Mawwiage. Mawwiage is what bwings us togewwer today.

It's TODAY, and I'm full of butterflies. But surprisingly MUCH calmer than I thought I would be.

My BFF Justine stayed over last night while Mr RS went to his Best Man's house. We had a nice, chilled evening - we went through the to-do lists and watched Father of the Bride, and I even managed to wash the dishes that have piled up since Tuesday! I felt a lot more relaxed after my parents took most of the stuff away, and I think I'm ready to have a calm, enjoyable day. Thanks for all the wishes, everyone! See you soon!

Love, Almost-Nearly-Mrs Ruby Slippers!

PS - The weather is spectacularly blue skies, but in Johannesburg a storm can blow up in 20 minutes, so it could be pouring this afternoon...hold thumbs for beautiful clouds with NO rain!!

I'm getting married in the morning...ding dong, the bells are gonna chime...

Well, it's tomorrow. The culmination of ten months and six days of planning, stressing and organising. If it doesn't come together now...well, there's nothing I can do. Stuff is boxed, my "to take" bag is full of jewellery, hairspray, shoes, and goodness knows what, and I'm standing here typing with my legs covered in hair removal cream. Oh, the fun of being a girl :-)

The flowers came in more expensive than I'd been led to believe, but the economy has gone to hell, so I don't suppose I should have expected anything else. Anyway, they're paid for, the photographer's second payment has gone through, every single thing has been paid for, except our hair tomorrow. I have a loooong Excel list of what everything cost, but I'm too scared now to add it up and find out what we actually spent. The good thing is I didn't have to delve into my inheritance savings, which we're keeping to buy a house with next year. Go me! I can't wait to SHOP again. I don't think I've bought new clothes this whole year. And barely any dvds.

My legs are now hairless and smell funny. But all in the name of garter photos, I suppose!

I'll try post again tomorrow morning, but if I don't - I'll be back after the wedding, and thanks for reading!

Love,
Almost-Mrs Ruby Slippers

Stupid storms

Well, we are having a big lightning storm every evening now, which means no blogging from me! Right now there's a lull, but I fully expect it to be back in a few minutes. I also fully expect thyere to be one on Friday night. Hmm. Every weather site is giving me different information - some say sunny, no clouds and some say 30% chance of rain, so I guess we'll just take what life throws at us!

This is what I took from Accuweather.com this morning. I have a feeling they're full of crap, though, since they had "partly cloudy" for tonight, and it's clearly bucketing down outside. But I like their Friday prediction nonetheless. :-)



Ok, hands up everyone who knew that getting french-tipped nails took 2 and a half hours. Oh, look, all perfectly manicured. Well, I did NOT know this, so thank goodness I went tonight instead of tomorrow! I'd have been freaking out if I was still there at 8pm on the eve of my wedding in, by the way, an extremely dodgy neighbourhood. Some Nigerian drug dealers tried to flag me down when I slowed down at my sister's friend's gate. I drove off and phoned her to tell her to open her gate so I could just pull straight in. She arrived there with four dogs, including a mastiff as tall as my chest. I can see why she needs him.

We had a mini rehearsal last night. Just the parents and bridal party. I'm glad we did, because everyone had a TON of questions about where to go, when to do stuff and where to stand. I hope we covered everything! We read our vows for the first time EVER. I could not look at Mr Slippers at all, or I would have burst into choky tears. That kind of defeats the point of vowing to love him forever if I can't even look at him, but hey, a girl's gotta keep dry somehow. Opinion was divided on whether or not we should read them or learn them by heart, but I'm damn well reading them! That is not an added stress I need right now.

I have Bride Brain (def: a sieve). I left today to go print the menus and table listings. Halfway there I realised I'd forgotten the cardboard I was to print on. I turned around, went home and got it. (Actually I went upstairs, patted my cat, Gollum, grabbed some water, went outside, locked the door, realised I still didn't have the cardboard, unlocked and went back inside). Got to the print shop and discovered I hadn't embedded the fonts in the documents, so they were all Arial. Yuck. Back I went home again. Returned finally, printed the stupid things, had the lady there slice them up so I wouldn't have to, got into my car, realised I had no food for supper, hurried back to the supermarket and then came home.

Attempted to breathe.

I then had to pop downstairs for my makeup trial with my landlady. This is the pic I gave her:


And although we didn't get a photo (I had to rush off because I was late for the dang nails) I think she did a beautiful job! I'm very pleased. So thank you to whoever this is and posted it on Project Wedding!

After I got home from the nail experience (first time on my life wearing false nails!) I packed stuff into boxes and crossed them off my list of stuff to take, or for my parents to take. So now instead of saying "Take the cake topper, menus, six candles with bling, baby photos and guestbook", I can just say "Take that box marked "Reception - general"."

Tomorrow I need to draw up a big plan of all the tables, go through my to do and to take list, and then - HOPEFULLY - I'm ready. Oh, and I have to watch Father of the Bride. I've been promising myself that for ages.

I'll try blog tomorrow....

Random Photos

Just in case I don't get to give my 600-strong cd of photos I love to my photographer before the day, here is a ton of wedding pictures I love! I'm trying to post ones I haven't before...(And this is only me going through the first third of what I have...)

Feel free to get bored and go away (unless you love wedding pics as much as I do!) I can't put links to all the photographers, unfortunately - time is not a commodity I have. Let me know if you'd like to know any...

Showered with love...

I've been waiting for the photos from my bridal shower so that I could blog about it! I still haven't seen the ones from Best Friend Ruby Slippers, but I've got enough to be going on with.

