The Wedding!

Well, I know not everyone could make it to the wedding. so i'll recount it on here. It's really early in the morning...I think. Well, Jacob is sleeping and it's still dark outside. My time is so messed up that i don't even know what's going on right now, but i think i just slept for a really long time and before Jacob wakes and we go explore Turkey I figured i'd pay my internet friends a visit and inform you about the wedding. sit back and relax cause it'll be long.

So, we'll begin with the night before. We all rode to my grandmother's house in the country where we decided earlier that we'd be married in their local synagogue. it was the perfect setting for a wedding- NOT! well, i mean, it was really pretty, but it was still pouring rain which was no fun. Everyone sort of went their separate ways at that point, we had a small rehearsal dinner which was nice, and then i had to say goodbye to Jacob. We had a big all girls sleepover at my grandmother's house. We ate lots of fattening foods and my grandmother decorated me with henna. it's a Persian tradition, and my great-grandmother Leila taught my grandmother Wendy, who taught me, and so if I ever have a daughter i'll be sure to teach her how to henna too and i'll be doing it for her wedding. My hands and feet were so pretty looking :) that's another part of the wedding- we involved all the cultures of our families, the Persian traditions, the American traditions, the French traditions, the Jewish traditions, the English traditions, the Maori/New Zealand traditions... So We listened to crazy music and then the older women left and the younger ones watched one of my all time favorite movies- Paris Je t'aime!! The people who hadn't seen it before were saying "Ah, we are going to have enough sappy romance tomorrow, why watch this movie?" but they didn't realize that the amazingness of Paris Je'taime is that it's about all types of love, not just a romantic love. everyone who hadn't seen it loved it :) my cousin Nathalie made special avocado face masks for everybody, but then Aurélie was like "EVERYBODY SHUT UP FOR ONE SECOND!!!" so we all looked at her, and she was clutching her stomach! we all pretty much started screaming and calling her husband and getting her into a car. the baby wasn't supposed to come till April! Her husband came and got her and then they went to the hospital (turns out it was just a false alarm). So we had a nice time that evening, although I was still really ill and we stayed up way too late. Nathalie woke up at about 9 am and shouted and started shaking everyone because we forgot to set an alarm clock! how dumb. Everyone was freaking out over me, shaving my legs and tweezing my eyebrows and curling my hair. I was sooo sick. I felt like i was hit by a truck, so they gave me a bunch of pills (haha, luckily it did not turn out like the wedding in Sixteen Candles! oh my gosh) Lots of fluff and commotion, and somehow i made it into my dress. My mother and grandmothers came in sometime at that point and i'm pretty sure my grandmother was hung over, but they were all crying except my mother who was actually getting angry at me for not taking medicine the day before, haha. Some more old women who i'm not really sure of came in and blessed me and pinched my cheeks like they do. Then we all hopped into the car, running from the rain, and a nice man drove us to the place. Everyone was acting really strange and nervous, but i wasn't. i really just wanted it over with. When i came out of the car I started to run, but my freaking six inch heel snapped! i completely twisted my ankle! I screamed and almost fell in the mud, haha, but then all the ladies screamed louder and caught me.

So I went to this back room until everyone was situated with my sister and sweet little Prune who was the flower girl. I curled her hair into blonde little ringlets and pinned her ring of flowers on her head- she was soooo adorable! she definitely stole the show. so when the time came i had to of course do my walk down the aisle. the traditional Jewish music played and out i came! Everyone was crying which for some reason made me want to laugh really hard, so i had a really strange facial expression because i was trying to contain myself from busting a gut. My dad walked me down the aisle. So when I saw Jacob for the first time it was pretty much the "fairy tale" moment of the whole wedding, he looked so happy and i felt so happy and i almost cried because he almost cried...it was cute. but then i noticed he was wearing a yarmulke? haha, i was so confused from where he got that. so the ceremony went on, we said our vows and my favorite part that i have been dreaming about since i was little... everyone shouted MAZEL TOV! Jacob successfully smashed the wine glass with his foot (we were a bit worried) and we kissed, yay! Then the music played us out and when we were walking down the steps i twisted the same ankle again, and so i shouted out a curse word in English and the few people that heard gasped, haha. so Jacob had to carry me to the car, and needless to say i tossed those magical six inch heels out the window.

The best part i knew would be the reception. i just really wanted to let loose and dance the night away and eat lots of good food. so before we did that we needed our pictures, and this wonderful photographer guy that was friends with my cousin comes with a little digital camera! ("I'll be sure to make you an awesome cd of your pictures!") haha, it was ok though, he was sweet. so then we went to the reception area where everyone was and so then we ate Bamiehs and croquembouche and then my grandmother got us a little piece of cake like they do in America, and we smashed it in each others face. then we had our first dance. first of all, let me say that the DJ was completely nuts in all the best ways, he had a rainbow mohawk and moved like Iggy Pop. He played really great music though. THEN at the end, my grandfather Léon took the microphone to give us the special blessing, but he announced that our special gift was that we are going to have to stay in Paris near the family for the rest of our lives- they got us the apartment across the way above Emaline and Mathieu's! i started crying. It was like a dream! eventually we realized it was really late...people had started kissing us goodbye, until we realized that our DJ was packing up too! but then some of my friends and cousins gave us the idea to go out to a bar because heck we couldn't go home just yet. So we went out to this great music bar there which was filled with people, but it was really fun because you would think that Jacob and I should have been the drunk ones, but no, everyone else was, haha. Jacob did get a little brave though with the help of some bubbly and even went on stage during karaoke and borrowed some nice man's guitar and dedicated a song to me which was sweet and everyone awwwd. he played some of my favorites, heaven by bryan adams and she will be loved by maroon 5. it was nearly morning by that point, most of the people had started scattering, and Jacob and I weren't really sure where we were supposed to go...haha. All of the places were full. So we just sat in the rain for awhile and recounted the wedding and how nice it was. Then the sun was beginning to rise so we went back to my grandmother's and my grandfather Thierry was up so we sat with him and he made us breakfast. i wasn't really tired even though i hadn't slept in forever. Jacob had a cat nap on the couch though.

So our flight left midmorning so we already had everything packed and we got ready for the flight, we kissed our families goodbye and flew over. It's lovely here.

I'm such a lucky girl to be able to find just one person who i love. It's like all of the rough stuff leading up to this wonderful moment was so worth it, worth all the tears and all the pain because now i couldn't be happier. I'm madly in love, I hope the newlywed stage lasts forever and ever.

Thinking of all of you, i'll be back in a few days :) Thanks for all of the blessings!

Love,
Mrs. Amélie Croixet (ah, so weird!)