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May 30th, 2010, After

We have A LOT to catch up on! We’ve been away in Bohol and Bali for alot of the past three weeks, Kate and Gavin flew in from Hong Kong in between to visit us and now have Aunt Daf and Uncle Meej here. But before we get to all that we just need to wrap up May 30th 🙂 It was a long and special day so just a couple more details to share and then I can fill you in on our packed and exciting month.

After our ceremony Randy and I took a couple minutes to be alone and talk about the ceremony and our days. It was so nice to have a little time alone with him.

Randy took this time to tell me the bad news…when he had arrived he saw they had taken it upon themselves to set up a margarita machine. He was adorably so worried that I would be upset about this rogue margarita machine that he had told them to be ready to take it down at a minutes notice. I thought it was so cute he was so worried that I would be upset. I quickly told him I loved it and in the end it was such a great addition. People loved it and since it was a hot night A LOT of margaritas were consumed.

The only picture I have of the violating margarita machine- who wouldn’t love this guy.

The rest of our guests headed right down to the lower area where the cocktail hour was. We had our wedding and reception in a completely open beautiful place called The Island which was on a cliff overlooking the Mediterranean. It was split into three layers. Right when you walked in was a huge tree and a tiled floor. After the ceremony people walked down to the next layer which had a bar and was where the cocktail hour was. After that people walked down to the lowest part which was grass and closest to the cliff. This is where we ate dinner and danced.

This picture shows how it was set up. Where the benches are is where the ceremony was and then where the people are is the next level where cocktail is and beyond the people is where the tables were set up. It was so big an area that wherever we were was more than big enough for our 60 guests and it never felt crowded.

We had a guitar player play music during our ceremony and during cocktail hour. He played old Spanish music (a la Andres Segovia). I loved the cocktail hour. We got to talk to everyone, take a ton of pictures and enjoy the beautiful sunset.

They served these fun champagne kir royales that I completely forgot about until I saw this picture.

But some people went straight to the hard stuff. I love how the boys started cocktail hour with some whiskey. Go hard or go home, right? Perhaps that’s why some of them ended up skinny dipping at 4 am down the cliff from the wedding 🙂

Thanks to these guys, everyone was kept well hydrated.

Erika and Henry who are getting married next year in France! After our wedding they went to Folegandros, where we’re dying to go. Maybe we’ll go after their wedding!

Taking pictures with Anthony and Amanda.

Mom and my cousin’s wife Natassa

I love this picture of Roman, he’s so teeny here and drinking water from a big boy glass. This was always Adam’s favourite thing to do at this age too.

Playing with Uncle Randy’s boutonniere.

Where oh where is my coke?

The boys probably playing a long winded game of What if 🙂

My brother Ari and my brother in law MJ

Me and Randy’s step sister Nagla who came all the way from Egypt with her dad.

Kate fixing my bra which was showing. She also figured out how to put the flower in my hair perfectly. Some people just have a knack.

George enjoying a smoke. Bart really loved taking pictures of him smoking, but look at him- he’s a natural.

Me with Hania and her mom, Bassant.

Jenny, Stella and Elianna

Sneaking a cuddle with Roman.

My mom and her good friend Pauline, who flew all the way from New York with my mom for a short four day trip! That’s love.

Me and Randy with George and Despina, Elianna’s parents. I spent many summers in Greece sleeping over their house and getting up to all sorts of no good with Elianna. I love them like family and it was so great to have them there.

With Megan, Dave and John. Andrew must have been sleeping. Since this pic, baby Mary has joined the scene and baby number 4 is on the way!

Shawn, Sandra and Roman

Megan and Andrew talking with Ari

Us with Sandra, and Randy’ four cousins and aunt who all flew from Egypt for our wedding.

A great picture of Randy and his mom

My sister and brother

Roman cuddles

As would only happen with Greeks, Elianna of course knew the DJ.

A pretty amazing start to the night.

May 30th, 2010 – After, After

After cocktail hour we all headed down to sit down and have dinner. I loved the way this was set up. There were two ladies with clipboards who told everyone what table they were at. Since we had three long tables, Randy and I spent a long time deciding where everyone should sit. We had assigned seating and I think it worked out really well. We wanted everyone to sit near people that they would like talking to and enjoy meeting and feel comfortable with.