First up I have to say a HUGE thank you to Best Friend RS, Sister RS and Mom RS for going to so much trouble with the organising, baking, and just plain knowing what I'd enjoy! Special thanks go to Best Friend because I know she did more work than anyone. I love you J!

The first thing she did, which, of course, I didn't see until afterwards (since it was a surprise) was send this to all the ladies attending the wedding:


How cute, right? I almost accidentally saw this in my FMIL's kitchen on her noticeboard, and I hid my eyes and ran away.

Now the photo documentation!
Me arriving at my mom's house. I was really nervous, actually, because I had no idea what to expect, and I can't say I like that feeling!

The meet-and-greet. From left to right: New Sister-in-law Ruby Slippers, MIL Ruby Slippers, family friend Denise (I was friends with her daughter when we were three or four!), one of my best schoolfriends Priya, my Mom playing Wagner's wedding march as I walked in (I hate Wagner) and Best Friend RS waving at the camera.


A late arrival: my ex-work friend Jocelyn. Although she's old enough to be my mother, we quickly discovered we had the same taste in film, books and shared a wacky sense of humour. Funny coincidence - we later discovered that she used to date my father before they met their respective spouses. So she could have been my mother! Weird, huh?


My mom then switched from Wagner to the Mamma Mia soundtrack, so Justine and I naturally had to strike a classic ABBA pose. (Note: I have seen Mamma Mia three times, and Justine seven)

I was then presented with the obligatory Bride-to-be T-shirt and sash. I close my eyes a lot in photos. I don't know why, but I don't feel like I am, so I don't know how to stop it!


I also got a crown and a feather boa! I loooove boas, so I want to try get it into a wedding photo or two as well!

There was a big pile of deliciousness awaiting me on a table in the middle of the room.

Onto the festivities! First we played an "ice-breaker" designed by Best Friend RS (heck, let's just call her Justine; it's shorter), where everyone got the name of an Oscar-winning actress pinned to their back, and had to ask other people questions about who they were.

Me (to Justine): You didn't give me Judy Garland, did you?
J: No, because she didn't actually win a competitive Oscar.
Me: True. So how many Oscars has my person won, then?
J (face falling): Crap.
Me: So it's Katharine Hepburn, then.

:-) I totally rule at that sort of game, if I might point that out.

A collage of me opening all my gifty goodness. My mother got an assortment of bizarre items of clothing, including a tea cosy, an old sports bra and bedsocks, and I had to put one of these on everytime I failed to guess what a gift was before I opened it. The grater with a bowl attached had me stumped, but I did guess a mixing bowl and a jug :-)

I thought this was taking it too far...


Until someone produced some nasty old underpants (which I am assured were washed!) Eeerg. Oh well, all in the name of fun!

Then Justine evilly produced some sheets of paper which, she informed me, was a "how well do Mr and Miss Ruby Slippers know each other?" quiz. Gulp. She had sneakily emailed Mr Rs earlier and asked him a bunch of questions about himself and about me. I suspected as much, but since I had no idea what she'd asked I wasn't prepared, anyway. Considering that Mr Slippers is a bit of an enigmatic unknowable quantity, I think I did fairly well. I got two out of his three favourite movies right (I ALWAYS forget Requiem for a Dream, because seriously, how f***ed up is that movie??). I also guessed the two cities he would like to live in (he only got one right for me - Brighton, baby!) and simple things like how he squeezes his toothpaste, but I was stumped on what primary school he went to and who his first kiss was. Well, I said "some girl from church". The real answer was "Andrea from youth group." I think that was close enough. And at least the youth group thing didn't last; he is SO not that sort of person - it was a thing he was trying out...he went onto Wicca after that. Hmmm. That didn't last either!

Then it was on to tea. I was too pent-up to eat much, which was a shame, since my mother makes yummy baked goods!



Me with Sister RS. We always seem to strike a silly pose for photos!

Then came the evening portion of the party! Most people left, and some assured me, in mysterious tones, that they would see me "there later". WHERE? Well, I was not to find out until
I got "there", in Justine's car. At least she didn't blindfold me to add to the element of surprise, but I think this was mostly because it was pouring with rain by this point, and she wanted some extra eyes on the road!

This is the invitation to the evening's festivities:


In case you can't read it, it's an invitation to a show called "Hollywood Rocks" at the Barnyard Theatre, which is one of those theatres where everyone sits around tables and brings food and drinks to have during the show. Or you can buy food there, which is what we did. It was SUCH fun! I love musical shows, and this one tied so perfectly into the theme of my wedding, it being all songs from movies. From James Bond theme songs to Shrek hits to 80's hits like 9 to 5 and Fame, it covered a few decades of movie pop songs, and I was enjoying it so much that I was quite disappointed when it was over. It was such a fab evening. The girls know that I'm not the type to go out and get drunk and see strippers on my hen night. This was so much more ME. The only problem is I don't have any photos of this. Justine took one or two before the show, but you're not allowed to take any during the performance, obviously, so we couldn't do much. I wore my t-shirt and crown all evening, but I barely got any funny looks at all! Obviously there are far nuttier people than Brides-to-Be at the Barnyard on a regular basis!

So I got through the Bachelorette stuff fine after all! No need for all that nervousness. I actually think I'll be less nervous about the wedding (which is in FIVE DAYS) because I'll know what to expect. Five days, did I say? Gulp. Then again, maybe not. Um. I'm scared.

*Breathe*