Substitute

I love the English language because of it's frequent and encouraging use of the passive. Give it up for the Brits with their unparalleled manners to come up with such a diplomatic and exculpatory language. This way I don't have to write: " We, he, I, they... lost the wedding ring." I can simply write: My wedding ring got lost.

It was one of those absurd, nonsensical situations that have like a 1% chance of a disastrous outcome and by some twisted chance, call it a bizarre constellation cluster, bad joke or just faith, my ring got lost. We were at home, I was cleaning the apartment and Mr. C was putting a protective coat of rust proofing on the meteorite inlay of my ring. I guess somewhere in between all this the ring fell into the sink, got taken out with the trash, got eaten by a metal eating squirell (not that I ever saw any in the apartment). It's a mystery.

I'm not even angry or sad, most of all I'm just really frustrated because I'm such an organized person, I take such care of my things and then something like this happens. I guess if God really exists he must have one hell of a sense of humor.

Without giving it too much thought a replacement ring was ordered (see, I'm using passive again) and paid for. In the mean time, I still wanted to have something to wear, if for no other reason than a good conversation piece. So I asked Mr. C to implement his DIY skills extraordinaire and whip up a substitute. So he did: it's a Turk's head knot ring in a sapphire blue twisted cord.

Wedding photos

They're finally here! And it was well worth the wait. Our photographer, Špela did an outstanding job and it was pure torture having to scale the photos from 650 to about 150 for the album. Our the course of the past weekend Mr. C and I did several rounds of eliminating photos each one becoming increasingly more difficult as we had to delete several great pictures.

We wanted Špela to really capture the feel of the wedding. Which meant a lot of candid photography and a lot of pictures of the wedding props, food as well as paying close attention to what the people were doing and trying to get it all on camera.

Bellow are a few, just a few of my favourite photos from the first section of the photo album: the preparations for the wedding and the "formal" photos. The second, more personal portion of the album will consist of photos of our family and friends as we dance, eat and drink and have loads of fun. For reasons of privacy these photos are kept off the blog.

Our wedding day

The single white rose was a token from the florists who did my bouquet

Was a culmination of a 10 year long journey. And as such we wanted the ceremony and the entire day to reflect who we are as people and to really emanate our personal aesthetic. Mr. C and I have often discussed our wedding day and like true perfectionists we've been making plans, tossing together a collage of ideas, adding and subtracting details. But the prime directive was and has always been the one location rule. Traditional Slovene weddings include many customs and rituals which take place on several different locations throughout the day which can be very uncomfortable and exhausting for everyone. It was precisely this that we wanted to avoid at all cost. If the was one thing we wanted to skip this day was all the drama and the stress. So we opted to have our civil ceremony at Ljubljana Castle and the wedding party at The Castle restaurant (where I celebrated my 30th birthday as well).

What's a party without ballons?

Imagine the pure luxury of waking up at 8 am on the morning of the wedding, slowly sipping coffee and watching an old episode of Lost. Then came the hairdresser, photographer and make up artist. Since we had done a test look the week before I knew exactly what to expect and I just sat, chatted with everyone and time passed slowly interrupted only by the sound of the hair dryer or the gentle noises of a kabuki brush as make up was applied.

More flowers

Mr. C's best man arrived as agreed at 1 p.m. looking sharp with his tie perfectly straight while we were still in our lounge wear getting ready. We departed for the Castle about an hour later, had our photos taken in the beautiful park that surround the Castle and then I guess the only thing left to do was to actually get married. The ceremony was beautiful: sweet and meaningful. I even remember laughing at one point.

Wedding bouquet

 All in all it was a perfect day. Everything went smoothly, we could really just relax and enjoy ourselves. Our guests were a select group of close relatives and dear friends thus making it in the words of one of our guests: "A very intimate, warm and personal event." I was overjoyed to hear this because it was exactly what we wanted our guests to experience.
I'm still waiting for the official wedding photos, in the mean time a couple of snapshots I took  with my tiny pink camera just as a sneak preview.

Party favours, make up essentials, wedding rings and flowers and a check list

One of my favourite moments (apart from the getting married bit, of course) was the introduction of the guests. A ritual we borrowed from my cousin's wedding. It's quite simple: somewhere after the initial start of the party, but preferably early on, the groom stands up and introduces himself and asks the guests that as the microphone travels from one guest to the next that they stand up introduce themselves and briefly explain how they know the bride or the groom. Imagine a room full of people beginning the sentence:" I've known them for many years, decades, all my life,...) expressing their joy and sharing anecdotes from our mutual past. It was very moving to say the least!

Vintage enamelled brooch

The brooch in the last picture was a wedding gift from a dear old friend. I can't even put into words how very deeply moved I was when receiving it. It comes with a bit of a history and a lot of sentiment. My friend had bought it over a decade ago and  I had been pining over it ever since. He said he couldn't imagine a more suitable gift for such an occasion and I couldn't agree more. It serves as a reminder that dreams do come true, you just have to be patient.

Rarer than diamonds

Jewelry by Johan

I'm slowly, slowly warming up to the idea of oversharing all the details of our wedding plans with the people around me as well as the blogosphere. Today I'm showing you a picture of our wedding rings: a genuine meteorite inlaid in titanium. How incredible is that?

The meteorite is called Gibeon meteorite and is over 4 billion years old. It entered our solar system some 30.000 years ago and crashed in Namibia.
I like to observe the intricate patterns and grooves in the meteorite (the technical term for them is Widmanstätten patterns) and wonder what foreign galaxies the meteorite has travelled to and what wonders it has seen on its journey.

The average life expectancy of a person is 80 years and this meteorite is 4 billion years old. This mere fact fascinates me and scares me just a little bit at the same time. Looking at our wedding rings I can't help but marvel at the mysteries of the universe and be humbled by the acknowledgement of how small and insignificant we are.

On the other hand, the hidden romantic in me, can't imagine a more perfect material for a wedding ring. To vow eternal love and fidelity to one another by exchanging rings made of something as old as time itself?

I'm becoming quite the sentimental romantic :-)

The big news

I do believe the picture is quite self explanatory but still: We're getting married!
A last minute announcement, just 3 months shy of our wedding date. Since I'm not the kind of person who'd want to annoy everyone who cares to listen with all the silly details. Though this has been in the works for the past six months.

The date has been set and corresponds with our 10th anniversary. We've bought the rings, made reservations and made plans with tailors, dressmakers, photographer and a myriad of other people...

All we need now is learn how to dance properly. We've already booked a course.

And that's that.