We all sat down and it was time for speeches.

Sandra went first and gave a wonderful speech. I wish I still had it. It was funny and sweet and everyone loved it.

Next my little sister was up. Even when I think about her speech now it brings tears to my eyes. She did such a great job. She sent me a copy of her speech so here it is.

I know most of you, but for those of you I don’t know, I’m Daphne, Fotini’s sister. Many of you have had the pleasure of getting to know Fotini through the years, and I’m lucky enough to say that I’ve been blessed with that privilege my whole life.

Fotini has always been there for me, in any way I needed her to be. When I was sick and miserable traveling through Europe, Fotini babied me like a mother would. When I dated a boy who needed it, she was threatening like a father figure. On my first night away at college, she was the perfect older sibling, sneaking me and my roommates into a dive bar, and more importantly not laughing at us when we ordered amaretto sours. And when I was ready, she forgot about all of that and treated me like an equal and a best friend. Fo, you’re an amazing person I would love whether you were family or not, and you’re happiness means the world to me.

Now I think all of you know that Randy and Fo have been a part of each others lives since long before they started dating. The first time I remember hearing the name Randy Ali, I was in the 4th grade and my much cooler older sister had just returned from a band trip to Albany. Yes I just said band trip and cool in the same sentence. At that time, most of my intel on Fotini’s personal life came from sitting outside her bedroom door and hoping she wouldn’t notice. But on this very rare occasion, Fotini, with a giant smile plastered across her face, told me all about the cute boy she had spent the 5 hour bus trip talking to. They didn’t date then, but they became friends, and over the years I began to realize something. There seemed to be only one boy capable of making my sister giddy enough to confide in a 10 year old, or spend an entire summer in Greece dissecting a kiss between friends. Or that could cause her to drag me to an internet cafe at least once a day in Barcelona so that she could share every detail of our trip with him. Only one boy who’s name alone would always bring a huge smile to Fo’s face.

Randy, you’ve felt like family for a long time, but I’d like to take this opportunity to officially welcome you to our family, we’re unbelievably lucky to have you. And I’d like to thank you for all the smiles you’ve put on Fotini’s face through the years, and for giving me the gift of a lifetime of Fotini smiles like that one I saw on her face 15 years ago.

Cheers
Stin igia sas
and
Mabrouk

After speeches it was time for a yummy dinner. You have to love Greece, I requested a vegetarian meal for my brother who doesn’t eat meat and my friend Gabby who is kosher. They served them shrimp….luckily they were both good sports about it. The rest of us lucky folks got to eat fillet.

Since a Greek wedding goes on until 5 am I didn’t feel any pressure time wise and dinner was just the right tempo. It just naturally happened that we started walking around and loved the chance to talk to everyone. With only 60 guests we were able to hang out with each person and talk for a bit.

After the first course was served we got up for our dance. Our song was Can’t Take My Eyes Off

Of You by Lauryn Hill. I knew this would be our song even before we got engaged. We had gone to a karaoke dinner for our friends Matt and Suzie in London and as much as I begged Randy he wouldn’t get up with me to sing that song (side note, since they Randy has become a lot more loose with his karaoke songs). When we got home that night I came into the living room after putting my pjs on and Randy had put that song on for me and sang it for me. I loved every second of it and knew it was meant to be our song.

I was all for winging our dance, but my wiser husband insisted we take some lessons. We found a Polish dance instructor at a dance studio and went 5 times and loved it. It was so much fun. Our dance was far from perfect but we had fun doing it. Randy tried to convince me to continue taking dance lessons after our wedding but we never did.

But first we had to get these cuties off the dance floor.

It was a hard act to follow but we were up next.

After our dance everyone came up to give us hugs and kisses and we all ended up staying on the dance floor and dancing. I loved the impromptu dance party before we had even had our mains!

Eventually the Island coordinator came over and said that if we didn’t get people to eat their mains there would be some very intoxicated people by 9 pm. So we all sat down and finished our yummy meal.

After dinner it was cake time. I had early on decided I didn’t want a wedding cake. We had a full dessert buffet with all sorts of cakes. I figured I would use one of these and cut it.

