The Morning After

For the Morning After, we have booked breakfast for 10:30am at Wedel at Szpitalna 8. We hope to see as many of you there as possible, bleary-eyed or not!

Getting about

I have written before that everything in Warsaw is pretty spread out and to see anything, it will involved either a lot of walking, taxis or public transport. So here is more detail.

Public transport is by far the cheapest way to travel, and around the centre just as quick.

Ticket and price details are available at http://www.ztm.waw.pl/?c=110&l=2. Pretty much anywhere you will want to go is inside Zone 1. The good news is that Warsaw is one of the cheapest cities in Poland for public transport despite having the most advanced system. The prices you will probably be interested in are 2,80zł for a single, 9,00zł for 24-hours and 16,00zł for a three-day ticket (valid until midnight on the third day).

The easiest way to buy tickets is from ticket machines (which speak English). There is one at the airport bus stop and others around the city. You can also buy tickets on board (sometimes there is a machine; otherwise you can ask the driver who probably won’t have any tickets). It is also possible to buy tickets from kiosks and small newsagents. Don’t forget to validate your tickets when you first use the ticket: controls are frequent and the fine is over 100zł.

From the airport, bus 175 will take you to the centre. This bus goes every ten minutes. If you want to take the train to the centre from the airport, you will have to wait until December when the line is finished.

For any other plans, consult http://warszawa.jakdojade.pl/.

Taxis are available throughout the city. Try to get a price estimate in advance because the likelihood that as a foreigner you will be ripped off is high. As a guide, a taxi from the airport to the centre should cost around 35zł.

The Reception

Welcome drink
When you get to the venue, you will be given a welcome drink of sparkling wine. Don’t drink it all at once... at least wait until we get there so you can actually welcome us!

Meal
The sit-down part of the meal will be two courses. First there will be a soup and this will be followed by the main dish.

Buffet
The buffet will be open from 9pm. On it you will find hot and cold dishes and of course puddings. It will be continually refilled until 1am. At 1am they will stop refilling it and what is left will stay there until the end of the party.

Bar
Open bar. Yes, open; you ask for it: you get it. That means free wine, beer, soft drinks, tea and coffee. Maybe vodka also, we’re not 100% sure on it (if you want some, try to order and see what happens!). Wine and softs should be on the tables. You will have to ask for beer (Żywiec) from the waiting staff who will bring you a new bottle. If the wine is running low, again ask for the waiting staff for a new one. Don’t hesitate to do this in English: all the waiting staff should speak English but if you are having doubts, grab any young Pole (not in that way) and they are 99% sure to speak English and help you out. The open bar is available from 7pm until 1am. Make use of it. If it’s getting close to 1am, don’t forget to get your last orders in!

DJ
We will have a DJ in the dancing room. He will be there all evening – playing some softer things while we are eating before getting the party started later. There will be some karaoke when you’ve had a few (too many?) drinks.

First dance
Our first dance will be in the dancing room at 9pm. We may dazzle you with non-conventional moves thereafter.

Tree
Instead of a guestbook, we will have a “wedding tree”. The concept is quite simple. We will have a picture of a tree without any leaves on a largeish piece of paper. We have finger size inkpads of different colours: you put the ink on your finger, and add a leaf to the tree and write your name to accompany it.



Cutting the cake
We will cut the cake at midnight. So you can’t have until then. It will be noticed if you east some before.

The end
The food and drink lasts until 1am. We have venue until 3am.

Plan of the day

I will write some more about specific aspects of the wedding in the next few posts, but first I want to give an outline of the day.

The ceremony starts at 5pm, but you should get there around 15 minutes before this to get the best seats. The service will take approximately one hour so it should finish at around 6pm

After the church, we will receive the wishes and small gifts from people who come to the church only. If you have brought a card, now is the time to give it to us. For people coming to the reception, now is the time you should get yourself to the venue – it should take you less than five minutes walk.

We will arrive at the venue at about 7pm. The main points to remember are 9pm for our first dance and we will cut the cake at 12am. The bar closes at 1am and we will leave about 30 minutes after.

Of course this is only a plan, but even with the best laid plans and all expect things to vary slightly.

Presents

Some keen people have already been asking about what we would like for our wedding present and it’s a ripe time to answer.

We don’t want stereotypical wedding presents. We don’t want ‘things’ for three reasons. First, we don’t expect people from outside of Poland (not just England but also Belgium, Germany, Hungary and Slovenia) to bring such bulky wedding gifts with them. You will have the chance to bring an antique wardrobe or a 42” TV at a later date. ;) Second, we have the basics of what we need. Third, we don’t want to go beyond the basics as we haven’t yet decided where to live in the medium- or long-term so we don’t want to collect loads of stuff which then we can’t take with us.

Instead we want you to help us with memories.

We want to go on a memorable honeymoon. We are thinking of going on a safari and would like you to give us money to help us in our dream.

Please don’t think this is a cynical request for money. We will use all the money for the safari; if there is any left over, we will put it to one side for some things in the future. It certainly won’t get lost in the monthly accounts.

As this is the twenty-first century, we also ask for this to be transferred direct to our accounts instead of being given in hard cash on the day. Cash has the big risk of being lost (or worse) so we’d like to avoid that. We have accounts in the UK and Poland to pay this into (for those of you outside of the UK and Poland, you can give us a gift however you choose). The details are as follows:

UK: Account number 38 82 91 00, sort code 07-44-56 (account in the name of Martin Gowans)

Poland: 93 1090 1056 0000 0000 0603 0510

Next we will write more about what to expect on the day itself :)

Wielki dzień coraz bliżej

Witam,

Piec tygodni do slubu... Zaproszenia rozdane, przygotowania ida pelna para. :)

Przypominamy, ze do 18.04 musimy miec pelna liste gosci, wiec nie zapomnijcie potwierdzic swojej obecnosci. Wystarczy wyslac nam sms :) Przy tej okazji bedziemy wdzieczni jezeli powiadomicie nas o alegiach pokarmowych.

W ciagu nastepnych 2 tygodni postaramy zalaczyc jak najwiecej informacji, tak aby 1.05 nikt nie czul sie zagubiony :)

35 days

So five weeks till the wedding! If you haven’t already booked your flights and hotel, you better get cracking. We’re on the final run-in now (having climbed a mountain of paperwork) with the Church and venue finalising details.

In the next couple of weeks I will write a lot more about what you will be able to expect from the weekend. As I wrote before, we are blending some English and Polish traditions together.

One thing I will be doing is wearing traditional English clothes (because I think they look the part). A number of people have already signed up to wear similar to me – if you’d like to join in, you just need to head to your nearest branch of Moss Bros and quote “Gowans” and they will pull up the details on the computer.

That’s all for now. Come back in a few days for information on wedding gifts :)

Agata and Martin