perfect

it was fabulous. amazing, extraordinary, wonderful, moving. i want to do it again next week!


to each their own; we just wanted a wedding that was genuine and warm and that's exactly what we got - in spite of the incredibly hard wind that was blowing over the netherlands. but for me that was awesome, because it kept my ankles cool and therefore, i could wear my wedding shoes. and my hairdresser is a god because my lame hair survived everything.


on thursday maarten left to spend the night at his mom's and my friend ellis came over to keep me company. we watched the eurovision song festival which was a hoot and i managed to get 5 hours of sleep that night. fortunately, on friday my adrenaline rush was so high i didn't feel sleepy until about 8 that evening.


friday morning, elvira and jeannette joined me and ellis and we all got dressed. my friend elvira was also our wedding planner and she did an outstanding job. she had planned all these little surprises throughout the day, that all fit us perfectly. she had decorated everything white and red with lots of balloons and red roses. her husband lend us his white MG A with red leather seats so that maarten could drive us to the ceremony, then to the reception and finally to the place where we had dinner with a few friends and our parents - all in my dream car.


the ceremony was relaxed, with short speeches from our friends mandy and jeannette. although i think for some people it wasn't short enough, because it was HOT in that room. we had visited marc in the revalidation home he's in now, prior to the ceremony, so that he could keep his promise to my dad to give me away. a special and intimate visit.


our moms did a speech together with funny anecdotes from our childhood, which was histerical. who knew my mom was such a terrific speaker? i certainly did not. and my friends, my amazing friends who had done so much to give us the best day possible... i can't even begin to put into words how much they mean to me and how much all their efforts mean to us.


the only thing that i really, really regret is that i brought the wrong music. i had selected cd's for during the reception and we accidently brought maarten's car cd wallet instead. which had like four cd's. one of them being metallica. uh-huh. now, everyone is telling me not to fret over this because no-one noticed and everything else went perfectly. but i know you guys understand my pain. and that i can never listen to metallica again without laughing and crying at the same time.


oh, oh, oh, the BEST part was when we left the restaurant, and they 'surprised' us with a "bakfiets", which is like a giant trunk on a bike and i had to get in the trunk and maarten had to peddle. my grandfather used to peddle around my grandmother, then pregnant with my mom, through the hague during the 2nd world war - fitting, eh? we thought this was the way we had to get to the hotel. fortunately, they stopped us halfway and i could get off the thing, which was wiggling like crazy.


anyway - i guess y'all need to see the pictures. coming up asap! and thanks for your well wishes and e-mails :).