Two days before the wedding we went to the Island to finalize all the details and the manager there asked me about the cake. She said the chef kept asking about the Theodoraki torta. Everyone wanted to know where the Theodoraki torta was.

Randy got excited and said he would love a cake and on top of that it was free 🙂 Got to love Greece. So we decided to have a cake. Who am I to deny my husband to be. I had gotten sparklers for all our guests to light for the cake and it was one of my favourite moments of the wedding. Everyone lit their sparklers and came up to watch us cut the cake.

Here is the Theodoraki torta in all its glory.

May 30th, 2010- During

Randy and I spent a long time writing our ceremony and thinking about what we wanted to say. We had been talking about it for so long and thinking about it and a month before the wedding we still hadn’t written anything. We finally had some good weather on a weekend in London and walked over to Regent Park. We sat there on the grass for hours and wrote the whole ceremony. It was another one of those perfect weather, blue sky, warm London days that anyone reading this blog would think happened all the time but was actually so rare.

We asked Shawn, Randy’s brothers in law to officiate the ceremony and it was the best choice. With lots of experience reporting he spoke clearly and kept everyone interested. Everyone loved it. Randy’s best friend Miguel was his best man.

My mom and Youssey walked down the aisle first. This is another one of my favourite pictures.

Then Randy’s sister walked down with Roman. Then Daphne, who was my maid of honor of course, walked down.

Then Hania, my beautiful flower girl. Her adorable brother decided to join in.

Then it was my turn. I remember hardly anything of walking down the aisle except wanting to get to the end. I was nervous but once I saw this face I remember immediately feeling calm.

We thought a lot about what readings we wanted to have read. We finally came across the book Extract from Adam’s Diary, by Mark Twain. It is a satirical telling of Adam and Eve relationship from Adam’s point of view. We both thought it was different and funny and talked about love in a different way and was perfect for our ceremony.

We had Puraj read this:

Monday

This new creature with the long hair is a good deal in the way. It is always hanging around and following me about. I don’t like this; I am not used to company. I wish it would stay with the other animals…Cloudy today, wind in the east; think we shall have rain…WE??? Where did I get that word? …I remember now – the new creature uses it.

Ten Years Later

After all these years, I see that I was mistaken about Eve in the beginning; it is better to live outside the Garden with her than inside it without her. At first I thought she talked too much; but now I should be sorry to have that voice fall silent and pass of my life.

Blessed be that fallen apple that brought us near together and taught me to know the goodness of her heart and the sweetness of her spirit!

And Gabby read this:

After the Fall

The Garden is lost., but I have found him, and am content. He loves me as well as he can; I love him with all the strength of my passionate nature, and this, I think, is proper to my youth and gender. If I ask myself why I love him, I find I do not know, and do not really care to know; so I suppose this kind of love is not a product of reasoning and statistics, like one’s love for other reptiles and animals. I think this must be so.

I love certain birds because of their song; but I do not love Adam on account of his singing – no, it is not that;

The more he sings the more I do not get reconciled to it. Yet I ask him to sing because I wish to learn to like everything he is interested in. I am sure I can learn, because at first I could not stand it, but now I can stand it. It sours the milk, but it doesn’t matter, I could get used to that kind of milk.

It is not on account of his brightness that I love – no, it is not that. He is not to blame for his brightness, such as it is, for he did not make it himself; he is as God made him, and that is sufficient. There was a wise purpose in it; that I know. In time it will develop, though I think it will not be sudden; and, besides, there is no hurry; he is well enough just as he is.

It is not on account of his education that I love him. No, it is not that. He is self-educated, and does really know a multitude of things, but they are not so.

Then why is it that I love him? Merely because he is masculine, I think. At bottom he is good, and I love him for that, but I could love him without it. He is strong and handsome, and I love him for that, and I admire him and I am proud of him, but I could love him without these qualities. If he were plain, I should love him; if he were a wreck I should love him; and I would work for him, and pray for him and watch by his bedside until I died.

And so I think it is as I first said; that this kind of love is not a product of reasonings and statistics. It just comes – no one knows whence – and cannot explain itself. And doesn’t need to.

We each chose a poem to read.

