I had stayed in a hotel room the night before in order to comply with the "keep 'em separated" rule for wedding day (just like we do in the US). I woke up and had breakfast, showered and put on my tux, then my best man, Victor, came by to pick me up and brought me up to my office. I chose to do it that way because nearly all of our guests were our friends from the office, and I had rented a separate van to transport them to the ceremony and the following ride around Moscow, so figured it would be easiest to ride with them to the ceremony. Vika and her mom would be picked up separately from our apartment, where she was having her hair and makeup done by a visiting professional stylist. Around 11:00, I left the office and headed down to the street and found that most of my friends were already in the van waiting for me. I pinned Victor's "best man" ribbon on him (a custom here) and we took off for the Registry Office.
The closest thing to a "disaster" the entire day was that Vika was over an hour late getting to the ceremony. The funny part (and trust me, it's funny only in retrospect) about it is that we had been assigned a 10:20am ceremony when we submitted our application, but the lady handling our processing apparently took a shine to us and pseudo-whispered that if we called ahead of time and warned the Registry Office that we were running late because "the cosmetologist hadn't shown up" or something, they would still squeeze us in. Which we did, anticipating that Vika would arrive around 11:30. At 12:30 and no Vika in sight, I'm sure you can imagine the state I was in, but she finally showed up in that wicked black car around 12:45.
Being the incurable sap that I am, I got all choked up as soon as I saw her mere outline through the windshield as the car pulled up. I was stunned nearly to inaction, and I remember somebody nudging me and fierce-whispering "go open the door for them you dummy!" I opened the car door, and mom got out and gave me a kiss and a hug. Then my incredibly-beautiful-beyond-all-possible-compare bride got out....I am proud to say that for once, I didn't lose myself to paroxysms of sappy tears. But so help me, you could have knocked me over with a feather, I was so enraptured with Vika in that moment (by the way, that feeling still hasn't worn off!). We kissed, rubbed noses like little eskimos the way we like to do, then turned around so she could greet all the other guests who had filed out to meet her.
After about 5 minutes of milling about and talking and, to be honest, me giggling like a kid with a buck at the five-and-dime (HA!!!...showing my age here),we all filed into the Registry building. The photographer and the video operator got us set up the way they wanted us - Vika and I in front, guests close behind. We then walked quite ceremoniously up the stairs as the photog and operator filmed us. Another note here...the inside of the Registry, formally called "Wedding Palace" by the Russian government, is really quite elegant - marble columns, walls, and floors, beautiful tapestries on the walls and carpets along the floors, lush plants (real ones) all over the place. It really is a beautiful place to get married, especially given the fact that it essentially amounts to what we refer to in the US as a "Justice of the Peace."
Anyway, after we went up the stairs we had to stop off at 4-5 different tables to be signed in, register our passports, sign our license, and listen to a barrage of sales pitches ranging from an orchestra for our ceremony (which we took) to....drum roll please....wedding insurance. Yes you read correctly, some cynically enterprising company offers wedding insurance. You pay them 200 rubles, about $6.30 at the exchange rate the day of the wedding, and if your marriage ends before your first anniversary, you get 2000 rubles back. Now that I think of it, maybe it isn't as cynical as it seems....you'd have to say it's pretty faithful on their part that they're not going to lose, since most marriages DON'T end within a year. Regardless of their spirit or intent, it still cast a bit of a pall on what should be a shiny-happy-joy-joy kind of day.
Anyway, once we got through that entire gantlet, our entire group sat around waiting for them to call the Johnson party. Once they called us, we lined up in front of a set of double doors, which then opened for us to the sound of the orchestra. Our guests filed off to the seating area on the left, except for Victor and Sonya (our best man and maid of honor)....they walked Vika and me as we filed straight up the middle of the room to stand in front of a decorated table behind which stood the girl who would give us our vows and conduct the ceremony. I must point out here that this girl conducts roughly 40 of these ceremonies every day, so you might expect a bit of insincerity to creep in....NOT SO!!! You would have thought this was her first and only such ceremony, she spoke to us with such earnest conviction. She led us through our vows, then we stepped over to a small column to exchange rings. After that, she pronounced us husband-and-wife, we kissed (woo-HOO!), and then she presented "Mr. and Mrs. Johnson" to our guests. They all filed by and gave us bouquets...actually it would be more accurate to say that they piled a greenhouse worth of flowers on us.
