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Post by Celestial on Jan 1, 2015 9:54:06 GMT -5
YAAAY CONGRATS!! I said this on Skype but it's worth repeating. <333 I'm really happy for you both! That's one way to start off the New Year and it's without a doubt the best way.
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Post by Huntress on Jan 1, 2015 10:46:22 GMT -5
I WILL TAKE THE RING.
and other such stupid jokes you only get to make once (I mean, people get married more than once but how many times until the jokes fall flat?)
Yeah, it was five thousand euros' worth of fireworks (this town regularly has the most lavish display in the country) and my brain went "fweep" through about half of it. Timing, he has it. It's not like it'll change much of anything in our lives, we've already been living together for three-plus years and the plans for the future are still the same plans for the future, but, y'know. Weddings.
aaaagh wedding. Cake. Dress. Organizing. Those little comestibles on a stick that hopefully nobody turns out to be allergic to. Also, if you're reading this here and you know who we both are and have possibly known us for a while and are generally interested in the things we do with our lives and geography works out then you're cordially invited, obviously.
It's pretty amazing, the sort of things this here forum has produced over the years. Couldn't have done it without you.
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Post by PFA on Jan 1, 2015 13:13:00 GMT -5
Awesome! Congratulations, you guys!  |
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Post by Avery on Jan 1, 2015 13:55:19 GMT -5
Congrats, you guys! ^^
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Post by Lizzie on Jan 1, 2015 15:20:22 GMT -5
aaaaaaaaah! congrats guys! C:
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Post by Gelquie on Jan 1, 2015 18:15:06 GMT -5
Congratulations, you two!
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Post by Pixie on Jan 1, 2015 19:42:55 GMT -5
That's wonderful! Congratulations!
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Post by Mostly Harmless (flufflepuff) on Jan 2, 2015 19:54:07 GMT -5
Congratulations! =D *launches an extra large white fluffy cannon filled with very very slightly pink fluff*
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Post by ♥ Azzie on Jan 2, 2015 23:05:00 GMT -5
...That is so adorable. I already flailed on Facebook but that is so sweet. <3 Congratulations, guys.
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Post by Huntress on Jan 3, 2015 17:47:50 GMT -5
Things you didn't know about weddings: on the very second you get the proposal, you're about three months late to planning the wedding.
Seriously, it's insane, it takes about a year to plan one of 'em. My brother's girlfriend's sister got engaged about a month back and her wedding is set for August 2016. Sure, you could go the simple route and do the registration without a big hullabaloo to go with it, but, y'know. It's a nice excuse to get a bunch of people together and eat cake. And once you have a bunch of people, they'll need some degree of entertainment, and accommodation for the far-away ones (and the ones who won't be fit to drive by the end of the party, which is probly 90% of them) and before you know it, you're planning a hullabaloo.
And anything that attaches to the word "wedding" is automatically 800% more expensive. Why I haven't yet gone into business selling wedding car parts and wedding furniture and wedding plush toys is a mystery, I'd make all the money. Cheap wedding dresses start from $500. Renting one costs 50% of the price of the dress if used.
Since we don't have a Tardis (it's sad, I know), wedding planning has gone about thus:
January 1st: "Okay, what do we want from this? Who should be there? How much money are we willing to drop on this? How fast should we get it all sorted out? (answer: three months ago.) Can I just crawl under a bed and curl up there until someone hands me a ring so that I don't have to deal with it? (answer: sure, but then you won't have a wedding.) Can we just hand someone all the money and let a wedding happen at us? (answer: sure, but it'll cost all the money)."
It's a lot like travelling: you can combine a bunch of stuff and get the best value for money, or you can pay more for a package deal.
January 2nd: "I wonder if there are dresses on ebay."
*places order for dress for 35 euros three hours later*
WIN (well, depending on what it looks like when it gets here.)
January 3rd (aka earlier today): "Right, what venues even exist?"
*find awesome venue, call venue*
Venue: "Welp, we've been booked mostly solid since last summer. There's June 6th."
Us: *book'd*
"Right, now we need a wedding father (it's a sort of combination best man / wedding organizer / emcee / basically dude who runs everything from start to finish. You could pull a wedding off without one, if you're the type to organize the entertainment of a partyful of people for a whole day. If you can do that with a roomful of Estonians, I'll be glad to hire you for my wedding.
Like with all professions, there are good and bad ones and there's a guy who's known as a very good one. He also used to work in the same company as my mom. Mom calls him.)
Mom: "Haaai so how busy are you in the upcoming summer, wedding-wise?"
Guy: "Booked solid for the next year and a half."
predictably.
Mom: "Including June 6th?"
Guy: *checks* "Sure, I kept that free because I'm going to a dance festival that day but that's early in the day."
WIN.
