Happy birthday to me!

I still haven't gotten the hang of being depressed because I'm another year older... I see it happen in other people, and I get it, but I have to say yet again -- my life gets better every single year I am alive.

Sure, there's stuff I'd like to do, and I wonder if I'll have the opportunity in this lifetime to do it... but whether I do or not, it doesn't change the fact that my life is freakin' awesome.

And this year, I have an amazing, awesome, terrific husband with whom to share my birthday.

And this year, I finally catch up with the age I was born... as Mom says I came out of the womb a 38-year-old midget, and I'm finally, finally 38. Of course, in many ways I'm much younger now than I was when I was born... so maybe I'm regressing. Whatever.

Here's a wedding picture for you hungry people :-)

More wedding stuff

Posting two days in a row -- must be a holiday or something. ;-)

So back to the wedding stuff...

After the pictures, I went back up into the hall. Shaul was sitting and speaking with the rav, and there was crazy loud music playing.

I should tell you that when we left to go do the pictures, the tables had been set up by my family, but there were no tablecloths, plates, etc. (Apparently they had tablecloths for a baby boy's brit milah [circumcision] ceremony, and A, my good friend, nixed that idea and let them know they needed to have more wedding-appropriate tableware.)

When we came back, the tables had been completely re-arranged, and they magically had place settings.

I guess it wasn't really magic -- it was the people at the hall, inspired by the loud music, who got things moving.

Yet both Shaul and I are very sensitive to loud noises, so the one moment that I turned into a demanding bride was when I insisted to the hall director that they turn down/off the music immediately. As he was trying to explain to me that it was only for their motivation purposes, I was trying to explain to him that the loud music hurt both my fiance and myself, and it needed to be turned down/off RIGHT NOW. He got the point, and they turned it off, thank G-d.

We were then a bit afraid, because instead of having place settings for 80, as we'd theoretically expected and set up for, suddenly we were down to 64. I guess it was fine, however -- I don't know that anyone left because there wasn't a seat for him/her, because somewhere around 10-20% of the people who had RSVP'd that they would be there did not, in fact, arrive.

In Israel, btw, a wedding of fewer than 100 people is considered almost miniscule. I had many friends who were hurt, I think, by not being invited... and, thank G-d, many more who were kind and understanding, and if they were hurt, they didn't show me at all.

Anyway, after the pictures, I needed to pray some before people started showing up. We were expecting people to start arriving around 11am, with the first part of the ceremony set to start at 11:30, or as close to that as possible.

In Israel, the time for the bride and groom to start greeting guests is usually one hour before the ceremony is supposed to start. Generally, the bride and groom are both ready to greet guests within a few minutes of the expected time, but the ceremony starts between 30-70 minutes later than the scheduled time. I was insistent that if G-d would send us exactly what/whom we needed for the ceremony to take place, it would start on time, and anyone who missed it would miss it. Because of Shaul's health situation, and both of our needs/desires to start things on time, as well as the fact that we were having our wedding while many people would be coming on their lunch breaks, we really wanted to start on time.

After I did my praying, it was a few minutes after 11. When I walked out of the tiny room I'd been in, there were almost no guests yet. I was doubting the possibility of starting on time. By 11:15ish, one of our witnesses had not yet arrived.

And suddenly, it was as if the floodgates had opened, and everyone showed up. I was busy giving blessings to people who asked for them, loving seeing such beautiful, holy friends and family come for our simcha (joyous occasion), and Shaul was busy signing the wedding contract with our witnesses.

I'll try to get pictures up soon... but for the moment, it's time to start getting ready for work.

More another day...

Um, okay, I'm married now...

My mom has been reminding me to update this blog -- guess time got away from me, as I was a teensy bit busy.

Even now, I don't have much time... I'm drinking my coffee, trying to wake up, while my husband (!) is at shul for morning prayers.

The last bit more than a month is something of a blur in many ways. The last few days before the wedding, I was going crazy trying to get everything done in time... I was making a Shabbat dinner for Shaul's family and mine - nine people - with almost everything made from scratch, because I'm a bit of a snob when it comes to food. And I figured it might be the only time I would have the opportunity to make Shabbat dinner for our families together, because it may not happen again in the future that everyone's in one place at the same time.

Shabbat day was spent with Shaul -- our last quiet time before the wedding. That evening, my amazing, beautiful, holy friend A came and picked me up from Shaul's and proceeded to kallah-sit (bride-sit) and take unbelievable care of me until after the wedding. I went to the mikveh (ritual bath) on Saturday night, then A sat up with me making lists and lists and lists, and running errands, and making sure everything was in order for the Big Day.

And the Big Day itself was amazing and beautiful, and I hope I can somehow remember it forever. I was spoiled in the hair/makeup chair, being taken great care of by two beautiful women who made me feel like a queen. I had a photographer from the time I got out of the taxi in the Old City, walking me through the alleyways on the way to the hall. Upon arrival at the hall, I pretty much promptly plopped myself in my queen's chair and didn't move, other than for pictures and praying.

Time for pictures was hilarious -- Shaul and I, followed by our families, made our way to the Kotel plaza, where we were photographed by hundreds of tourists. Some of the tourists -- from a Polish group -- kept coming up to us and congratulating us "congratulations! We are from Poland. Good luck to you!" etc. They kept following us around, until finally somehow they got the hint that we didn't actually want them in all of our wedding pictures. :)

Okay, that's it for now... coffee's done... I'll try to post more wedding story stuff, etc., over the course of the next few mornings.

It's not really a cliff-hanger, you know... I already told you I'm married :)