Wedding- Part 2

For those who are not very familiar with the Lebanese traditions, the groom's family has to go get the bride from the parent's house and take her to the church. So after taking pictures and offering our visitors champagne, juice, chocolate, baklawa and other sweets it was already time for us to go get the bride. My parents went in the nice rented white car I don't remember what it was but definitely in the standings of a jaguar or such.
Celine designated me to be the driver and Helena- my cousin- decided to hop in the TIDA with us. Since we did not know where the house was we had to follow the convoy and not lose them. So while i was running to get into the car to start , tishhhhtttt I stepped with my heels on the bottom of my dress, resulting in a small tear at the bottom. Helena reassured me that this will happen over and over again during this day but no one will notice and it will be O.K. so I decided to follow Helena's advise, and I soon went back into the "let's do it" mood. I was following the cars pretty closely, until we got to an intersection. And for those who don't know Lebanon very well, they might not know what driving in Lebanon is.
Driving in Lebanon is an adventure I must say or rather an adrenaline booster, at least when you're driving with me while I'm trying to keep up with a convoy.
So when you get to intersections "Kil min ido ilo" meaning, there are no stop signs, no lights (although they're starting to spread nowadays) so you have to have enough courage to drive you car through and hope other cars will stop for you. And that's what I was doing the whole ~40 minutes drive. So I had my back leaning forward towards the steering wheel, after all I was pretty excited! And in the back Helena was calling all the Saints that she had ever heard of and praying the rosary- she made it to 14 times... We were in serious danger some might say, but as for us, we were laughing of course!
I forgot to mention that while I was driving i did hear two 'crac' sounds, but we were taken in a far more exciting ride so I decided to ignore until we reached the bride's house and all of the bride's family were waiting for us. Yes, and especially Celine and I. We had to go up the stairs with my mom and dad leading the flock of family members that were following us. I then asked Celine if there's a tear on the back of my dress, she looked and said: "Yeah but it's not really showing." So I, again, decided to ignore until I was out on the balcony talking with my aunt who was sitting on a chair and then I turned my back and she called me saying: "Auntie, you have a tear on your back." My other auntie replied: "Turn around let me see. Oh yeah you do! We can sew this don't worry..." Don't worry!! When are we going to sew this now? and my dress is PINK! where are we gonna find a pink thread and how am I going to get from the balcony to the other side of the room? I called Celine and asked her if it's obvious. She said: "Oh the tear actually grew wider." PERFECT! I was so embarrassed, Helena was consulted too and at the end of the negotiations we decided to pass by Helena's house and get another dress -just in case- and get a needle and a thread.
So here comes the convoy part 2 from the bride's house to the church. The convoy passed by Helena's house, so if we do the operation in minimum time we could still catch up with the convoy we though. The plan: I park the car, run -barefoot of course- downstairs with Helena who is also barefoot. Helena chooses the dresses, meanwhile, I get a needle and a thread, meanwhile Celine jumps from the passenger's seat to the driver's seat . Helena and I get back to the car and sit in the back seats. Why? because Helena is going to try to sew the dress in the car while Celine is trying to catch up with the convoy!
No I did not have to take my dress off, Yes she was sewing at a place where the dress was very tight on my body, No she did not pinch me more than 9 times, Yes I was kidding she actually did not pinch me, No we did not catch up with the convoy, Yes we were stuck in a huge traffic jam, No we weren't late for the service and Yes people in the cars next to us were looking at the car with three girls "tirees a 4 epingles" while one of them is driving (we gave her a french driver's name that I can't quite remember), one is sewing (the sewer's name is alas also forgotten) and the third one is lying bottom up having her dress sewed (That was the baroness of course).
By the time we got to the church, the dress was done and we were able to attend the service and relax... but not for long!

Wedding- Part 1

This summer's highlight was my brother's wedding, I went back to Lebanon to attend and all of the family was pretty excited. I bought the perfect dress, Pink. I will tell you the story of Pink later on. Before I go to my brother's wedding in Lebanon, I had the chance to attend a couple of months before that my first American wedding here in Fayetteville. It was a very cute wedding with a Cajun theme. There was Cajun food and a Cajun band and we danced to Cajun music.
I arrived to Beirut couple of weeks before the wedding and the preparations were already on their way. My mom had already taken an appointment for me at the hairdresser and make up artist.
It took us at least 4 visits to the chocolates and sweets shop to fix the plates and decorate them. Actually some of the chocolates had a pretty butterfly clothes clip that the women can use after eating their chocolate.
The seating of the 400 people on the tables took us hours of work since we wanted to make sure everyone was happy with their seating area and happy with the company they have on their table. and believe me, this is not an easy job!


Wedding day, June 4th, we woke up early. Made sure the house looked clean and neat and we went to the hairdresser. After almost 3 hours, my mom and I were ready from chin to the tip of our hair! We passed by the flower shop to get the rented car, a white Mercedes 2010 now decorated also flowers, which I drove very carefully home. By the time we got home, there were five beautiful bouquets of flowers decorating our living room, they are presents from close family for Ralph with little notes of wishes. There were two young men also to help with presenting the sweets and drinks for the guests that will be coming. We had some food and Celine arrived home. She looked beautiful and we noticed that our hair looked almost the same, except the fact that i had an extension which made my hair look longer (maybe that means also prettier). Then I did notice that I actually used to slide my dress' neck really tightly from the top of my head but that would be impossible in this case since my make up and hair volume would be damaged if I do (Part 1 of 3 of the adventures of Mirna with her dress). Luckily my aunt Jacko was there to save the day, she cut the band, put it around my neck and sewed it! Perfect.
Dress, accessories, shoes, bag, perfume were not that easy to mix and match. But finally we were all ready for the family pictures.The wedding can start.