Someone up there is extremely set on this happening on June 6th, so it's happening on June 6th.
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Post by Ginz ❤ on Jan 3, 2015 18:05:05 GMT -5
Congratulation, guys! =D That's so wonderful! <3
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Post by Huntress on Jan 11, 2015 16:33:05 GMT -5
Got the rings today (mostly because they're 'spensive and it's smart to spread the expenses out as much as possible. Next time the price of gold drops on the world market, just go and buy yourself a future wedding ring. Once using it becomes relevant, you'll have a whole bunch of other expenses to worry about.)
Also, a question to all you Americans and western-type people in general: what does a wedding generally look like in the States?
As in, since we're international like this, we're planning two wedding-like products on either side of the pond, one in Estonia and one in the Portland, OR area. The Estonian wedding is fairly straightforward business, because it's built on a whole bunch of traditions: you get the ceremony itself, then there are events for casting away the maiden name and for handing down the bridal wreath and auctions and tests for household chores and basically that's the reason you don't have a wedding without an emcee equivalent. And then there's dancing, of course. It's basically an evening's full of dinner plus entertainment for the guests and it lasts until the next morning.
But we can't export that to the States, and when you take what I know a wedding to be like out of a wedding, you're left with... what? Dancing? Food? Cake? Are the guests just sort of left to themselves? What does the married couple do, other than look married and pretty? Is it appropriate to shoot people if they want you to stand still for two hours to take fifteen hundred pictures? (I'm told no, I'm thinking of pleading cultural differences and showing up with the traditional Estonian wedding crossbow.)
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Post by Gelquie on Jan 11, 2015 16:56:58 GMT -5
I'll try to explain as best as possible. I may include details you may already know because I don't know how much you know. In the States, a lot of the wedding traditions vary depending on the couple's religious denomination(s) or lack thereof. But in the few weddings I've been to, I've seen a few consistencies. (Put in spoiler box for scrolling brevity.) At the wedding itself, the bride comes down the aisle and stands with the groom to receive words from the person performing their marriage. The content of those really depends; at the bare minimum, you can get "do you wanna get married?" "yes" "do you?" "yes" "okay, you're married now". A common tradition in any wedding is the exchange of vows, where each couple says about the other person and all. But what's in those really depends on the type of wedding you have and what you want in them.
So that's the ceremony, yay, all and good. Then everyone goes to a different location where they throw a party; the reception. While people are still gathering, there's generally a wedding photo shoot for the couple and they come back later, but details are rearrangable. The receptions I've been to have been fairly low-key. There are tables arranged and people gather at different ones, with the couple and their male helpers and bridegrooms all lined up. Generally, there's a lot of talking, oftentimes with the guests being left to themselves although they can approach the couple. However, there are also often speeches from certain people close to either or both of the couple. The couple can probably also give speeches themselves. And then there's a dinner. In the ones I've been to, the dinner has been buffet-style because there's generally a lot of food. Then everyone continues to eat and talk. And then dancing goes on. What kind of music is played at these is really up to the couple. I've once been to a wedding where everyone danced to the Chicken Dance. There's usually one dance reserved for just the couple and one reserved for the bride and her father, or something similar. Then somewhere around there, the bride and groom cut the cake and take the first bite before cake slices are passed around. And sometime during the entire reception, the bride takes the bouquet they have ready for the event, gathers girls who want to try to catch it, and tosses it to them. The idea is that the person who catches the bouquet is the next one to get married, but I'unno how seriously anyone treats it.
And then there's... more of that until the couple go away and it's left to the male helpers and bridesmaids and whoever wants to help to put things away as the party winds down. When this happens generally depends on the couple, but I haven't seen one go past midnight.
Those are the ones I'm used to. Although honestly, I don't think anyone will mind if you bring some traditions across the pond. (Minus the shooting people with the traditional Estonian wedding crossbow, alas.) Some of those might be fun. And oftentimes, people do insert their own traditions based on their background; cultural, religious, or otherwise. |
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Post by Huntress on Jan 15, 2015 14:56:01 GMT -5
Gelquie: so we don't need to worry about people expecting much more than to show up, eat food and get cake at some point? That should make things easier, at least. Also, holysmokes, I have a dress. Specifically, I have a dress that I ordered from eBay from a Chinese seller whose page looked like it was stuck in the nineties. So I was kind of bracing to have to order a bunch of cheap dresses and then be saddled with a pile of curtain material to pick the least bad one from, but the dress in question a) looks exactly like it did on the picture and b) is bleedin' perfect. In case anyone wants a counterstory to all of those stories about bad Chinese knockoffs.
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Post by Crystal on Jan 15, 2015 21:20:24 GMT -5
I already said this, but congratulations! I had always sort of planned to elope when my wedding came around to escape all the wedding planning. >>;
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