Things Are Happening

First update for a while but rest assured Things Are Happening. The church can only be booked next week as they have what seems to me to be a socialist-era rule where you can book weddings for next year on one day and one day only, so fingers crossed there that we will get the desired day and time. In anticipation of the desired day and time, we have booked the venue, Krokodyl, a short walk away in the Old Town Square. I like our sense of priorities here: the party is booked but not yet the wedding itself.

The biggest challenge that we have faced is in dealing with how to combine elements of British and Polish weddings. This is a challenge which has little for us to fall back on in the annuls of How Not To Get It Wrong. Don’t expect to find a traditional Polish wedding, but it will be different to weddings in the UK. Some things will remain as weddings do in Poland: more people will be invited to the wedding itself and less to the reception and there will be no reception evening (no meal) invites: it seems hardly fair to invite people living abroad to the party but not the meal and it would seem odd to include only Poles in a British tradition and they will probably be happy to come to just the wedding.

The church element will also be quite traditional. They have said that they will be able to perform the service bilingually, but we will decide upon that nearer the time (considering how much longer it will make the service, the priest's competence in English and my competence in Polish). We want to use Św. Anny (St. Anne’s) on Krakowskie Przedmieście in central Warsaw. The church itself is absolutely beautiful so it will be minimally decorated. Catholic weddings to have their fair share of standing, kneeling and so on: if it’s not in English, just follow the crowd.

The end of the ceremony will be where we depart from Polish traditions and adapt them to our own liking. It is tradition for when the happy couple are leaving the church that the guests shower them with coins or rice, as it is tradition in English weddings to shower the newly-weds with confetti. We choose something different: bubbles! No coins, no rice, no confetti. The tradition then goes on to giving the bride copious amounts of flowers. What should be done with all these flowers is not known and we certainly don’t want loads of flowers in our apartment. So, instead, we ask for a bottle of wine, book, CD or DVD, with a message from you to replace the flowers.

In Poland, every meal worth its salt starts with soup and at our wedding the meal will be no exception. There will follow a main course and after that a large hot and cold buffet. Everything will be labelled bilingually. Alcohol at this stage will be more English than Polish – no vodka at the tables and toasts with wine rather than vodka. Between the starter and the main course we will have some speeches although details are to be finalised. Inside the venue, there will be no smoking. We also plan to not have any of the silly games found at Polish weddings, but we will have recognisable first dance, cake and so on.

Invitations will be sent during the Autumn, after the Church has been booked and by Christmas at the very latest. This should give you enough time to book flights and hotels. We are looking at finding a deal on hostels/hotels and I would like to give you information about that with your invitation, but nothing is done on that yet.

More to follow soon!

M