the wedding story

Today is a special day for me and the Z man.  What seems like an eternity ago on this very day, I was dressed in a hand made white gown waiting for our marriage to be blessed in a church.  Notice how I worded that now because when we got "married" in 1996, nobody except us knew that we had already been married for three years before the church ceremony.  (That story I'll save for later on this month).

We knew we would one day have a church wedding, and when I felt it was time to do it, an ultimatum was presented to him.  "You will marry me properly this year" was what I said, to which he replied "Or what?" 

I'm not one to give ultimatums.  I don't like to give someone a choice of A or B and nothing in between.  But, in my defense, Z promised me that if we got married at the city hall and if we were happy down the road, then we would celebrate our union in front of our family, friends, and God.  A promise is a promise buddy... and so I told him that if he didn't marry me that year, that I would find somebody else to marry me.. because damn it, I wanted my wedding to happen.  And that, my friends, was that.

We then had eight months to, you know... put a wedding together!  Lists had to be written, dresses needed to be made/bought, flowers and favors and invitations ordered.  Oh my, the planning that goes into making that day happen is unbelievable.  And this wedding, it was no small party.  I'm half Serbian marrying a guy from Montenegro.  These people know how to party.  A traditional Serbian wedding consists of a three day celebration. (Here is a link describing what something like that is like).

Our church wedding was beautiful.  The ceremony is very old and traditional with a lot of chanting and thick, burning incense.  We had our musician friend come to the church to play gypsy wedding music while our friends and family drank and danced outside.  Hey, I said it was a party.

And then we danced, all night long.  I rented a big, big party room for the reception - one big enough to hold all 350 people (more than half of whom were invited by dad).  We had a Serbian band, a d.j., and Z's band played a set.  It was a magical, magical night.  A very good friend of ours gave us his rental week in St. Marteen as a wedding gift.  Imagine that!!  An (almost) free honeymoon.

After the wedding, we stayed at this great hotel.  Our poor feet were sore from all the dancing.  Z carried me into the room, threw me down on the bed, and...... nothing.  We passed out fully clothed for the night.  It couldn't have been more perfect.

*I'm still having trouble with my camera/cord.  Pictures later, I promise.*