After that, we walked out the other door of the ceremony room, back down the stairs, then gathered around a table to have our first toast. That honor went to Vika's mom, and I will never forget the happy look on her face as she made her toast. Another thing I must point out here is the Russian custom of shouting "gorko-gorko-gorko" at the couple before you can raise the glass to your lips. "Gorko" means "bitter" in Russian, and the custom is that the wine/champagne is too bitter, so the couple has to sweeten it with a kiss until it's fit to drink. It's a really fun and funny custom, because often the crowd will really get into it and have you kissing for a couple of minutes. And believe me, we were "gorko'd" into kissing before every single toast the entire day. After toasts from Victor and from Sonya and a few others, then us filling out the last paperwork for our wedding video, we exited the Registry and piled into the vehicles for the traditional ride around Moscow.
Our first stop was Red Square, and we parked on the side of St Basil's Cathedral nearest to the river. As we were walking up (it's a slight uphill from the river to the Square), people kept passing us and remarking how "beautiful the bride is." I especially remember a group of 4-5 Italians who in their wonderfully demonstrative way said "ahhhh...bella bella!" We got up to the Square and stopped more or less centered between St Basil's and Spasskaya Tower, one of the Kremlin spires. Victor broke out the first 2 bottles of champagne and we all did toasts and had chocolates right there on Red Square. People kept coming up and asking to have their picture taken with us. Especially cute was this little old Japanese couple who were smiling ubiquitously and very graciously asked to take our picture.....it seemed that everybody wanted to share our happiness!
After we polished off that round of champagne, we strolled back down the hill to the cars. Because Red Square is paved with cobblestones and Vika was wearing heels, I carried her down the entire way back to our car. Along the way, a group of school kids out for a field-trip passed us, and started yelling "gorko" at us. In a scene straight out of a Valentino movie, I obliged them by dipping Vika to the side and....well, you can guess the rest. Apparently it tickled the hell out of the kids, because they clapped and cheered and congratulated us.
We left Red Square and headed out to Lenin Hills, which is a scenic overlook of Moscow right in front of Moscow State University. We had some more champagne, chocolates, and toasts, had some pictures taken both with the city as backdrop and with the university. We also had some fun with the car, as all the girls in our party took turns being photographed draped over the car in pseudo-sexy poses. Then we went on to Victory Park, where Vika and I laid a bouquet at the statue of St. George.
After the ride, we went to the restaurant for the reception and OH WHAT A PARTY that was!!!! We had hired a band, a dj, and a professional emcee (called a "tamada" in Russian) for everything, and it all worked out perfect as well. Everybody had a great time dancing and drinking and eating and toasting, all the fun stuff that goes with a wedding. We got some unbelievable presents, too - a bunch of people in the office chipped in and bought us a VERY nice home gym, and we also got a bunch of other really nice gifts - a Lennox china picture frame, a beautiful wooden jewelry box, a set of heirloom-quality gold-plated silverware, a HUGE Russian cookbook from Vika's aunt in St Pete, and a bunch of other stuff I can't remember right now because it's all still sitting at Vika's mom's place.
After the reception, after everybody had left but the two of us, we walked all the way home in our wedding clothes with a couple of gigantic, metallic-red helium balloons that said "I love you" tied to my backpack. It's sort of our tradition anyway to go out at night, stay out late, and walk home through the streets of Moscow, so this was no different, except that we sort of (UNDERSTATEMENT!) stood out a bit. Even though it was 1am, there were still tons of people on Tverskaya (one of Moscow's main streets) and dozens of them clapped and whistled and congratulated us whenever we walked by. There were even a couple of girls who had driven by us on Tverskaya, saw us, and looped about around the block just so they could wait for us and congratulate us - WAY cool! As an added bonus, some guy approached us to ask what our deal was, thinking we were both Russian, and was quite surprise when I answered him in English that we had, indeed, just gotten married that day. We continued our conversation, and it turned out he works for another US company here in Moscow and knows a good friend of mine, with whom I lost touch a couple of years ago, and who it turns out is here lives right up the street from me. Life seems to be full of little serendipitous moments like that.
On Saturday the 14th, we got up and had a nice, quiet, relaxed breakfast together, returned Vika's rented underskirt to the salon, then surprised her mom by showing up on her doorstep that evening for a visit before we left on our honeymoon the next day. That was a TOTALLY awesome experience, her mom didn't expect to see us at all until after the honeymoon. She had the "St Pete" contingent of guests (2 aunts, 1 uncle, and 1 cousin) staying with her still, and we ended up having another little mini-party with all of them. Mom fussed over us all evening, feeding us and hovering over us, and we sat around drinking wine and cognac and making toasts and laughing with them until 1am. Vika's aunt & uncle, Valera and Lyuda, gave us a box of 50 (!!!!) Cuban Partagas cigars, and we lit up a couple of them as well. It was an incredibly warm evening, I really feel like they're all my family.