I chose “Marriage is”, which was written by a Chinese author in the first century.

Here is what I said about choosing that poem;

I have chosen this poem because it reminds me why I want to spend the rest of my life with you as my husband. Each and every day that I have spent with you, you have challenged me to become a better, more rounded, calmer person. You help me be the person I have always desired to be and I can only hope I am able to do the same for you.

Marriage is a dynamic process of discovery

Marriage is a journey, not an arrival.

In marriage, being the right person is as important

as finding the right person.

Marriage is starting to love, over and over again.

Marriage is a life’s work.

Marriage is an art ….. and like any creative process,

It requires active thought and effort.

We have to learn how to share on many different levels.

We need to practice talking from the heart,

And understanding attitudes as well as words.

Giving generously and receiving graciously

are talents that are available to anyone.

But all these skills need to be developed,

if the marriage picture that we paint is to be anything

approaching the masterpiece intended.

Randy chose Love One Another by Khalil Gibran.

Here is what he said about why he chose this poem:

This poem means a lot to me. It encapsulates perfectly my view that real love is meant to facilitate each person’s spiritual growth, not overpower either person’s individuality. You, more than anyone, understand that. You are giving when I need your care and attention, you are sensitive when it is time for self-reflection and distance. It is a delicate balance. One that we have practiced a great deal and will hopefully have the chance to master.

Love one another, but make not a bond of love

Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.

Fill each other’s cup, but drink not from one cup.

Give one another of your bread, but eat not from the same loaf.

Sing and dance together and be joyous,

but let each one of you be alone,

Even as the strings of a lute are alone

though they quiver with the same music.

Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping;

For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.

And stand together yet not too near together;

For the pillars of the temple stand apart,

And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.

Then it was time for the ring exchange.

And a kiss.

And we were done!

May 30th, 2010 – Before

3 years ago (and give or take the month it took me to write this) I woke up at the Margi in Athens next to my sister and got ready to marry my best friend. My best friend since high school. The person I moved across the pond with and the person I already knew would be the best father to our children.

I was pretty excited, as you can imagine! It was a beautiful sunny day in Athens and it was my wedding day.

I headed to the spa with my mom, sister, Kate and Gabby. One of the perks of getting married in Greece was that the wedding could on until 5am, so we were able to start the ceremony late at 6pm. This meant I didn’t have to get ready until after 12 so we had all morning to hang out in the Jacuzzi and the balcony of the spa at the Astir.

Then it was back to our suite to get ready. Not a bad place to get your makeup done. Ah Greece, I had a makeup trial that ended in half of my eyelid being painted blue and the other half left plain…this was the interpretation of a natural look. At least there was a trial, where all these kinks were worked out.

And luckily I had lots of eyes watching.

And everyone was pleased with the results.

It was so much fun getting ready with everyone. I loved every minute.

Meanwhile downstairs in a non suite room…

I made Randy an album of 100 reasons why I loved him. He loved it and I love seeing these pictures of him looking at it. I wasn’t there since we didn’t see each other before the wedding but the pictures made it clear he loved it.

Meanwhile back in the suite..

Megan and John stopped by the say hello while I was getting my hair done. I loved how people stopped by all day to say hi and hang out.

This is one of my favourite pictures. It’s right after I put my veil on and the look on their faces is just the cutest.

Gabby and Kate decided the flower girl basket needed some dressing up and decorated it with ribbons and flowers. I’m so glad they were bored in the suite and needed something to do 🙂

Here is Kate trying to convince me it’s ok to take off all of my clothes to get my dress on in front of the two male photographers…

Such a cute flower girl!

This pictures makes me feel like POTUS from West Wing with my two advisors behind me.

Here’s the real star of the show 🙂 Baby Roman. How is he going to four this August!!?

I love the randomness of this picture. Everyone is in their own complete moment. It’s almost like it was staged.

Here we are waiting for our cabs. The only snafu of the night was that our rides didn’t show up so we had to take cabs to the ceremony. It’s pretty great that this was the only thing that went wrong!

Rainy Sunday In Our Pajamas

Visitors

Don’t worry people, more wedding posts are coming! But we’re away this week in Bohol, a beautiful island. In the meantime here are some amazing pictures from our friends Joel and Sarah’s visit.

