My Japan Wedding

Written by Elisabeth on May 23, 2009 – 14:32 -

It was not like I had imagined, getting married. It was bigger, better and cliche enough I felt slightly different after. Giddy, yes, but also like a more improved version of myself and like I had clicked together for good with the man I love so much it’s hard to believe.

Family and friends were left behind in Norway, and we travelled to the wonderful futuristic land that is Japan. Our first night there was all sounds and light and tons and tons of very short and skinny people looking slightly desperate if we needed to talk with them. We walked around, gawking, being ever the tourist - but in Japan never feeling out of place with a camera because the natives, true to form, shoots away like crazy.

The Day of the Wedding I was finally rested. A night in the softest bed with the softest pillows and the softest comforter after taking a bath in the most luxurious bath tub had transformed my aching and travel-sore body almost back to its normal self. We woke up, had breakfast while overlooking the Imperial Gardens before we made ourselves presentable in our wedding outfits.

I had worked so hard on my dress-now-skirt (much to the scorn and ridicule of some and impressed noises of others) and it was ready and newly ironed just waiting for me to slip into it. And it was good, it was made by me - a one of a kind skirt exactly like I wanted with butterflies swarming.

The butterflies on my skirt though were nothing like the butterflies that flew around and around in my stomach on the way to the wedding ceremony. We both looked kind of pale and stared out of the window in the cab. We both felt this to be huge and real.

The ceremony itself was short. It felt like some sort of culture clash to be at the Norwegian Embassy after having spent the last two weeks solely amongst the Japanese, but the nice, very Norwegian lady wed us properly. It was a feeling to say “yes”. A feeling like no other feeling I have ever felt. It was true and good and huge and solid.

And then we went out in the sun lit Tokyo morning, cheesy, hand in hand -giggling whilst saying “wife” and “husband”. Then we took our newly wed selves, my home made skirt and the husbands home made robot tie out for ice cream. We felt ever so good about our selves; not only had we managed to get wed without the accompanying stress of having stressed out family around but we had our wedding in Japan!

For the rest of the day? Well, we made good use of having rented a very, very expencive suite for the wedding and also had dinner at one of Tokyo’s more fancy restaurants. So far, a good month into being married, I can strongly recommend married life - at least it agrees well with me.


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My wedding dress - Part 2

Written by Elisabeth on March 22, 2009 – 15:15 -

On Monday my mother came visiting to see if we could salvage the wedding dress, or if I should go for Plan B: Make the dress into a skirt instead. We tried the dress on and my mother hmmmed, and she hammmed, and she made me turn around, then she tugged at the fabric here and there, hmmmed some more, fetched a belt, made me turn around and said that she could make this work ok if I wanted to, even if I claimed I felt a bit boxy and fat in the entire thing. I do think she wanted the dress to work because she, as my mother, have always envisioned me in a dress at my wedding day.

Then I showed her plan B with the fitted, stretchy top and the belt and she caved immediately realising I looked both better and more comfortable.

So today I have made the dress into a skirt, sown on a functional zipper that doesn’t look half bad and I have pinned on the butterflies.

The black butterflies on green have been the main concept of my entire wedding dress-now-skirt since we decided to wed last summer. The butterflies are made of felt and I custom ordered them from the very talented etsy seller kutz. I have a couple of other of her creations as well, and I simply cannot recommend her enough.

I’m quite happy to have gotten this far ahead on my wedding outfit. I’m been very stressed trying to get it all to come together, and ever since it hit me that I’m  actually going to Japan any minute now I needed to get my act together and just sew.

As for the vacation in it self I’m all made up of butterflies on the inside as well - This is my Dream Vacation coming true, and the wedding to boot!


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My wedding dress - Part 1

Written by Elisabeth on March 12, 2009 – 23:25 -

I really, really wish I knew how to sew. Well - I do know how to operate my sewing machine (at the bare minimum), I can more or less follow a simple pattern and friends and family tend to be terribly impressed with what I present them; either just to look at and admire or to keep and admire.

But for some reason it never quite struck me that maybe they are so impressed because they really don’t have any faith in my sewing skills? Maybe I’m actually way to overconfident in this area?

The overconfidence thought has struck me now, and with such force.

I am getting married in just over a month. I am flying to Japan in exactly 18 days for a vacation / honeymoon / wedding. For that wedding I have planned for months and months to wear a bottle green 1950s dress with black butterflies appliqued to the fabric. I did have some initial doubts about making the dress myself, but when I discovered that a competent dress maker will charge somewhere between 600 and 1000 dollars my cheapness got the better of me and I decided that I would make the dress myself.

I have harboured all kinds of romantic notions about floating around in a pretty homemade dress, feeling like the top of the world and getting compliments from everyone. I started out the quest for this fantasy fulfillment by ordering a vintage 1950s pattern. I proceeded by (foolishly) thinking “how hard can it be to make a simple cotton dress” and bought fabric and thread and everything pretty.

After a while I started getting worried. I had totally neglected to take into account that I am quite busty so I would need some serious tailoring in that general area. I had also not put any thought towards the fact that I’m really bad at sewing holes for arms - something that a dress should have after all.

So.

18 days till I leave for Japan. What do I have? I have a half sown skirt, some sort of top, some scruffy looking arm holes attached to that top, brand new shoes, an underskirt ordered off eBay and a plan B to drop the dress, sew the skirt part into a, well, skirt, stick on the pretty butterflies - and then pair it off with a lovely top and a broad belt.

Plan A is still not completely lost though. I have called upon my mother to visit me next week to see if she can salvage the dress. If she can, she has to sew it all in one evening while I do things like stand stupidly around, cook dinner and act as a mannequin.

Wish me luck -


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