unconventianal wedding

We'd been planning to get married for a while, but we were lazy to set a date. We were not in hurry. But when I got pregnant, we decided that we want to do it before the baby is born. I didn't want to wait till I get a big belly, so we Misi chose Friday, June 6, 2008 (06.06 - easy to remember).

The easiest and most convienient was to get married here in Finland. I only needed a paper from the Romanian embassy and the rest was done at the local registry office here in Tampere. We had to fill out a form that we want to get married, sign it and they checked if the marriage is possible. We received the confirmation one later.

We booked an appointment at the office and now the rest of the preparations could begin.

Guests: The golden rule was: as little stress as possible. There are so many stories I had heard about preparations being made over a period of several months with the bride stressing over the flower arrangements, the guests list, the dress, the menu, the location, the church etc. I wanted as little stress as possible. Small, simple wedding with two witnesses. My father was absolutely fine with him not being here. For him the most important thing is that I'm happy. The only family we had was Misi's brother as his witness. My witness was a friend, Marika, who I met thanks to Edo - just as I met Misi thanks to Edo. Marika now lives just a couple of hours away from Tampere and she was very touched I had asked her to be my witness. The "guest list" was complete.

Wedding dress: I didn't feel like wearing a traditional wedding dress. Not only I wouldn't have felt comfortable in it, I didn't see the point of it. After all the ceremony itself would be short. Very short... However, I did want to be elegant. So after a few trips in numerous shops, I ended up with a white blouse, white trousers - both good to wear on other occasions as well. And as we were strolling through the shops, I saw the hat stand. Hat! Not a bad idea, I thought. I don't usually wear a hat, so this would be special. I have short hair, not much to do with it for a wedding, so a hat seemed like an excellent idea. I found a white hat that reminded me of Queen Elizabeth's hats :) White sandals, white bag, necklace and I was set. We ordered a bouquet from the flower shop around the corner from where we live.

"Church": I am a catholic, but not a fan of the catholic church any more. Misi was not baptized. So a catholic church wedding was not something I wanted to do. But I would have liked something spiritual. And as it happens, thanks to Edo again, we know a couple, both Lutheran priests, who we do meet occasionally as friends - we either visit them or they visit us. We asked them if they would bless us and they happily agreed to it. However, they were not sure if they could make it on the day we set. But we discussed that we could arrange something later on if they couldn't make it.

"Party": we booked a lakeside cottage to spend the weekend at with our two witnesses.

The ceremony at the registry office was at 4 PM. At 11 AM we were shopping in a super market for groceries for the cottage weekend. There I suddenly had the idea of looking for a wedding cake. We looked at a few cakes, but we couldn't quite agree on one, so we ended up buying ice-cream as a substitute. I thought the situation was hilarious and I was having so much fun :)

We got home, got dressed and we headed for the arboretum to take some pictures. The weather was gorgeous, sunshine, warm but not too hot, and the lilacs just blooming. It was perfect. After the arboretum we went to the registry office and the whole ceremony was over in less than two minutes. We didn't even have to sign any papers. As it turned out we had signed when we filled out the form that we wanted to get married. Those were valid, there was no need for new signatures. Only our witnesses got to sign a paper on our wedding day :D

It was time to have something to eat. Originally we thought we could have the wedding meal in a very elegant restaurant in a tower whose top is rotating so you can actually literally look around while you are eating. It is probably the most expensive restaurant in Tampere. But when I checked the menu beforehand, I realized that there was nothing that really appealed to me. So we dropped the idea. Instead we ended up deciding on the spot to go to a Thai restaurant - small and elegant, but not expensive and where we knew the food was delicious.

After the meal we got home, packed what we needed and after one hour drive we made it to the cottage.

The Monday before the wedding our priest friends, Maritta and Antero told us they would be able to make it to the cottage on Saturday afternoon at five. So on Saturday we just relaxed. Had some barbeque, played some games... Everyone had a swim in the lake except me - the water was too cold for my taste. So when Maritta and Antero arrived they found us in this sweet relaxed state of doing nothing important. We got changed into our wedding outfits and had a small, but lovely ceremony of about ten minutes on the pier. Again, the weather was perfect, the surrounding was gorgeous - lake and trees and blue sky with the sunshine. We couldn't have asked for anything more.

I asked Marika not to let me down and try to catch the bouquet ;) She didn't have any competition, so it wasn't too difficult :)

Popped an alcohol free champagne and we were just chatting away, the six of us there on the pier. An absolute state of relaxation preceeded by no stress or worries whatsoever. We had something to eat, nothing fancy, after all we were in a cottage, had our wedding icecream and then Maritta and Antero had a sauna and swam in the lake.

I absolutely loved this day. And even though this was not originally planned as the main wedding day - I thought the registry office one would be the main one - this day will stay in my memory as our main wedding day.