Our friends Joel and Sarah came to visit us this past week. It was so nice to have them here. Visitors here are so special since we’re so far from home and it takes people two days to get all the way over here. It always feels like a little bit of home when people are visiting and we love it. We got to do tons.

We went to a yummy Filipino meal.

Yummy fried Tilapia

Randy’s favourite vegetables Gising, Gising

Joel’s attempt to get a picture of me shovelling food into my mouth.

Halo, Halo. The most popular Filipino desert. Consists of ice, condensed milk and whatever dried fruit and starch they have lying around.

We went sightseeing.

Photo by Joel

Photo by Sarah.

Playing with Adam.

Photo by Joel

We celebrated Sarah’s birthday.

Sarah and Joel then flew to El Nido, an island chain out west and took a five day boat trip. Randy was jealous the whole time, until they returned and told us about the two typhoons the captain and crew had to navigate around. Joel is an amazing photographer. Here are some of his pictures from their trip.

The trip sounded amazing even with the typhoons.

Upon return we spent a lazy weekend in the pool, eating and drinking. Not a bad way to spend a weekend.

Photo by Joel

When asked, Joel and Sarah’s top three about the Philippines are-

1) Fresh Fish

2) Filipino beer

3) Everyone speaks English

May 29th, 2010

This morning had a slow start after the night before’s activities. Once we were up and moving Daphne and I headed out to get our nails done. Only in Greece would we end up at a lady’s house where her and her friend would take FOUR HOURS to give us mani/pedis. Only in Greece would the lady tell me it was too bad I hadn’t waxed my mustache as it was too late now the day before my wedding, only in Greece would this morning end up being so much fun and let me have some along time with Daphne.

We finally made it home and spent another lazy afternoon by the pool. Then it was upstairs to get ready for our rehearsal and dinner. My mom came to help iron Randy’s shirt….I knew Randy was for sure the person for me to marry when he didn’t even get upset (or at least didn’t show it) when my mom accidentally burned his shirt. Luckily it turned out to be a little smudge from the iron that came off but I still remember how amazed I was at how calm Randy was about the whole thing.

We headed off to the Island, where the wedding would take place the next day and rehearsed the ceremony with our friends.

Then we all got into cabs and headed to downtown Athens for our Welcome Dinner. Since almost all of our guests had travelled so far for our wedding, we invited everyone to a dinner the night before.

We had decided to have dinner at Kuzina, a restaurant located right under the Acropolis. When we first started looking for a restaurant to host a dinner the night before, Kuzina was the first place our Greek scout- aka Elianna recommended. I proceeded to cross it off my list because all of our guests wouldn’t fit on the roof for dinner. After looking at 50 more restaurants we came back to Kuzina. It had the best vibe of all the restaurants we had looked at and was on my favourite street in Athens. I’ve always loved sitting outside at a café having a coffee and seeing the Acropolis and the ruins with train tracks running straight through. I also just asked the owner if we could have drinks on the terrace for sunset and then head down for dinner and he said of course 🙂

We stopped and picked up Bart, our amazing wedding photographer, on the way to dinner so the pictures below are all his and are amazing!

Walking to dinner (the balloons were not going to the rehearsal dinner, we just happened to be behind them)

Once we arrived at Kuzina we realized we had forgotten all the presents for our family in the car…so Randy had to run back and pick them up and get all sweaty while Bart took some fun pictures of me.

Megan who made it to Greece with a two year old and a three month old and never stopped smiling the whole weekend!

I forgot until I saw this picture today how enthralled with Hania, our flower girl, John was. It reminds me so much of Adam now who is obsessed with older boys and girls. And they’re holding hands, swoon.

Randy + the boys + Miguel (who now also lives in California with the boys and I guess is officially one of the boys as well)

Miguel giving his wonderful, funny speech

Thanking Elianna for her countless hours of research for a Greek venue, restaurant, hair dresser, makeup artist….etc!

Gabby’s amazing speech! We were so lucky to have two friends who we both love so much that came all the way to Greece and took the time to write such wonderful speeches.

