The Day I Became A Wife And Learnt Never To Trust An Egyptian… Except For My Husband!

Dear diary…. I apologize with all my heart for being ‘gone’ for so long… Apparently when one is married the husband comes first! BUT, I aint got no problem putting my husband first… and IM BACK… I promise ill never be gone for this long again…

So I got married, went on a honeymoon and then had a week in Norway and watched my uncle and his beautiful fiancée (now wife) get married. Now im back in Egypt and ready to talk about my wedding. The time was not right to talk about my wedding until now… It was a healing process dealing with all the Egyptian flaws that exploded… I would love to put my hand on my heart and tell you that the wedding was EVERYTHING I imagined… BUT ill tell you that the most important thing is that I got married to the love of my life, FULL STOP! The wedding was beautiful, but its sad when you dream about this amazing day your whole life and spend months planning for it to be perfect, and the day of the wedding you watch all your plans to make it perfect destroyed. It all sounds very dramatic, but no-no one got hurt, and no the hotel didn’t burn down, BUT BUT BUT… I believe that if I pay for something to be perfect, I EXPECT it to be perfect, no and`s, or`s, but`s about it…

It’s all about the details, the small details that makes the guest`s jaws drop and eyes water! So let’s go through a few of the things that did not go as expected:

The DJ – We were forced by the hotel to work with Egypt`s most famous dj company. I thought to myself: wow am I lucky! Well, rewind to that thought, throw up on it, delete it and don’t get disappointed. We were told to give the dj a memory stick with all the songs we wanted, sorted into folders: eating, dancing, entrance, first dance etc… A monkey could press play on a computer and do a perfect job of playing this playlist! The secretary told us maybe you want a few of our songs played. I specifically told her: NO SONGS THAT ARE NOT ON THE MEMORY ARE TO BE PLAYED AT THIS WEDDING! Music is sooo important to me, so I wasnt going to have the DJ randomly play shitty music I hate at my own wedding. She suggests Rihanna`s song, Now That We Found Love.. FUNNY, the most cliché song EVER to be played at a wedding, and I hate it! NOOOOO, no shitty music at this wedding… Okey, okey… FOURTH FREAKING SONG AT MY WEDDING: Now that we found love… WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY?!?!? When I specifically told you NOT THAT SONG!!! It was not on the memory stick… If this is the best DJ in Egypt, he has clearly lost his hearing… Too much shitty music blasting in your ears stuupid dj?!?!?!?! Oh AND he forgot to play 80% of the music on the memory stick, and played his own music! Whos wedding was this Mr you-call-yourself-a-DJ?

The flowers – We discussed the colour code of the wedding: turquoise, peach, light pink. The tables would all have centerpieces and the chairs would have ribbons. We met with the flower shop woman and discussed the decoration. We agreed on all the things we discussed, she EVEN wrote the information down, so nothing should go wrong right? Well, let me stop you right there… I told her I wanted turquoise and pink ribbons on the chairs. Okey no problem. I got only Turquoise ribbons. We talked quite a lot about the centerpieces. I wanted turquoise and pink roses in three round balls  placed at different heights. She told me there are no turquoise roses… NO SHIT?! You colour them with spray paint… No sorry we can’t do this.. OKEY… We will have white and pink roses in the centerpieces and then turquoise crystals as decoration. Okey we can do that. Then I wanted small lace covered glasses with candles inside. She showed me the picture of the glasses they had, and they looked perfect.. Okey… This is looking good… The whole centerpiece with the flowers and candles would be placed on a mirror. The night before the wedding, she calls.. I’m sorry we don’t have the lace covered glasses… BUT we will make glasses with floating candles, don’t worry it will be beautiful… SO I had no choice but to trust her, but honestly she could have figured this out before the night before the wedding! I specifically changed the colours of the centerpieces because she couldn’t do turquoise roses. I told her that I don’t want ANY OTHER TYPE OF FLOWER, ONLY ROSES… Okey okey only roses, no problem. PLEASE I HATE UGLY FLOWERS, only roses… Noo problem, relax..  So I turn up at the wedding venue and there is not A SINGLE ROSE IN SIGHT!!!! I didn’t even see any roses planted in the freaking garden of the hotel… NOT ONE FREAKING SINGLE ROSE ANYWHERE!!!! NO WHERE!!! What I did have were some ugly cheap ass flowers, that I hate… The centerpiece was placed on glass, not a mirror. The round bouquets on the table were not round but half circles, and placed in some gold glittery cheap thing… AND the turquoise crystals WERE FREAKING SEQUINS!!!!! WHAAAAAT?!? crystals and sequins are not the same, I don’t know what planet you are from… Well done making your client happy! Oh actually we did ask for a red carpet at the entrance, and guess what? IT WAS RED!! and it was a carpet… Well done flower lady… Nothing of what we discussed, wrote down on a paper and agreed on was done correctly…

