The wedding

Our big fat Greek wedding

sofiagk

The moment we decided to get married (yes, this happened) the world shifted. Not in some romantic googly eyes sort of way but in a social norms kind of way. People who tell you that “nothing changes”? They lie.

Pelennor (yes, that’s his nickname) and my self are normal people with rock n roll parents.  We wanted a small intimate wedding so that we wouldn’t have to do too much or complicate our lives more than necessary. We though we can DIY it, we can cruise through, we can make sure that everyone is calm, collected and stays normal.

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This is not possible.

via GIPHY

The reality is an endless stream of details that we would both consider idiotic under normal circumstances and yet, somehow, they either become important to us or (worse) they become important to people we love.

I will not tire you out (this time around) with the complicated world of Greek pre-wedding ritual, introductions and gift giving but we are choreographing things like the most appropriate outfit for my dad to wear when Pelennor’s parents visit. Menu planning for the day has turned into a bit of a Roman feast preparation Marathon with my father asking whether it is appropriate to cook three mains and get the fourth (yes, THE FOURTH) from the marvellous local restaurant or if that would be a bit inappropriate. And this stuff is *important* because in the future we don’t wanna have to deal with a Nanny Ogg level of family feud following “what they said about our Shirley” or some such.

I now realise that most of you married people out there had to deal with all this and I have a newfound respect for you – especially if you had a huge Greek/ Cypriot/ Italian etc. wedding of over 500 people. How the hell did you do it? 

In the meantime the wedding is in July, it is April, I have no dress (nor the appropriate self-selected weight to go find one) and no definitive list of things that still need to get done.

And yet this is all incredibly fun and interesting – in a “oh my god I miss my blog” sort of way. The moment my mother said her first “I have an idea” was the moment when I wanted to sit down again and write. To exaggerate, to explain, to somehow construct a story that explains the world and the weird and wonderful things that are happening now that we decided to get married.

It’s been a while. I know. I missed you too. So come along, at least for a while, we can talk about our big fat Greek wedding.

 

 

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193 thoughts on “Our big fat Greek wedding”

  1. Firstly Congratulations!! Secondly thank you for acknowledging all the married people; everyone always discounts you when you dare say sth. Thirdly, you don’t know how lucky you are that you are both Greek! Got married to English husband almost 12 years ago (i.e. pre-recession era with all the extravagance everyone thought was ok) and organised our wedding in Greece from England…Trying to navigate through the etiquette of 2 different cultures…I remember thinking how the hell do people divorce if they’ve been through the stress of organising a wedding? If you manage to navigate yourself through all the shenanigans, surely nothing can separate you! And I can assure you that even with all the trials and tribulations of trying to conceive afterwards and eventually succeeding and surviving the sleepless nights looking after a baby and holding down full time professional jobs without parents to help, I still remember it as the most stressful period of our lives! And that includes conveyancings, disastrous DIY projects, unemployment, everything! So if it feels hard, don’t worry that’s as bad as it’ll ever be! All that matters is to have a great DJ playing all your favourite songs so you can dance the night away!

    1. >> If you manage to navigate yourself through all the shenanigans, surely nothing can separate you!

      I’m starting to think so too!!!

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