We had family style Greek food and it was delicious. I would go back to this restaurant next time I’m in Athens! After a yummy dinner, a couple speeches and toasts and wine it was sadly time to leave. Our friends moved on to another bar but it was home for the bride and the groom so we could be rested for our big day. Of course by the time we got home, practiced our dance a couple of times and reminisced about the evening it was already 2:30! I said goodnight to my groom and slept with my sister for my last night before our wedding.

Later that evening, somewhere in Athens….

May 28th, 2010

We arrived to Greece on Wednesday which was the best decision since our wedding was Sunday and this gave us 6 days to enjoy. Due to some good planning and organization, by the time we left we had hardly anything left to do for the wedding and were able to relax for two days before all the wedding activities began.

Thursday we headed off to get massages at the Astir, a beautiful old hotel which was right near where we were staying, the Margi. We decided to stay at the Margi over the Astir because it was more affordable for all our friends and family and it felt younger and hipper than the Astir. But for a massage the Astir is where it’s at.

Here’s our view while we were enjoying our after massage tea.

Thursday night we went out with my brother Ari and the boys who had made it alive from London. We found a souvlaki place which was walking distance from the hotel and had amazing souvlaki (not the most amazing feat since there is an amazing souvlaki place every other block in Athens). We walked over there for dinner and got ready for the weekend to begin. Almost everyone was flying in late Thursday or Friday. Friday morning we woke up and headed down to the pool at the Margi. We spent the day swimming, tanning and greeting all our friends and family who trickled in. Not a bad way to spend the day before your wedding.

Two of our youngest and cutest guests.

Friday night we had a family dinner at a fish restaurant called Sardelles in Gazi, a grittier area of Athens but full of fun restaurants and bars. The food was amazing and it was so nice to sit with all of our family and have some time to catch up. The best part about this wedding was having all of our family in one spot. This doesn’t happen too often.

I also loved that our wedding was in Athens. Little known fact. I actually at first said no to having our wedding in Greece, but Randy kept bringing it up. I just couldn’t imagine an island wedding and I think that’s because most of my time in Greece over my life has been spent in Athens. Athens is on the grittier side but has so much charm and character. I was so happy in the end that we chose to get married in Athens and loved every aspect of our wedding and every place we chose. It was amazing to be able to celebrate with all my friends and family somewhere where I had spent so much time growing up and had such a connection to. I loved introducing Athens to everyone and I hope people left thinking what a great city it is.

Sardelles is behind us. We sat out on the sidewalk like locals.

I have yet to find the version of this picture where we’re all in a line and looking at the camera, but this one is my favourite because in the middle of all the chaos, Randy and I are so happy and calm.

Cousin Roman when he was younger than Adam is now!

After dinner all the kids headed off to Gazaki, an awesome rooftop bar that I had been to a couple of times and have always loved. It was perfect. Anyone who was already in town wandered over. We planned on staying for a couple hours and heading home so we would be fresh for Saturdays activities. However, we ended up staying until 4 and being one of the last to leave 🙂

I love looking at these pictures.

Randy and his best man, Miguel, who got married the week before and still came all the way to Greece!

Rakan, Yomi, Jenn and Jenny. Rakan and Jenn came all the way from London and are having their first baby any second now and Yomi and Jenny came all the way from Lagos and are getting married any minute now.

Elianna and Katya, reunited after bonding in Miami at my bachelorette!

Daphne and Brooke

Brooke &Puraj- two thirds of the boys, MJ and Elianna

Kate!

Miguel, Monica, Kate, Jenny and Daphne (who in case you can’t tell from the pictures had A VERY hard time waking up to get her nails done with me the next morning 🙂

What an amazing night. One of my dreams is to live in a building with all of my friends (um yes, I guess that would be kind of like college dorm) and this weekend was pretty close. This night was so much fun. There was no wedding stuff to be done, just a good meal to eat and drinks to be had.

I loved having the time to hang out with people all day by the pool, during lunch and then all night. I loved walking through the hotel and running into people that we knew. I loved going to a big dinner outside of yummy Greek food with all of my loved ones and I loved spending all night talking to my friends, watching some of them meet for the first time, some of them say hello after a long time and everyone having so much fun.

