I'm not sure when you read this, G, but I just want to wish you all the happiness in the world as you head down this new road of being Mrs. T     Congrats and have fun!!

THE STORY BEHIND THE PICTURES:

There's not much to tell about the big day before we left for the magistrate: we got up, got dressed, T fetched the flowers, I did my hair and make up and both panicked. The weather was better than we had anticipated: no rain, and even the sun peeked up from behind the clouds- first time in two weeks. A good omen!

While the lady who took our order was a bit puzzled of our order, we were happy about two persons wanting a van-sized taxi, we were happy about the idea. I don't remember when I've been as nervous as I was in the taxi to magistrate- except of course in the bride's room where we had to wait for a while. It was nice to have a little room to squirm...
  I wasn't any less nervous when the ceremony started, but it really didn't matter as it was perfect anyway. We had witnesses from magistrate, and one of them took pictures of the ceremony. The registrar read a passage from Aristotle's Nichomachean ethics that we had selected before. She was really good, and it was all very touching and romantic. It was the best wedding ceremony I've ever attended, and I swear it wasn't just because it was my own. I was almost sorry that we hadn't invited any guests... but only almost, as the ceremony being so intimate was probably one of the things that made it so incredibly romantic.
 
After the ceremony, we headed to photographer to take the official wedding pictures. The photographer was so goofy that I forgot to be nervous. We'll get to see the shots tomorrow and will select the official pictures then.

After photographing, we had to wait for a while before our taxi picked us up. On a gray December day we drew quite a lot of attention from people who passed by. Many congratulated us, and there was this old lady who stopped and said that "It's so wonderful to see such beauty in the midst of this time of the year!" *happy sigh*
Finally the taxi came and we went back home for a quick lunch, to change clothes and pack. It didn't take too long, and early in the evening we were on West Coast, in the most luxurious spa of the country. We had reserved dinner in a fine restaurant. Somehow the restaurant knew about our wedding too, and they carried us "greetings from the kitchen" and extra sparking wine. Dining took all evening, and the extra pampering the kitchen offered us made it really special.

On Saturday and Sunday, we had luxurious treatments, more fine dining and just relaxing. We agreed that this was the best honeymoon we could have hoped for- after all the nervousness and stress the luxuries of the spa felt wonderful. On our way home, T's father called and T informed him of our marriage. Later on the evening we went to pick Lumi up from T's mother and handed her out the first of our official party invitation cards. Both T's parents were surprised, but happy for us and happy of our decision to have a party too. T's mother and her spouse weren't too eager to give Lumi back though and so we spent there the rest of the evening, drinking tea and having good time.

So, everything went just perfectly and was even better than we had anticipated. If the party will go half as well, it will be wonderful.

Oh, Mrs. G, you were such a beautiful bride.  Your veil and gown matched perfectly.  The sleeves on your gown are awesome!  I really loved you hair-is it a braided bun?

I'm really happy for you and your hubby.

Congrats!!!

Thank you, everyone!  

Sakina: No, it's not a braided bun. I just made a ponytail and sectioned it (I think I got 4 sections) and wrapped and pinned each section around the base. I used strong liquid hair gel and about half a liter of hairspray. The result was very nice- not a "hair helmet" like updos made by a hairstylists usually are, but still firm.

Wedding preparations: Well, we still have the party to prepare so "wedding preparations" section is still around in this journal. We have started to inform friends and relatives. Everyone's been happily surprised so far. Poor T has now flu and fever, but once he gets better, we'll send the invitations.
  Official pictures weren't ready yet (slow studio!) but Thursday will do fine -hopefully by then T is doing better.

Hair& Life: I RECEIVED MY SECRET SANTA GIFT. THANK YOU, SS!   The gift was huge and I love it. I can only wonder how on Earth is it possible that I get always so perfect gifts from Secret Santa Exchange while my own parents have resorted to sending some money since I was a teenager. Fetching the gift was also quite an event: while I was gone, also another package had arrived to PO -on my maiden name. So, there I was, signing two cards with two different signatures. I really need to start the process of changing my ID papers this week.
  Hair is doing fine, though during the past few days I have detected quite a few white dots. This is rather weird right after trim. Of course, I have neglected my hair ever since moving here... I need to repent and resume my good hair habits. I think I keep saying this all the time, but maybe this time I really do something.

I realized that it's the time of the year when I choose a character development task for next year and reevaluate the past year. I have done this for several years now, and it has proved to be an excellent habit. I have not always succeeded with my projects, but most of the time I have. And, when I haven't, I have learned something valuable about myself anyway. Another reason for why I'm doing this, is that as I see it, in these days most people seem to pay way too little attention to developing their characters. They see self-development mostly as learning something -reading an inspirational book, learning Spanish etc. While these are valuable skills, I don't think that they quite catch the essence of self-development and truly lead to permanent improvements in one's character. While I see that I still do way too little in that area, it seems that setting a yearly task is one good method of improving oneself. The nature of the project, of course is, that there is always something to improve. And I have a feeling that in the course of my life I will find myself selecting the same tasks many times. But that's ok, I suppose. I don't demand triumphant success, just that for the period of one year, I try my best to improve myself in a certain area.

