Ik heb al eerder geschreven over de bruiloft van mijn vrienden Mante (een Fries) en Andrea (een Amerikaanse). Afgelopen Augustus hebben ze een groot trouwfeest gegeven op een mini-budget. Eigenlijk hadden ze 2 trouwerijen voor de prijs van 1, want ze hadden een half jaar daarvoor al hun jawoord gegeven tijdens een intieme ceremonie op het stadhuis van New York, waar ze elkaar hadden leren kennen toen Mante twee jaar in de VS woonde voor zijn werk. Mante en Andrea vonden het prima als ik jullie wat foto’s van hun trouwceremonie en feest in Friesland zou laten zien, en beter nog, ze wilden ook graag wat vertellen over het hoe en wat van de dag! Dus hierbij geef ik het woord aan Mante en Andrea (in het Engels, want dat is de taal die zij met elkaar spreken, ook al is Andrea druk bezig met Nederlands leren).
Why did you decide to get married? We got married within 7 months or so after meeting each other for the first time. Actually within 3-4 months if you count from the time we were ‘together’. Instead of having a ‘proper’ wedding, we decided to elope because, well, we were impatient and because we did not want anybody at our wedding (other than our close friend and witness Simone). Andrea felt she would be distracted from ‘being in the moment’ if other people were there, that she would be worried about them rather than focusing on Mante and herself. We had told our parents beforehand, however, and had promised them a special wedding party to make up for the fact that they weren’t invited for the wedding itself. This was a difficult experience as we found out after we eloped that many people felt hurt and wanted to be there with us. Although we understand this, we don’t regret having the moment just to us, even though we also really enjoyed celebrating with everyone else. It was so nice to have both experiences actually.
Anyway, to answer the question, we can’t really give a concrete reason for why we decided to get married. We remember just really wanting to be each other’s respective husband/wife, and the joy and happiness we felt when we talked about getting married (which we talked about incessantly). We guess the best way to put it is that we wanted to be married because we felt it was the best way to celebrate our bond, or the closest way to signify what we mean to each other.
What made your weddingparty special? We decided that we would do the party ourselves with the help of friends and family, i.e., ‘outsource’ as little as possible. In the end, that is what really made it special: everyone contributed in an earnest way! We wanted our wedding party to be a mixture of customs and innovations, but most of all we want it to be intimate and fun for everybody there, for the guests to feel a bit of what we feel. Also, we had very little money to spend:-). Fortunately, Mante’s mother and stepfather agreed to have the party at their farmhouse in Friesland and both our parents ‘executively produced’ the party.
Catering, decorations, taking pictures and cleaning up, everything was done by family and friends (especially Marte had many creative ideas and helped us a great deal, she was truly instrumental!).
What is your fondest memory of the wedding/ wedding party? One of our fondest memories is the ceremony that we created in which the attendees ‘married us’. We came up with this on the fly while brainstorming about the party – honestly as a way to deflect some of the focus and scrutiny from ourselves! We wrote vows (we took bits and pieces from other marriage vows that we found online:-), and had all the guests play the role of ‘minister’. [Dit was zo ontzettend leuk om te doen!]
After the ceremony, we walked through an improvised aisle and the guests tossed rice at us, and the groom threw the bride’s wildflower improvised bouquet.
We took a short walk around the house by ourselves while the guests moved to another area of the garden for the cocktail hour; it was sweet to have this moment alone, and we were then able to make a ‘grand entrance’ to the other part of the garden as husband and wife. We finished with a Chinese tea-ceremony, we poured tea into small cups and offered them to each guest one by one (parents first) in exchange for an envelope filled with a symbolic gift (e.g., coin). We did get a clump of hair, some squished flowers, lots of 5 cent pieces, and some antique jewelry in the envelopes by the way. We think the total was about 6 euros.
Just seeing everyone do something as well as be there was nice. For example, seeing one of our ‘masters of ceremony’ swat flies off the buffet at random and then carry a giant teapot with an even larger oven-mitt. Also the speeches (some from far-away friends who couldn’t make it) were really lovely to hear!
Did you encounter any problems during the planning of the event or on the day of the party? Not especially, mostly because we weren’t really set on having something one way or another and felt flexible about the whole thing. And because so many people were helping. Ysk, Mante’s mother, Robert, his stepfather, Eelkje, his sister, a friend Marjolein, and Marte made sure everything went smoothly. We did have one strong constraint – a food allergy, but other than that we knew things could be improvised. The weather was a bit iffy, but we were lucky in the end. This is sort of a boring answer, we think the key thing was that we were very relaxed and flexible…maybe because we were already married! Also it helps that so many capable and efficient people wanted to help us!
Do you have any advice for other people planning their wedding? Hmm, this is a hard question because our wedding went so well and we didn’t have a lot of the constraints (customs, expectations) that many people have. We think that it helped us really enjoy the wedding and be present with our guests that we were already married, but we can imagine how the beautiful feeling we had when we eloped could also be had in front of guests, it just comes down to figuring out what makes one comfortable and happy. That’s the hard part in our experience. Oh, and if you can, get Marte to help you plan and execute your party!
Bedankt dat jullie deze prachtige dag met alle fromfraai-lezers hebben willen delen, Mante en Andrea!
Tags: budget bruiloft, chinese theeceremonie, DIY, korte trouwjurk