May 23, 2010

One week before our wedding in Greece our wedding photographer (who was from Poland) happened to be in London. This would have been extremely lucky, as we wanted to take some pictures before the wedding in London before the wedding, but Bart, the photographer, was coming in for another wedding and had no time. A week before he was due to come out he let us know that the wedding in London had been postponed (I would have felt sad for them but it was postponed not cancelled) and it was our good luck. Bart had a ticket to London and tons of free time so we had him take pictures of us in some of our favourite London spots. We’ll always remember London as where we really cemented our lives together, got engaged, planned our wedding, started our married lives together and found out we were pregnant with Adam so I love having these pictures to remind me of that time.

As a brief aside, Randy’s friends, the boys as we like to call them, Puraj, Brooke and Zeb came through London on their way to Greece for our wedding. We had to take them out Saturday night of course, the night before we had planned to take pictures with Bart. It is a miracle that after the late night that ensued we were able to get up, get dressed and take these pictures.

I remember when Randy first told me the boys were coming through London five days before we were leaving for Greece to get married I was worried it would be too hectic. But it ended up being so much fun having them there and helped us start to celebrate our wedding even earlier. It also reminded us how lucky we were to have so many friends who travelled so far to come to Greece for our wedding.

The boys in London

We did manage to make it to our pictures and they came out amazing!

Oh London, I’m really missing you this week!

May 15, 2010

Since our third wedding anniversary just passed I decided I would spend a couple of days reminiscing. Anyone who tunes in for Adam pics…they’ll be back soon 🙂 here he was a a not so distant twinkle in our eye.

Randy and officially got married in London two weeks prior to our wedding in Greece. It was too tricky to get married in Greece legally (although we still celebrate that day as our anniversary) and it ended up being one of those perfect London day where all the stars aligned. The weather was miraculously sunny and there were clear blue skies. Timing worked our perfectly for our friends Gabby and Lev, who were enroute to Greece for our wedding, to take the red eye from California and arrive that morning just so they could be there for us and be our witnesses along with our other good friends Gavin and Kate.

It made it more fun and less nerve racking to have Gabby and Lev around getting ready with us. It was all a little surreal that morning. We had a yummy breakfast at home once Gabby and Lev arrived and then we all got ready.

Our registry wedding (what they call City Hall in London) was at Marylebone Registry, it was about a ten minute walk but since we were in heels we opted for a cab.

Ready to get married!

Gabby and Lev got married six months later so they were ready to get married here too!

We were there a little early and took some pictures in the ‘Blue Room’. We got to choose our room and chose the smallest one since it was only going to be six of us. The ceremony was short and sweet. We were both pretty nervous and excited.

http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?videoUrl=http://redirector.googlevideo.com/videoplayback?id%3Dc17f1b0a3eba1584%26itag%3D5%26source%3Dpicasa%26cmo%3Dsensitive_content%253Dyes%26ip%3D0.0.0.0%26ipbits%3D0%26expire%3D1374816165%26sparams%3Did,itag,source,ip,ipbits,expire%26signature%3D9F42D744A7ED1F14A309CA15AE90028BF5126601.4594CAB36E58C036EFB7076FE576D3472BA65C02%26key%3Dlh1

Our witnesses!

Our Marriage certificate!

Mr. and Mrs. Ali

Since it was only 10 am and we had another two hours until our lunch reservation we walked a couple of blocks to the Paddington Street Gardens, Randy’s favorite park in London.

What girl could ask for anything more. A beautiful sunny day where she gets to marry her best friend with the absolute two best girls by her side. I was on cloud nine the whole entire day. The day was one of those absolute perfect London days where its sunny and bright and you feel like you could do anything. I would have been happy just to spend the day with our friends but I also got to marry Randy.

I’m a lucky girl

After the park it was time for lunch. Following on our perfect London day we headed to our favorite lunch restaurant in London, Cecconis. It’s an old fashioned Italian restaurant and exactly the relaxed, classy, bloody mary vibe we were looking for.

For the finale, we spent the night in the Soho Hotel, an amazing hotel right in the heart of London. We had an amazing room with a full wall of glass windows and the best view.

This day will forever be my absolute favorite day in London. Writing about it makes me miss London and wish I could have another day like this one, but this was a once in a lifetime day for sure.