Through the looking glass

I was talking to a lady at ballet class before the wedding and she shared an interesting thought about marriage. To paraphrase, she suggested that getting married is somewhat like going through the looking glass. Before you are married, you are looking ahead to the wedding, because it is a huge, life-changing event and something that you have been planning for a long time. In many ways, you do not look beyond the wedding. After you are married, you can look forward into what the rest of your life will be. You can look back through the looking glass and remember before you were married, but suddenly you do not see only the wedding ahead of you, you see your whole life.

Interesting, and very true. If nothing else has changed, my perspective certainly has. Oh, and my last name too. ;-)

Shutterbug

I have been obsessed with pictures over the last few days. Not only did we get our honeymoon pictures back, but we also (finally) got our wedding proofs.

Holy cow, folks. These pictures are incredible. And the lesson for the day is: find a photographer you like and who does really good work. Skimp on other parts of the wedding, like the flowers and the food. Nobody will remember what your flowers looked like or what they ate. You will always have your pictures. Get the best photographer you can possibly afford to get, even if it means cutting corners in other places.

The difficult part now is going to be deciding which proofs we don't want. I would say it is deciding which ones we do want, but I want just about them all. Unfortunately, at $10 a pop, I cannot afford to buy them all. (Yes, I know, it is expensive). I am dipping into my savings for this, however, because it is a one-time expense and I don't want to regret later not buying ones I really wanted because of money concerns. We do get a few enlargements with our package, but any other pictures that we want, we have to buy the proofs (or pay more than $10 each for enlargements).

The good news: the photographer now has online proofing, which means that I can send y'all the website and you can see the pics! (You can even order a few if you like, but of course you can look for free.) I am picking my favorite 100 proofs or so to post (this is about 1/3 to 1/4 of what he took, but in my opinion, they are the best ones.)

Time is running out and school is approaching all too quickly. It seems my list of things to do is not getting any shorter, though our condo is getting much cleaner (hopefully we will get to it some more this weekend.) I haven't really even thought about the start of school. I am trying to get my personal/home life in some semblance of order before I try to tackle getting ready. I think I will start going to school sometime next week, though. There's just too much that needs to be done!

P.S. Honeymoon pics are now posted on Shutterfly (the ones from D's digital camera. My 35 mm pics are not posted, but maybe I'll scan a couple of the best to post). Let me know if you didn't get the email with the website.

We're back!

We're back from our honeymoon...actually, we were back a week ago, but we have been very busy taking care of business and cleaning this place up from the absolute wreck it became after the wedding. It was clean before my mom got here! Really!

Honeymoon highlights:

• The Highlands. Holy cow, are they beautiful. Even prettier in July than in March, which is the time of year B and I visited.
• Super nice hosts in Stirling with the cutest little dog named Pip!
• Stirling Highland Games. What a fun piece of culture to see!
• The Isle of Arran. Our B&B rocked (it should have, for the dough we shelled out!) and had a four-poster bed, jacuzzi tub and separate sitting room. Plus the scenery on the Isle was amazing, and we had a 3 1/2 hour long gourmet dinner at our hotel the first night. Incredible.
• Edinburgh...need I say more?
• Castles, castles, more castles. Python fans take note: Doune Castle is awesome.
• The British library in London. Originals from the Magna Carta to the First Folio of Shakespeare to a letter from Darwin to the original Alice in Wonderland to Beatles lyrics. Incredible.

Honeymoon stories to tell:

• London bombings. We were there, as D has posted.
• Really small showers. What's up with that?
• Flushing toilets like Niagara Falls. You had to close the lid to keep the whole bathroom from getting wet!
• Yes, we both tried haggis and black pudding. Conclusion: not bad, but certainly not breakfast food.

I'm sure there are more that I'm not thinking of, but I really must go and get some more things done around here. Changing insurance, name, bank accounts...the list goes on and on. Quite a pain, actually. It's good to be home, though, even though we have too short a time until school starts again.

No picture proofs yet. I'm hoping that the longer wait means better pictures. I'm getting really impatient!

London blasts

Hey all. Just a quick note to let all know that we're ok. This is D. We were in the underground when the blasts happened, but not one of the stations that were affected. We were then also on a bus (after the underground was shut down) before the busses were shut down (since a bus was attacked also). Just a quick note so none of you worried. Got to go find out now how we're going to get to Edinbourgh since we were supposed to leave from King's Cross ( one of the undergound stops that were hit). Talk to you all later!

D