The story of our wedding, part I, can be found here.
It is the same day, 11am.
Let us piece the rest of the day, from various sources:
My feelings: of embarrassment, or rather pure terror. In my usual life, I smile and laugh a lot, especially in inappropriate moments. I was somehow convinced I was going to burst out with laughter, so pinching myself I sat, in a fixed uncomfortable position, throughout the ceremony. I remember nothing else.
Pawel, on the other hand, remembers clearly the voice and looks of the registrar. Apparently he had a shaved head.
His best friend remembers missing out on the ceremony by an hour (we had announced the wrong timings and he was arriving, by bus, from Poland).
My sister, who was just then finishing high school, remembers booking a cheap flight to come and see me soon after, and meet my husband for the first time. I was always curious what that first encounter told her, but she is a highly discreet and diplomatic personality, and I believe she chose to ignore the disorganisation of the day and poverty of ceremony. You see, the whole affair had been so rushed, that neither me, nor him were able to invite our parents. Little thought was given to wedding dress, wedding bouquet or post-wedding arrangements (but more on that, on the next post). We did not know much. In fact, all that we knew was that we needed to stay together, and the only way for that to happen was to get married. So get married we did.
What my sister did understand (as she has always been a precocious little sister) was that my story was one of choice. Of love.
Me and my husband had to stay on equally unfamiliar ground in order to be together. At least for a while. We both could go back, but that would have meant turning away from each other, and we chose not to.
Ours was a choice.
That choice led, a few years down the line, to three children and a lot of chaos. To changes of jobs, carriers and lifestyles hundred times over. There will be more on that, another time.
I have once again neglected to tell you why we had beans on toast and incidental Romanian wine and how we lost our marriage certificate.
Looks like we have to wait for part III, because this is it for today – or my internet connection will be cut short at the airbnb place we are staying.
Make sure to go check out #accountsthatcount on Instagram. Lots of amazing people changing the world on there.
You can find part III of my wedding story here.