Long time that I was silent. Our year so far has been filled with good and bad.
The most amazing thing happening was our wedding. In April Mr. C and I got married. It was a quite a long process until we were really sure what feels best for us. Initially we thought that we wanted to do a country style wedding party in the North of Italy with all our family and friends. But after a while I realised that a medium to big size party would not be what I would feel comfortable with as a bride. I don’t like to be in the center of the attention which is hard to avoid when you’re the bride. With these thoughts in mind we were somewhere between just eloping and doing a small party. The pro’s and con’s are obvious… I wanted to have my mum and my loved ones around me. The thought of getting ready all alone in a hotel room far away made me feel sad so eloping was not really an option. Doing a small party meant, that we could not have all our friends and family with us. We also felt sorry that we would not be able to have everyone with us. But it was a compromise we had to do and as most of our family lives abroad (we have sisters in Australia and the US) unfortunately not everyone invited could make it to our wedding.
Another question that we were confronted with is where to do the wedding dinner. With a small wedding party you usually end up renting a separate room at a restaurant or hotel. After we visited a restaurant and discussed to options, it felt like this was a too standard thing. It just didn’t feel right as we imagined our guests (that did not all know each other before the wedding) would not feel too comfortable sitting in an elegant environment. Feeling comfortable was like the big mantra for us but we nevertheless wanted to make it a special thing. But where else to go in April if not a restaurant? With the unsteady Swiss weather, an outdoor party was not really an option. On a Sunday afternoon, talking about how we didn’t really find the restaurant dinner appealing, all of a sudden Mr. C had the idea of the year: We would host our dinner at home! I instantly loved this idea.
So this is what we did: We had a civil ceremony at the town hall of the place we live followed by a cheese tasting buffet and drinks at a wine museum. The idea behind was to enable our guests to getting to know each other in a relaxing atmosphere. We were so lucky to have the most beautiful and warm weather so everything happened outside. After that, we went to our home where the caterer already had transformed our home into a beautiful dinner setting. We had an aperitif on our terrace followed by a great meal at one a large table in our living room. The atmosphere was exactly what we imagined it to be like: a bit elegant, happy and relaxing.
Throughout the whole day our friends and my mum had arranged so many beautiful surprises for us. From a ride in a cabrio to very moving speaches during dinner and balloons that we set off in the night. We had the most amazing and fantastic wedding and we loved every single detail of it! As soon as we got home I threw the heels in a corner and was able to enjoy the rest of the evening on bare feet. This is comfort. And even Cookie our dog could be with us all day and night. I know it might sound strange to many people how we celebrated our wedding but to us it felt so right! We had a friend taking the pictures which made everyone comfortable also in front of the camera. We ended up dancing in our living room and chatting along until 2 am.
After all we learned that you really have to listen to yourself and your partner and find the way that is right for you. More interesting thoughts on this can be found here.
The next day we left for the Seychelles to enjoy our honeymoon. The islands are truly like paradise and we indulged in the luxury of some amazing hotels and enjoyed the beauty of the nature and the friendliness of the people. During our honeymoon we got the bad news that our dog had again a discus hernia and needed another surgery. Within only 13 months, the same thing happened again! From that moment on of course our honeymoon was not the same anymore but we were anyway glad to know what was going on with Cookie. My mum luckily realised immediately what was going on and contacted the right people. First we thought of flying back home to be there with her but then we realised that it wouldn’t help anyone. My mum would have surely regretted having told us and for Cookie probably it wouldn’t have made a big difference.
My mum took great care of her and they know each other so well and she fully trusts her. Two days later Cookie was in surgery and thanks to only 2 hours time difference, we were able to check on the status often and spoke to my mum daily. As soon as we knew that she was okay after the surgery, we were able to enjoy the honeymoon again but of course you keep a heavy heart until you get back home. The worst was, that we weren’t able to support my mum in all this. It was also weird to be exposed to these sad thoughts during the most happy time of our life. As so often in life, joy and sadness lie very close to each other. Now, three months later, Cookie is able to walk again well but it clearly was worse than after the first surgery she had. Now we can only pray that this was the last time she (and us) had to go through this and we try to avoid things that could worsen her anyway ugly back.
And then we also kept ourselves also busy with this. In February we finally closed the deal over the piece of land that we bought in Apulia in the South of Italy where Mr. C’s roots lie. In June we started to rebuild our ‘Trullo’ a cone-shaped house that will become our vacation home. Another very exciting project that we will blog about! And already now we can’t wait to host our house warming party with a larger number of guests. Promised!
