|
|
31 October 2005
Fall Wedding
As most of you know, Stefan and I were married in a very small, short wedding ceremony on October 14th. The reason why is that we discovered in order to ensure that I could stay in the country for longer than 6 months without being deported, I was going to 1) be obligated to find a company to sponsor me for a job /Visa, or 2) we would have had to get married within 6 months of our arrival. Since arranging a wedding in Swiss German and having very few people capable of attending a Swiss wedding just didn't seem feasible, we opted for a small civil ceremony among a few family and friends in Seattle.
For the record, we didn't want to leave you out of our plans!! Unfortunately, we were more hurried than we would have liked to be. So to make up for it, we are in the process of planning an inclusive party for Summer 2006 in Seattle to exchange vows and celebrate with everyone. Stay tuned for more on that!
In the meantime, here's a photo from our October wedding (more to be posted later). We were blessed with a lovely, warm fall day and great company...and we enjoyed every minute of it!
posted by Renee at 21:00
Plan-a-wedding Survival Guide (for gals with a short timeline)
I know I'm not the only girl who has had to plan a wedding from out-of-town and before moving to Europe. In fact, Stefan's cousin Rebecca did the same thing last December. (What were we thinking??)
So for those of you considering it, be warned. The wedding industry is NOT equipped to deal with speedily planned weddings. Here are a few things that tipped me off...
§ There are no "pret-a-porter" wedding dresses stocked anywhere in the US, and if you buy off the rack it will require alteration and probably a good cleaning
§ Despite common sense, white, antique white, ivory, diamond white, off-white, blush and champagne are all VERY different colors and require a lot of effort to match them to ANYTHING
§ Wedding shoes are only available by mail order
§ Even cheap-o Payless shoes need a week turnaround to be dyed!
§ Finding a veil is an enshrouded task...hence the name...
§ Buying wedding bands with less than 2 weeks to go makes all jewelers (except for the ones at Tiffany's) react like you are stupid young people
§ There are only a few hair and makeup stylists available last minute and they jack up their prices because they think you're desperate and figure your "best friend" who was going to do your makeup just resigned her position the week before your wedding
§ Cake designers are offended if you give them less than 3 months to plan your cake and they will happily not return your calls
In spite of having to learn these lessons, we still had a fabulous wedding and everything went as planned...well, except for the fact that my car died immediately upon setting out to get ready on the wedding day!! You can't win them all :-)
Special thank you to my friends and family who came to the rescue!!
posted by Renee at 20:00
17 October 2005
Temporary Home - Mountain View California
I'm really behind in the blog schedule, but I couldn't forget a very important milestone in our journey to move to Switzerland...
On October 2, 2005 I finally moved down to California to be with Stefan. Packed with two suitcases that nearly exceeded the weight limit, Dad & Diane drove me to the airport and I and flew off to Oakland. Yes, accidentally, Stefan booked my ticket into Oakland instead of San Jose and so I had to fly and extra 1/2 hour, and subsequently we had a short drive together before arriving at the Residence Inn Marriott in Mountain View. Which was great, it turns out, for catching up.
Upon arriving at the airport, Stefan was standing there with these!
(HOW SWEET - and this is the man I'm going to marry!)
Then, we headed "home"
Since then, our small studio has been my home base from where I have been writing many Thank You notes, working a few hours every day for Radarworks, fixing lunch in our full size kitchen, and of course lounging by the pool in my bikini. (Actually I've only done this once!!)
 
Life in Cali is quite plain. But I can't say that I've been bored. Planning a wedding from another state was certainly a unique challenge! More later...
posted by Renee at 19:00
05 October 2005
Packing & moving...
Moving across the world is definitely not an easy task, so if you ever do it, here are a few words of advice:
1) Go through everything you own and decide if you think you'll use it in the new country. If not, decide whether or not it will be useful/in style in 3 to 5 years (HINT: nothing will be!). If not, give it away or sell it at the garage sale. Believe me, in 3 years you won't want that graduation gown from college or that Halloween costume that once won you a 1st place ribbon at the bowling alley contest. Honest!!
2) Make sure to change your wire hangers out for plastic ones. It may sound crazy but it will allow the movers to actually keep the clothes on the hangers instead of taking each one off individually and wrapping them in more paper, producing not only a wrinkly clothing item but a ton of extra garbage for you to throw away later according to some strict foreign recycling rules.
3) Decide BEFORE the movers get there what goes via Air and what goes via Sea. There is about a 5-week difference between the Air and Sea arrival, so if you think you're going to need boots, towels, an airbed, a cooking pot, silverware, cups, toilet paper, head lamps (you'll understand why later) upon arriving at the new apartment, just pack it for Air even though it's random and you won't be sorry. The reason why you have to decide ahead of time is because the movers "move" fast, you won't have time to think. OH and make sure to remove important things like your wedding clothes from the packing area or else they'll wind up on their way to Switzerland - it nearly happened to us!!
4) Have your friends over for dinner. I know this step sounds a little counter productive, but in fact friends are perfect for handing down plants, craft supplies, dishes and cute dresses without having to feel bad about giving it away! It's really a win-win situation. This is a good time to hand down that Halloween costume I mentioned; friends understand the award-winning value of a Bavarian Beer Wench dress when they see it!
5) Take a breather and leave when they're moving the boxes out of the house. I had to make myself scarce for this step. I was too afraid of them scraping the wood floors or running into a wall. I highly recommend doing the same. Professional movers are not meant to be supervised at this stage.
6) Vacuum. If you want to save a little face with the movers, I suggest you vacuum prior to their arrival. This is the only piece of advice that I didn't follow and did I have to apologize! Jake was hardly embarrassed even though 85% of the dust was made up of his hair!
Ok, with that short list of things to do, moving across the world doesn't seem so bad. Just keep in mind that step #1 takes about two months, so plan accordingly!
Here are a few photos to go along with our moving adventure.
Here are the labels they use to track everything...
Jake is catching on...
Boxes, boxes everywhere!
 
Do you think the movers will mind if I take one last thing?!
Into the truck, uh, I mean shipping container...all of it!
That's all for now. Onward to California!
posted by Renee at 19:00
Archives
August 2005
September 2005
October 2005
November 2005
December 2005
January 2006
February 2006
March 2006
October 2006
January 2007
February 2007
RSS Feed
|
 |
Copyright 2005 reneeandstefan.com
|
|
