I DO, part 1

Okay so it's been a total chaos for the last three weeks. No time for blogging, but now I'm back and finally able to take a moment and sit down.

On July 22 2009, Tonny and I promised to love each other forever infornt of God and our families. That day was the most amazing day of my life - until now of course - and after that I felt so secure and at peace that the stress that awaited us in Tanzania couldn't even touch me.

After hitting the hairdresser's in the morning I went to my mother's place to get ready, and wait for Minna to do my make up. How lucky am I to have a sister with abilities that would scare the world famous make-up artists! She made me look more beautiful than I've ever felt like. Sooo much better than having a stranger who doesn't know me and my style doing it. The best thing at MOM's that day was that both Daniel (Minna's son) and Julianna (Aki's daughter) were there to keep my mind off of the ceremony. Julianna is usually so shy, but it was like she knew it's my special day and kept coming to see me and make me smile.

Aki's and his fancy car took me to the church and while I was hiding in there (and spying on people who were arriving :D ) my amazingly strong and long tempered maid of honor was getting everything settled inside.

Here's me arriving at the church... So nervous, but excited. The last moment being Maiju Kemppi.

I couldn't find a dress that I liked from the shop, so I bought one that was almost and had my mom glam it up a bit with pink decorations.

With all these preparations I felt so beautiful and Sooo ready to shock my groom...

Here we go..

During the ceremony Jaana, my maid of honor, and my best friend since we were kids, read a chapter from the bible that Tonny and I chose together with the priest.

Here's Tonny's boys - Adam as the best man, and John. They both were busy trying to compete on who looks the most handsome. In my opinion - they both rocked their suits.

The ceremony itself took a while, since our Priest, Father Matti Nikkanen, had enjoyed our talk few days before and felt like he wanted to share our thoughts and feelings with everyone. We spoke alot about what love is - what is means to us, and how it takes part in our everyday lives. He told us that there is two kinds of love - love of God and love of man. In the end he concluded on speaking that love is a virtue.

It was so nice of him to use our conversation during the ceremony. We were a little bit nervous about him, because he was the summer replacement of the usual priest who holds the Sunday mass, but the way he had listened to us and was able to bring it up in the wedding was perfect.

I loved every minute of it, but of course the moment of announcing us husband and wife was the most memorable.

Finalizing the vows with the rings.

I designed both of our rings. Tonny's has a little diamond on it, and mine was custom made so that it fits perfectly next to my beautiful engagement ring.

Just as perfectly as Tonny and I fit together.

We also had a sand ceremony to symbolize our union our union and the union of our families. Here is the poem that I wrote about it and what we were planning to say before it, if my wonderful but a little forgetful husband had remembered to bring it to the chruch.

Today is the first day of the rest of our lives.
Today we are bound by love.

Love is strength, Love is hope, Love is pain, and Love is joy.
Love is family, love is God and love is LOVE.

With this ceremony we join together, with this ceremony,
we become one.

Our families represent the foundation that
life has given us for this marriage, they represent us as
individuals.

They also give their support, love and faith to our life
together - with pouring of the sand, they bless us.

My sand represents my love for you. Your sand represents your love for me.
Today we are us. As the sand blends together we become one, and like the
mixture of the sand our love can not be parted.

Katja and Minna (with the kids of course) represented my family and Blandina and Patricia Tonny's. And then Tonny and I mixed our colors to symbolize our live's becoming one - and our love being one. As you can not separate two pieces of sand, we can not be separated either. It was something completely new in Finland, and we were lucky that the Priest loved the idea, but I am so glad we did it. Because now and everyday from now I look at the vase filled with all different colors I feel that every singe particle of sand is a representing the love we, and our families share.

After the unity sand Daniel totally made the day by shouting Kiitos paljon! (Thank you very much) just as we finished. Got to love that kid!!!

After the ceremony we decided not to rush away, but because we did not organize any party after the church in Finland, we wanted to share a moment with the people who came to witness our marriage.

We also went to my mom's for a while to share a glass of champagne with the best man and maid of honor and few other important people. After which we drove to Minna's where we had a joined celebration on our and Daniel's birthday.

The day ended with us running around the apartment quickly packing everything and jumping to the bus at 01:15 am. I don't think that I really hit us until we reached the Amsterdam airport that we are husband and wife now. (Truthfully I still sometimes say that I'm his girlfriend, so definitely it will take a while to get used to it.)

So here's the first set of pictures, and the first chapter on this story. I will get back to this as soon as I get the pictures from Tanzania in a digital form. We went to the beach in Tanzania after our church blessing and the pictures turned out so nice...