Just Like Christmas

What do you love about Christmas? Everybody loves something. There’s no wonder that after your traditional pretty summer weddings where all the girls get their legs out the next most sought after theme is the winter “Christmas” wedding. I’ve seen all sorts – Christmas cake and Christmas trees and baubles and green and red and gold tartan (and the boys with their legs out).

Me, I like the anticipation, the build up to Christmas, the waiting, expecting and planning for it (oh, and the singing moose). More so now that I’m an adult and am allowed to get involved in the planning.

And part of that? Wrapping the presents.

Exciting thing is, we not only receive lots of wedding presents, but we give lots of thank you presents. Some aren’t going to be completed until after the wedding day, and some can be given out come the 19th (but not during the speeches: I don’t like that). Obviously I’m not going to show any of them on here now, because a few people do actually have a glance at this blog, and I’d hate to ruin the surprise.

But I can talk about wrapping them! So, the Fiance and I had a little collect together of all the bits we’d sorted for presents and got out the blue paper my mum had given us…

Some of the gifts were packed into boxes and some were wrapped in bubble wrap – these have twofold functions of protecting a present which doesn’t come in its own padding and disguising it’s shape. Bubble wrap is espectially good for concealing noises too, in case the recipient tries to guess their present by waving the thing around (not the safest ideas, but it always works with malteasers). If I give a gift in a box, I try to find a box which either came from the person the gift is designed for originally, or has some meaning to them. I only succeed about half the time, as most people do not have connections to cardboard boxes.

Here is me with the bubble wrap:

I also had to perform a few tricky manoeuvres with paper folding – I know, I know: it is the most sophisticated art in the world – because of oddly shaped presents. This happens to me a lot, luckily, so I was able to do it neatly enough. I’m not quite a Japanese T-shirt folder, though.

Agh! It has a beak!

*wrestles it to the ground*

…

VICTORY IS MINE!

And here are some of our lovely wrapped-up labelled-up pressies, sitting on our library tea-table. In the background you will see boxes containing our cake stand, some balloon trees in the “wedding cupboard”, and our chat.

Sing Me a Love Song

To a lot of people, weddings are about having your dreams come true, breaking the normal rules and being justified in doing exactly what you want, and making a splurge.

Well, I’m sorry, but if most people’s dreams come true on their wedding day, they have pretty limited dreams. I’m not talking about marriage to the love of your life – I’m talking about the wedding.

Weddings are about compromise more than ever.

And the strange thing is that the people around you don’t even know. Their generosity is astounding. They push money and gifts upon you, offer to be there to help, go out of the way to enhance your enjoyment, excitment and the quality of the things you’re investing in.

But at the same time, they will start making demands. We don’t want you to have your wedding there, it’s not nice enough! It’s worth splashing out on your wedding day. We’ll help you. X has to sit next to Y, and if X doesn’t get on with Y’s other half, Y’s other half will have to be moved. You can’t have that! Nobody will like it.

They think they’re making your day better – actually they are making your day better for them.

Yes, everyone needs a bit of advice, because there will always be things we haven’t thought about – mistakes to avoid, butI think it’s very different to say to somebody, “Have you thought about how you’re going to dance in that?” or “Go and buy and better one – you can: it’s your wedding day!” But I… liked… the first one.

And of course, you do want your wedding day to be good for your guests. When did it become about the bride and groom’s taste anyway? When my grandparents got married, the bride’s parents traditionally arranged everything for her: they would not only pay, but also arrange the guest list and choose the trimmings. Yet only two generations later, we behave as if we have some kind of god given right to golden candelabras covered in paper butterflies if we want golden candelabras covered in butterflies! We have themes. The dress matches the venue. We write vows.

The wedding is no longer a present to the couple from the bride’s family on their marriage, it is an expression of the bride and groom, from the bride and groom. And there is more competition.

But even competition means that you’re expressing yourselves less than you want to, than you think you are, because you’re defining yourselves by comparison.

So what am I saying? Essentially, don’t stress over the dream. The dream is never going to be realised, not at your wedding. Insist sometimes, and give in others. Strike a balance. Don’t worry about competing.

Some things are just not feasible. Like my desire to have a singing moose head at our wedding.

…I know.

But we came across this singing Chrismas moose at the German Christmas market and I adored it. I was so excited – like a little child. Can you imagine having this singing at your wedding?

It would be very, very unique.

Unfortunately, google cannot tell me where to hire a singing moose head. I’ve no idea who would get it there and operate it, and it would probably be hideously expensive anyway. Building our own singing moose head is not really an option. But what does it matter? Will anybody’s enjoyment be seriously decreased by lack of singing moose? Will anybody (who doesn’t read this blog) even know? You go through lots of ideas in the course of events planning and most of them go straight out the window. That’s just how it works.

1000 Cranes

221 beautiful little cranes arrived in the post yesterday, wrapped up in a Christmas lights box, newspaper and a lot of sellotape.

I took one glance at the handwriting and the size of the box and said, “It’s our cranes!” – courtesy of my best man, who folded about a quarter of them. Including the 830 we already have, just under 1000 of them will be present at the wedding ceremony, along with a much smaller number of human guests.

The rest of the cranes were used for our invitations, stuck to the front of the pockets into which our paper invites were slipped.

Thanks to everbody who folded cranes, J, K, C, B, C, D, D, me and the Fiance.