07/07/2007 - memories of a very special day

Today is our 7th wedding anniversary and I feel that a post about our wedding is in order. If for no other reason, then at least as an excuse for me to look at some of my favourite photos again...

When Wayne proposed to me one warm September evening in Liverpool, my head was awash with excitement but also full of questions about the future event. When would we get married? Would it be a big wedding or a small, intimate one? How hard will it be to organise? What sort of cake do I want? And many many other ones. But one thing there was never any question about in my mind, was where the wedding would be. I knew that I wanted to get married in my hometown, in my home country of Serbia. Why? Well...

Serbian weddings are a slightly different affair to the British ones. For starters, nobody wears a hat. There isn't a day time event, a break and then an evening event, but rather one very long celebration from morning till midnight (or later) where everyone parties together until they drop dead (hopefully not literally!) There are no speeches (although, to accommodate both traditions, we did have some). There are no bridesmaids (but we do have the best man and a maid of honour). There is food - courses and courses of it. There is music - lots of it (and loud). There are guests - many of them (in Serbian villages it is not uncommon to see weddings with 1000 people, lasting two or three days). Most of all, there is one great big party, with a live brass band getting everyone up on their feet, and lots of dancing and lots of whooping and cheering and wolf-whistling and generally everyone having a LOT of fun.

So that is, basically, what we did :-)

We ended up having around 140 guests, which is a fairly small wedding by Serbian standards, but we felt that it was just right for us - everyone who we are close with was there. Over 40 guests flew in from the UK and comprised of a mixture of Londoners, Scousers, Australians, Irish, Welsh, American and no doubt I have forgotten some other nationalities. Everyone arrived on Friday, had a great big pig roast and a bonding session on Friday night, and then the main event was on Saturday. The venue was a hotel in the middle of my hometown, where all the foreign guests stayed too. In the morning, once everyone was ready, the groom and all the foreign guests were driven over to my parent's flat, where I was. They stayed outside of the building while my husband-to-be had to negotiate a payment for me (a very old custom, now done for entertainment purposes. Although I don't think that Wayne was quite prepared for what a hard bargain my family would drive!) After some food, music from a live brass band and dancing, we all made our way back to the hotel. This is us arriving:

 The room awaiting us looked like this:

I was ushered into a suite upstairs until all the guests got settled, and then finally it was time to descend into the surreal world of 'Getting Married'.

Our ceremony was not long and, although we look serious in some of the pictures, it was punctuated by laughter (and I imagine a few tears). 

From this...

to this...

to this...

and finally this!

We were married! The celebration, and our new life, could begin!

As you can see, I was not a shy bride :-)  My idea of a good wedding is one where I dance, then talk to all my guests, then dance some more, then dance with my guests, then maybe have a sip of champagne (I couldn't eat a single bite of food all day), then dance again. I didn't climb on any tables which Serbian brides often do, so I can actually say that I was quite reserved and demure!

In the evening, the time came for our cake. On the main wall we projected a slide-show of photographs from our life together. The guests really enjoyed this because it contained many photos no one had ever seen before, from our various travels and good times spent with friends all over the world.

We carried on into the night, and ended the evening with fireworks.

It was the single best day of my life (that title would change hands later, with the arrival of first Ana, then Sacha – but those stories are probably best left for another time!) Every day I feel lucky and grateful to have met my soulmate, so on our anniversary I hope I can be forgiven for saying that so publicly, too…

Thank you for looking at these photos with me. They mean the world to me and it feels very special to share them. Are you married? What was your wedding day like? 

Our family

Every family is unique and it is difficult to describe who we really are in just a few paragraphs, but I will try.

There are four of us – my husband Wayne, myself, and our children Ana and Sacha. At the time of starting this blog, Ana is slowly coming up to three and Sacha is just thirteen months old (younger, in the picture below!). I will say more about them in a minute.

We live in Cheltenham in the south-west of England. I am Serbian whereas Wayne is English, which makes us a mixed nationality bilingual family, and it’s one of the things I really love about us. Serbian culture and English culture are VERY different in many respects, from views on child raising to what should be the ideal room temperature (me: around 25 degrees. Yes, really! Wayne: doesn’t have to be so specific – but anywhere between a fridge and a freezer will do) and yet my husband and I agree on most things and live a (mostly!) harmonious life. It makes me proud to think how we have managed to overcome significant cultural differences, in things both big and small (and anyone who comes from very different backgrounds can confirm that background does matter), purely through love and mutual respect.

Why am I even writing this blog? Well, that's the bit where I call myself a writer. If I dare. Where I confess that I couldn’t really live, nor make sense of life, if I didn’t put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard). I write fiction and theatre stuff, although I have also written two books. One was when I was a teenager, and it wasn’t a very good book. At all. The other was in the recent years. Honestly, it wasn’t much better J But writing a book is hard and at some point I will be ready to try again, and it will be much better this time. But in the meantime, my other stuff is doing ok – getting published here and there, getting onto short lists for competitions here and there. I will let you all know when The Big Break knocks on my door.

And now, the children. Ana is your typical toddler-who-thinks-she-is-a-teenager and who amazes us every day with her emerging personality. And sometimes also with her sheer madness. You will see what I mean – I intend to write about her a lot. And show it all to her boyfriends when she’s older.

Sacha, on the other hand, is just a baby, and fortunately a very happy baby. Any parent of two kids will tell you it is fortunate if at least one of your children has a naturally happy disposition. It makes all the tears, tantrums and whining of the other family members much easier to live with (and that’s just the parents). Sacha likes to eat, sleep and generally finds everything funny. He laughs when we talk to him, he laughs at himself in the mirror, he laughs at his own feet, and he laughs at virtually every bodily function (especially the really sudden ones like sneezing or hiccups).

And, saving the best for last, I come to Wayne, my husband and partner in crime of eleven years (at last count). His domain includes: earning a living for the family (it’s never easy when one person has to earn for four people, even if two of these four are still rather small; but he does this with grace and efficiency), maintaining all those aspects of our household which remain a mystery to me (like which bulb fits which kitchen spotlight, or how to get the kids to simultaneously stay in their car seats AND not scream) and then his personal favourites: lifting very heavy things, usually in the gym although occasionally he does also carry most of the family members upstairs in one go, just for fun; and finally, his own life’s mission, making people healthier and slimmer.

We live, I have to admit, a pretty quiet life. We spend a lot of time together and very little time apart. Whenever we can help it. We spend a lot of time outdoors and very little time in front of the TV. Unless it’s raining really quite hard. We go to the Cotswolds a great deal, often just for coffees and ice cream, in fact I wouldn’t be surprised if in Burton-on-Water they started selling a new flavour of ice cream called Ana. We listen to Jack Johnson and Norah Jones a lot, and like to read. Both to our children and for ourselves. Life is good, and simple.

That’s us, although you will get to know us a lot more through this blog, if you decide it’s not too boring of course! Can you tell me a little about yourself and who are the important people in your life?