The stripper who slept over…

My biker husband-to-be was quite famous for his desire to have an unforgettable bachelor’s bash. He would shout left and right about the wild night, with the guys in the bar, and the unlimited number of alcohol and fun that they were planning to have. In his defense, I believe he was scared silly to get married. Because we are such opposites, he knew he would never convince me to do all the things he hopes to do in life. And god forbid I ever stop him from doing them. My burden as a biker wife, is to sit and watch quietly as he swims with sharks, climbs mountains, takes his bike around the world, plans his routes through Georgia and Iraq and stocks up all possible sports equipment in our balcony.

The same was true for the Bachelor’s party, I was totally tranquil to the idea of his ‘wild night out’. I nodded and smiled and supported it. No point of whining about it, if its going to happen anyway! As the wedding date appoached he was so caught up in organizing,planning,freaking out-that he forgot to have a bachelor’s party. His friends were also caught up in the frenzy, and caught off guard about their fellow biker getting married, they forgot to plan a party for him. Ha Ha. What did end up happening before the wedding day was quite the opposite of a “wild party”. Alex called over a good friend of his along with his girlfriend, to spend the evening with his, because he was too nerveous about next morning. They came over, had a few drinks, the girl cooked up something to eat, and before he knew it he was asleep…just like that, the wild biker who longer for a party he would be too ashamed to tell his wife about, was put to bed at 11 in the evening, to get plenty of sleep and rest, before the BIG DAY…This story told by our good friend Liya(who is a umm..stripper, in her defense she has a professional dance diploma!), sounded quite exciting after the wedding with the correct choice of wording, and without too many details:

“Alex has the best Bachelor’s Bash in the World, he spend the evening having drinks with his best friend and a stipper, who cooked him dinner, stayed over, and made him coffee the next morning…” 🙂

How we got carried away…

Wedding preparations are bound to get the best of you. I doubt there is a single couple out there, who had a calm, fight-free,fit-throwing-less wedding preparation. Unless they hired a planner. Or got married spontaneously. In our case, we spend two months getting ready for a wedding, that flew before our eyes in minutes. We were so exhausted from looking at ribbons, choosing baloon colours, tasting cakes, trying on clothes, signing invitations, looking for a place to live… This all sounds like great fun when you read it, and you are probably thinking “Eh, what is she complaining about”, but try joggling wedding preparations, a full time job, and a full time family. It was difficult. And unbearable at times. And that is mostly why we scaled down so much. There were no ice sculptures, no famous singers performing, to wedding album even-we did as much as we could, and we were happy with the result. Some way through Alex concentrated on proving us with a home, and I took care of the wedding preparations, we would meet up daily and discuss what has been achieved. I received a lot of help with the preparations, My Cynthia has organizing the bachelorette party and the wedding in the Bar, My Foosa was responsible for an unforgettable “giving-away” the bride routine, My Lyu was coordinating the above mentioned procedures and made everything as easy as it could possibly be. The moral of the story is; don’t turn away help with wedding preparations, if your grand ma is unsatisfied with the receptions menu and wants to make some of her famous chicken pie-let her, if your in-laws find you a great wedding dress tailor-give her a try, if your parents decide to bring 10 last minute guests in-take it with a smile. They are a part of your wedding to. A wedding is a family affair. It is never about you and your husband alone. That would be too selfish. It is about two families uniting their children and becoming one, and if they want to get lost in the process-so be it. Let them. Enjoy it.

Finding the perfect place

About a month away from “the day” we have finally stopped fantasizing about finding a decent restaurant, where the cuisine,decor and AC availability would all blend into a magical location. Since Septembers were quite warm in Tashkent, we began considering having an outside wedding. As soon as that occured to us we realized we could have it all, the pool, the floating candles and the barefoot dancing. Two places were available which comprised a perfect blend of everything I wanted, and everything we could afford. The Dedeman Hotel and the Sheraton Hotel. Both places were located in the city center, and were reputable locations for weddings and other celebrations. We visited both, studied the menues, questioned the waiters, asked for photographs of previous weddings done there. At the end we decided to opt for Sheraton, it had a slightly better location than Dedeman, so that all the guest would be seated under a covered tent and not far from each other. Whereas Dedeman had a very spacious garden area that was not covered in case of rain. I went to check out Sheraton, at lunchtime, and called Alex straightaway gasping “I found it, its perfect”. He must have gotten very tired of all the wedding chaos by then, because he didnt even ask how much it cost, he said “if you love it, lets take it”. I wish he said that a month sooner when all the other places that “i loved” were found, that would have saved a lot of trouble. A few hours later both our moms (and a bag of cash) were on their way to Sheraton, to book it for the 19th of September. I could not believe we had finally found a place! That was definetly the hardest part of all, because precisely on the place depended the decor, and the music, and the whole these itself! And there we had it, a spaciou, open air, tented place that we could mold into perfection-exactly as we wanted it.

Church weddings-survival guide

It was important for us to have a church wedding. And my us I mean my family and me. My husband on the other hand was rather cold to the idea. However we decided to go through with it and to establish ourselves as husband and wife before god. The ceremony needed to be booked in advance at our local church and costs (!) 45 dollars. Much to our amazement two wedding were allowed to go on at the same time. The prerequisite to the ceremony is that you have to be already married by the city council in order for the church to marry you. There is also a long list of must have’s consisting of: candles, icons, towels, hankerchiefs and a special cloak you stand on as husband and wife. The icons you hold as the priest blesses your marriages must remain hangin in your bedroom through out yourlife, reminding you of the promises you have made before god. 

A wedding in the mountains?

How we overcame my husbands decision to have a “mountain wedding”

My husband posseses and almost abnormal love for the mountains in Uzbekistan(will post pix!). He recently learned to ski, has been camping since he was a toddler and in the future plans to get the hang on rock climbing (yey for me!) It was only natural that the only idea he would find credible and logical was to have a wild, spontaneous wedding-in the mountains. And although I do not fail to see the romantic side in having barbecues, open air dances and a bride covered in mosquito bites; i was heavily against the idea. It took a couple of weeks to persuade a biker husband that perhaps getting 20 bikes to travel (1.5 hours!) to the mountains right after the church ceremony-is somewhat irrational. His idea composed a bus full of our relatives (his grandmother is 83 and my grandmother has dangerously high blood pressure) getting to Chimgan mountains, setting up a heavily meaty table (barbeques;steaks and what-nots), partying till the damn and then either spending the nights at a questionable hotel or in a tent. Great idea huh? Weeks and numerous pro-and-cons lists later we established that perhaps this wasnt the best idea, and instead we could go to the mountains a few days after our tradional/white/classical/buffet/orhestra/city hall wedding and really and truly enjoy it 🙂 (which we did do!)