ready to start planning!! Any advice on feeding 120 guests?)
Tonight I’m staying home with Eric. He says he has a surprise for me. I just want to eat good food, drink good wine and have my surprise already!!
I bet everybody is spending tonight partying like crazy, but I’d rather have a romantic evening. Things have been a bit not-so-easy lately and we sure could use some quiet time alone. And my surprise.
We’re not having fancy food. Just lamb chops. But we love them sooo much. Just as much as I would like to know what my surprise is.
Did I mention I want my surprise?
When my friend Fabián told me about this, I knew I needed one. My life would be so much better. Because everything is better with bluetooth (name that TV show and be my friend forever).
On Sunday we had a wonderful sunny (and freezing cold) morning and Eric decided I should practice with my bike. I only learnt how to ride a couple of years ago, and haven’t done much since then, so to say that I was nervous is an understatement. Fortunately, I rocked!
We went to have a chocolate waffle, only to realize we had forgotten the keys to the bike locks (and here you have to lock you bike) so we had to sit outside watching the bikes and freezing ourselves. Then the guy burnt the chocolate sauce and had to go next door to get more, so we ended up spending an hour sitting out there. Poor Eric.
Around Christmas people start thinking about New Year’s resolutions. At least around here, the most popular are things like “quit smoking”, “learn English”, “lose weight”, “find a new job”, “stop flirting with my neighbor”, “learn how to cook” etc.
I’ve never been quite good at resolutions, and mostly it’s because I tend to choose hard things. Of the above, I’d choose “lose weight”. Well, I love food. And I love eating. How can I spend a year not eating? I can’t. So, year after year, I fail.
That’s why this year I’ve decided to come up with some positive resolutions. Actually, positive resolution, since I only have one. Only one thing that I want to do for the whole 2010: Enjoy what I have.
I spent most of the last 18 months wishing I had an “office job”. Complaining about being a freelancer who works from home and has very little work. Wishing I had some steady income. Wishing I could wear nice clothes to work instead of my boyfriend’s t-shirts.
Suddenly, not long ago, a friend from college called me. There was a possibility that they’ll be looking for someone in her office. Would I be up for it? Yes!!! Of course!!! How could I not? I’d love to!! So she gave her boss my CV. She spoke very highly of me. Her boss agreed to interview me. Two weeks after the interview (and after me sending him an email wondering about how had the interview gone) he sent me the offer with all the details. And I knew it wasn’t right. I knew I couldn’t take it. It was very little money. It was 8 hours of work (at least, bc apparently there are days when hours just don’t matter… and this is the boss who told me, not my friend) plus one hour for lunch plus 10 minutes on a bus, over an hour on a train and 15 minutes on the underground (plus the time waiting in between). In the end, it meant that I’d be out of the house from 7AM until 8PM if everything went well.
My friend is very happy with her job and loves it, but I know I’d never be able to keep up with not being home ever, not seeing Eric more than 2 hours a day, having to forget about the masters I’ve started (and the money I’ve paid for it), about German lessons…
It was too high a price to pay for me. So I said no.
Now I know my friend is not happy about it. I wrote to her before I told “the boss”, I told her I hadn’t decided it lightly, I explained all my reasons and told her how I wished this wouldn’t change anything between us. This was three days ago, and I still haven’t heard from her. But I know I’ve made the right decision for me, and I know I’d regret taking the job after the first week in it.
Now, back to the point. At 8AM this morning I informed “the boss” that I wouldn’t be joining his company. And I realized how much I value being home during the day, being able to cook, to go have a coffee with a friend on a slow morning, to sit on the sunny corner of the living room and work with my laptop there, to sip a cup of fresh coffee, to have a very quite place to be… And it dawned on me. I hadn’t been enjoying all this, because I though I needed something different. But after realizing that this is what I really want, I decided to love it. And that’s how I came up with my resolution. And, since this is the first day that I’ve consciously decided that this is where I want to be, this is the first day of my resolution.
I’m going to embrace my mid-morning breaks, the opportunity of deciding my own working hours, the chance of having free time and being on my own and having time to write, blog, cook, photograph and whatever I want to do. I’m going to enjoy every bit of it, starting today.
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