Then on to the honeymoon...what a blast that was! We left on Sunday at 10:30am for Cyprus, arrived there around 1:30 local time, got to our hotel in Limassol around 2:30 and I was water-skiing at 3:15! And that was just the beginning, here's what we did (easier to write and remember it all this way):
Monday
Visited a tour company to get hooked up on some little excursions. Swam, snorkeled, and sunbathed in the Mediterranean. Had dinner at an outdoor fish taverna right on the beach.
Tuesday
Went on an introductory scuba-dive, where we took the entire mini-course in Russian (yes, I am now THAT good!). Swam and sunbathed some more. Had dinner at the hotel's veranda restaurant, then took an evening stroll along the beach.
Wednesday
Went on a jeep safari (actually they were Land Rover Discovery's), where we drove along old mountain trails up to Troodos village, visited Kykkos monastery and some natural springs along the way, had lunch at a mountaintop chalet, then visited a waterfall on the way back to Limassol. Had dinner that evening at yet another beachfront fish tavern which ended up becoming "our" spot.
Thursday
Took a bus tour to Paphos, a city on the western end of the island. Along the way, stopped at Aphrodite Beach, the site of ancient rituals of worship to the goddess. In Paphos, visited ruins of old catecombs called "Burial Place of Kings" (if I remember correctly) and some old mosaics which dated back to the 6th century A.D. Had dinner at "our" restaurant again that night.
Friday
Went on an all-day fishing trip on a motor-yacht, which we had to ourselves except for the captain and his mate, a father and his son named Angelos and Gregory. Angelos was one of the refugees from North Cyprus who had to flee when Turkey attacked in 1974. He lost his entire life - property, house, work, everything. He came to the south, settled in Limassol, and went about working as a dive instructor and commercial sponge diver, then later as the Chief of Marine Police for the Limassol District. After he retired, he continued as an instructor, and also ran fishing charters, boat tours, etc. He's actually rather well-known down there, and seems to be pretty popular with the tourists, some of whom come back year after year just to go fishing with him. We certainly enjoyed our day with him - he had a ton of cool stories to tell, he serenaded us on the harmonica with Greek songs, and served us a lunch of Greek food cooked that morning by his wife, with a couple of bottles of local Cypriot red wine. We didn't catch any fish except for tiny ones, but we did catch 7 octopus - I caught 3 of them! I have a picture of one wrapped around my arm next to my Neptune/octopus tattoo, it's pretty cool looking. Angelos got a kick out of my tattoos as well, especially the "sea motif" on my arm.
That evening, we went on a "Cyprus Night Out" trip with a large group (150 or so people) to a tavern in one of the villages overlooking Limassol, where we had traditional Cypriot "meze" (same as Spanish tapas) and Greek music and dancing and entertainment. Of all the people there, Vika and I were among the only 20-25 people who actually got up and danced, the rest seemed content to just sit there and watch. We had a great time, and were pretty disappointed when the tour coordinator informed us at 11:30 that it was time to leave - we would rather have stayed and kept on dancing!
Saturday
Went on a tour to the Limassol Historic District, which as you can probably guess is now chock-full of souvenir stores and other touristy stuff. As is usual for us, we explored the "unbeaten" paths and ended up finding this really cool old man who makes his own wines, where we did a little wine-tasting. He also hand-paints gourds (those funny-looking and mostly useless vegetables you may have seen before), and we bought a couple of them with a couple of bottles of wine. Definitely a much more interesting experience for us than running through a bazillion souvenir stores. As for souvenirs, though, we also stumbled upon a souvenir shop that is actually the wholesaler for nearly 90% of all the shops in Limassol, so we got some huge bargains there. We bought Vika's mom a set of 4 handpainted Greek urns, which will look perfect in her new kitchen (she just remodeled her entire apartment). We also got the requisite refrigerator magnets, coffee cups, etc. with all the quaint little Cyprus scenes on them.
That evening, our last, we had dinner at our restaurant again. We had asked to reserve our table the last time we were in there, and were quite pleased to find that they had set it nicely for us when we arrived (they usually keep the tables bare until guests actually sit at them). The headwaiter came up and chatted with us for a bit, congratulated us on our wedding and honeymoon, and thanked us profusely for visiting the restaurant so often. The place definitely had a good vibe to it, it was nice to find a niche even so far away from both our homes, and we both look forward to going back some day!
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