Happy anniversary

It's our fourth wedding anniversary today, but I've only now come home from my meditation class and I got a message from Dragon saying he would be late. So what I'd like to do is describe our wedding day - I wrote this piece back then when we didn't have a blog, but it's a good memory so I'l like to share it with you. And to clarify - for practical reasons we got married on a different day to our wedding reception.

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Friday morning (13th of July, 2001), despite staying up till 3 am on the previous night with my mum and my maiden of honor Chu doing embroidery on the napkins, I woke up before nine - maybe anxious about days events, or maybe just waiting to get Dragon back from his stag night. And he did arrive shortly after nine after being away for 24 hours doing... whatever it is that men do when they gather in these occasions... (We have photos - maybe I can convince Dragon to write about that some day.)

Day was going to busy - we had finished almost all the napkins, but we still had lots of other arrangements to do - so while Dragon went to bed after having slept only couple of hours, me and Chu went to see the make-up artist who was going to do my make-up the next day. After we got back it was my parent's turn to use the car and they went to buy most of the drinks for the reception (wines were going to be picked up on Saturday - since the shop could keep them cool).

After midday we got Dragon up, he drank some coffee, and we started to get ready to go to the magistrate. It was Chu's job to look after the ring until we'd meet bestman Esa at the magistrate, and she also looked after the marriage permission certificate (if you don't know what it is, you can read how difficult it was to get it). We had decided that no-one would have to wear anything special - I wore the blue dress I had bought for the occasion, Dragon wore a red shirt with and a Kalevala koru pendant. Chu was worried about wearing black, but I don't think anyone cared. We decided to leave early, and I didn't feel anxious at all - in the contrary I was very exited.

When we got to town, I noticed that no-one had brought a camera, although we had intended to. Almost immediately when we got ti the magistrate Dragon's mother and his brother (who had brought a camera!) arrived, then bestman Esa and Henri. Kristiina got in few minutes after we got in. We were asked to produce a marriage permission certificate, and fill in a paper where we would need signatures of two witnesses (Chu and Esa), which we did. Only afterwards did my mum tell me that she was so worried about the certificate being accepted that she couldn't bare to be in the same room when we showed it. Then we had to wait couple of minutes before we were called in.

The room took me by surprise - the Helsinki magistrate is very ugly building from the outside, and from the inside it looks very much like an office - but this room was beautiful. Paneled with light wood, some light curtains with a painting and a big table where there were two candles lit and the book of Finnish law between them. The man who was going to marry us was big solemn looking man wearing a dark blue suit - he came and shook our hands and asked us to put the ring on top of the book (Finnish Law). We were asked to stand in front of them, which we did - and then he broke the ice and said that this was a happy occasion and that we should stand close to each other! We both took a step closer - I guess before that we had been like just about the get detention or something... Dragon took my hand, I felt myself shaking.

He started to speak, and his first words were "Purpose of marriage is to start a family" and I (who four years ago found the idea unthinkable) felt like laughing - and wondered what would it look like if I suddenly started to laugh hysterically (I guess he's seen that happen). It passed though - and before I knew we where asked to say "I do" and Dragon put the ring in my finger - both of our hands were shaking visibly! Then we kissed, and Dragon's brother took some photos - and all the women in the party cried a bit. Then everyone came and congratulated us, everyone smiling from ear to ear.

Then the man continued, telling us that now that were married we should look after each other, and it was over. The whole ceremony took maybe ten minutes at most, and before we noticed we were standing outside again. We took couple of more photos, and me and Dragon (now man and wife!) my parents, Chu and Kristiina went to buy some more stationary that we'd need for next day. But when we got back home, and although we had planned to start working straight away, we just sat (or collapsed) down in the garden - the day was beautiful! - and when my mum suggested that we should open a bottle of bubbly, no-one could think of a reason to say no. We sipped the wine and talked for an hour or so - I can't really recall what we were talking about, except that we had a really nice time.

Then it was time to move on. Our toast master Jaakko had booked us a suite in a hotel in city center, and really wanted to get some rest before going out in the evening. So we left my parents with the final arrangements and took a taxi to the hotel. The hotel room was nice - we had some flowers waiting for us from a friend, and we got a little bit to eat as well. There was a bottle of champagne as well, but we didn't really feel like drinking any more. Instead, we just collapsed to bed, put an alarm on and fell a sleep.

We got up again just in time to have a shower and get to the restaurant. Most of our foreign friends had flown in that day, and Jaakko had arranged for us all to go out to eat in the Leningrad Cowboys restaurant. We got there just in time, only to find out that everyone else was going to be late. Except for Chu of course, who was keeping our seats warm, and Jaakko who was only slightly late. Well, everyone got there eventually - our foreign friends from UK and US, and Hakkis who was acting as a native guide.

Now for those who never went there, it's very difficult to explain what this restaurant is (was? is it still there?) like. I mean, in how many restaurants can you be seated under (yes, under - it was hanging in the ceiling) a statue of Lenin, and eat "Back In The U.S.S.R. Salad" or "Volga Boatman Perestroika" for starters, "Mixed Grill Fish Revolution" or "Pravda Tandori Chicken" for main course and "Kalinka Ice Cream" for dessert? I guess you kind of have go there to see what I mean.

Anyway, we had a really nice time, and we were very happy to see our friends to mix together quite well - we had been afraid that our different friends - firstly my friends from emo, and secondly Dragon's old friends from GW, and thirdly... well, to be honest we really weren't worried about Josh and Sarah... - wouldn't have anything common. We were happy to be proven wrong.

We left relatively early to get ready for yet another big day, and our friends stayed in the bar drinking chocolate vodka (of course the restaurant had a wide selection of vodkas). Although I had set the sauna ready for us when we'd come back, we went straight to bed.

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It's been (mostly) good four years. Hope to do many many more.

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