My task for the year 2006 was to learn more self discipline by starting to exercise regularly. I think I have succeeded well- I have kept to 4 weekly exercises except when I have been sick. I am in a FAR better shape than in the beginning of this year and that is great. There were a couple of times when I could have easily given up regular exercising, but I didn't, and seeing now that I didn't has also boosted my self-confidence. So, this was a successful year.
My additional task was to learn how to be polite yet firm. This was a task I adopted after graduating. In my profession, people often turn out being quite arrogant and even a little rude, and I have had a bad habit of getting lost in my thoughts in middle of conversations and in other social situations where it might be interpreted as impoliteness. On the other hand, there have been people in my life with whom I have been way too soft because I have mistakenly believed that to be firm would be rude. This year, I tried to pay attention to these situations.
A good thing is, that at least I have become aware of these faults and that alone has helped a long way to overcome them. I can't say that I have totally put these things behind me- old habits are hard to weed out. But I think that I am doing better than before setting myself this task.

Next year, I have also decided to appoint myself two tasks. First, is quite appropriatedly frugality. My income is small, and during the moving/wedding time I have spent more than normally and I'm well aware of that it could turn out to be a new bad habit. Another thing is, that our new lifestyle provides more chances to be frugal and environmentally friendly and I want to become aware of these opportunities. I think that that requires that I start to look around with a new perspective. That should be interesting. I except this task to be actually quite a lot of fun (except for the part that includes calculating things, anyway.)

My second and more difficult task -that is a little related to the first one- is, that I have become convinced of that I need to do something about my dress. I have actually known this for a good while, but as I have struggled to change, I have found that exceedingly difficult. I am as convinced as a person can be that clothing myself in modern way (that is tied so closely with exploitation, fashion industry and all things I oppose) is something that a philosopher should do. Heck, I could probably easily write a scientific article on all the wrongs related to fashion and observing it. But though I know better, I still find myself wanting new stylish clothes and thinking that I "can't wear" some old item because it's 5 years old and therefore totally out.
The worst thing is, that I don't really shop for things I truly need or even like- I shop things in order to look nice in the eyes of the infamous THEM, in order to avoid looking too different from THEM. It has become abundantly clear to me that THEM is dominating my life and my mindset way in this area too much, and therefore preventing myself from being the person I know I should be. It seems that I am unable to do this if I keep it low-priority. So, next year, side by side with my general frugality attempt, I will start being serious about starting to dress the way I know I should. At the moment, I am not exactly sure of what that will exactly include, but I do have a few good guidelines from where to start.

Hair: I placed a soap order for Ida. Some of my favorites were sold out, but on the other hand there were a few new interesting soaps. I ordered three bars of Summer Sunshine shampoo, one bar of Lavender Spice shampoo, Orange Creamsicle, Pomander Spice and Rhassoul Yoghurt Complexion. I have still a couple of soaps from my last order left so I'm dreaming that I might be able to give one of the new ones as a Christmas present to someone (yeah, rrriggght, ask me again after I have smelled them...)
  I washed my hair last evening, so today's a Very Clean Hair Day. I have to say that after I found instant bun clips, these days have become a breeze compared to what they used to be. 

On a general note, my pm system shows an error message when I try to pm something, so those of you who have pm'ed me, please be patient! I hope this problem will be gone the next time I log in.

Thanks for your kind words, BB. Because of everyone's encouraging feedback, I'll go on here a bit more about my plans.

Frugality Well, I live according to my income but that does not make me frugal. I don't buy many things that I come to regret, but I'm not very aware of prices either and taking the financial perspective of things into account is difficult to me. I think my dyscalculia doesn't help either... while I can do simple math, I don't like it and therefore tend to avoid it as long as I can. Not good.
What I will start with:
-I will try to become aware of the prices and to choose cheaper alternatives unless I specifically need the more expensive variety. When that goes well, I will try to become aware of the difference between stores and adjust my purchases accordingly. I don't want to pay high prices for things that I can get for cheaper by just walking across the street. Implementing this principle...that will be hard, though!
- I will try to be mindful of little things as they add up. Learning to turn off the lights when I leave the room would be a start...
-I will learn to do small repairs so I don't need new things so often. I will also try to set aside time at least weekly to do craft projects. Doing things by yourself does not necessarily cost less than choosing cheap ready-made products, but the quality is superior. I still have items I have made when I was 16, and they look almost new.
-I will try to find creative ways to use and preserve more of the products of our garden this year. I have already started to hunt recipes!

Dress Issue
At the moment my style is quite simple and classic and judging from the compliments I get, it looks good. I have, already managed to weed out some of my worst habits and my wardrobe has improved over the years. Yet, it is still full, and though Finland's four distinct seasons justify some of that, they don't justify it all. Why do I need "formal clothes", "working clothes", "casual clothes" and "home clothes"? Essentially, because my home clothes are not neat enough, and because I like to justify buying something I fancy by saying to myself "Oh it's true that I have 9 good shirts, but I don't have enough casual shirts". KWIM? I have come to realize that these categories exists 90% in my head only, and serve no reasonable purpose.
What I want to do for starters, is to start combining these categories and blur the distinctions between them. I don't think I truly need to invest in so many different "looks". I don't need to purchase "home clothes" that I can't wear anywhere else- I'm sure that it's possible to find things that are both neat and comfortable. Second, some categories need to be reduced (I'm not going to throw anything away at the moment, just not to replace items). I have maybe 2 occassions each year where my working clothes are not formal enough. I don't really need three suits to cover them...and so on.
I also keep sewing and knitting on the list of important things- just by sewing myself, I can avoid quite a few ethical problems associated with clothing industry.