Food – Absolutely amazing. the food was delicious, or at least it was during the food tasting the week before. We didn’t get to eat our food because everyone was asking us for photos, and congratulating us.. It was very nice, but honestly it would have been better after the meal, as my breakfast and lunch that day had consisted of 3 blue peanut M&M and I was STARVING! We did order a chocolate fountain… I would die for white chocolate, I love it with all my heart, so we of course ordered white chocolate fountain…. It was beautiful… They put it outside so the flies could also enjoy it… and trust me when I say this: I have never ever in my life seen white chocolate that dark before…!!! We told the waiter it was supposed to be white chocolate and that fountain clearly looks like milk chocolate, this is what he replies: It is white chocolate but they mixed it with dark… Ummm okey WHY?! I didn’t order white chocolate mixed with dark! Well I hope the guests enjoyed the white mixed with dark chocolate fountain…

Cake – It was three tiers.. In Egypt you have something called cake show… You cut the cake and feed each other pieces of cake. So that’s what we did… We cut the cake… BUUUUUT we didn’t eat that cake.. We ate some suuuuper old dry cake that had been lying on the table for hours… It was soo old and dry that half of it crumbled of the fork before it reached your mouth and the rest of the crumbs soaked all the saliva in your mouth and throat in 2.1 seconds! GROSS… After cutting the cake, they rolled it inside the hotel and we never saw it again! It looked delicious…

At the end of the night we had planned to send up chinese lanterns. I had bought 70 white, turquoise and pink chinese lanterns for the guests and one big read heart for me and my husband to send up. We had discussed it with the management and they told us this was not a problem, they have had weddings with fireworks, which is a lot more dangerous! At the end of the night a hotel employee comes with the box of chinese lanterns and tell us that security does not allow us to light them. Good night… WAIT WHAT??? You come and tell us this now?!? We got this cleared last week, you can’t come and tell us now that we cant.. Who is this security.??!?!  The event manager that told us it was okey was not there at this time… The assistant event manager told us it was okey to send one… I have no idea how one is suddenly safe and 10 is suddenly super dangerous… Anyways, I told them I wanted to send the big red heart. The little fuel thing would not stick to the wire of the chinese lantern. So the hotel employee decided to open the packet of another chinese  lantern and use the fuel for that one… Let me just tell you that this heart was huge, it was 4 times the size of the other lanterns…. So what happens when you have a small fuel thing on a super large lantern… NOTHING!!! ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!!!! Either he’s not been to school or he knew that it would not fly and the discussion would be over! So what happened is we stood with a big red heart-shaped chinese lantern, with a super small fuel thing, small flame, and watched it not lift a centimeter off the ground. Thanks security person… Your ruined my chinese lanterns plan and all the beautiful pictures it would make…

The hotel provided a photographer and a videographer, but judging from their portfolio we decided to hire a private photographer and he was absolutely amazing! Unfortunately we have to wait 2 months until we get the pictures, but I bet its worth the wait!

I was super pleased with how my wedding dress and bolero turned out… I spent hours blinging them out with over a thousand crystals! The hairdresser was my superhero for the day, he did an amazing job!

As a conclusion do not trust ANYTHING any Egyptian ever tells you… Even if it’s on paper, they will still mess it up… Despite all these stupid, uneducated people messing up their jobs, it was still beautiful. My husband looked amazing, and my family was there, and we got married.. In the end that is the most important part right?

YES, there were Egyptian people who stepped up to their plate… And the Lebanese hairdresser! So thank you to them, and thank you to my mum, dad, sister and her boyfriend for making my day so special.

Thank you for marrying me amazing husband!

These photos were taken by my amazing mum!