*miserychick is actually happy

Oh hey, there, hello… well, it’s been a while, hasn’t it? It’s like the new year and all.

So. The wedding and all that events that I had been planning for a year happened as it was supposed to (or close enough to what was planned anyway), everyone involved was happy, and I came away from it all with a new hair do, a nice tan, a cool ring on my finger, more photos than I can handle, and, of course, a husband.

Wedding set 1, on Flickr.  More to come, I’m still sorting through them… 

The two weeks leading up to the wedding was one of those hectic finish-the-project-before-the-show type of crunch. Almost everyday we woke up with new to-do list, people to call, places to go to, things to buy, video to edit, photos to sort out, etc.  Our intention was to do as much DIY stuff as possible, and we did get everything that we wanted, exactly how we wanted it… but I will say that DIY-ing your own wedding is not for the faint of heart, nor the lack of resources – and I don’t mean funds, but human resources.

Our guests who flew very very long distances to be at our wedding were inevitably put to work: arranging flowers, decorating cup cakes, prepping the venue, DJing, photo/video shooting, running AV system, doing my make up, and even translating the Katubah.  Mark’s parents were given tasks almost daily since they arrived.  My relatives worked the reception and area. My uncle was the bartender. My mom’s friends helped bake the cupcakes, gave us part of our wedding favors as a gift (300 handmade paper flowers), designed and gave us mega discounts on our outfits.  And finally, even the venue and the food that was catered, the manager and owner of the place is a friend I’ve just reconnected from 8th grade.  

Organizing it all, of course, was my task.  And I pretty much covered everything, except the one major thing that anyone getting married should be prepared for: the speech.  For almost a whole year of wedding planning, I never really thought about what I would actually say on stage.  I do remember thinking that I should prepare some type of speech, but it was one of those thing that was easy to put off because it didn’t involve anybody else.  And when the time came, when I was holding the microphone, words didn’t really come to my head like I thought it would just magically appear after all the insane preparations for the event.  I botched the speech part completely, and it was fitting to my blogger habit:  I can string words together for anyone to read on the Internet, but standing in front of a crowd who were ready to receive, I had nothing to say.  Mark gave me this most warming and heartfelt confession of love that teared up so many eyes, and all I could say in return was “… likewise”.  Then I managed to clumsily thank a handful of people who were sitting directly in front of me, omitting many people in the process.  Then everything else happened, and it happened so fast that it was all a blur.  There was a big bottle of sake.  Many more group photos, and then some dancing, more partying.. then it was all over.  The whole thing happened so fast and if I didn’t spend the last 5 days looking at the photos, I wouldn’t have been able to recall it all.

And then, the next day, with everyone recovering from their hangovers, I made people go and hang themselves from treetops.  The day after that, I put them on a 14-hour bus ride followed with a super rough boat ride to get to the island.  And then the island… wow, the island, was out of this world.

I’ll save that for next time.

Posted on Saturday, 10 January 2009 at 12:27 UTC