wedding stuff

oh-kay, so i went to a wedding...
it sounds a bit like the beginning of a joke, which i suppose it is, since i have managed to only go to about 5 weddings that i remember within the past 10 years. only one of those marriages has ended so far, so i guess, keep asking me to weddings, people.
anyway: this was a bit different, because it was a family wedding - actually just the church service plus celebration of my cousin ralu's. i guess it does feel more involved to be a relative in such a circumstance, also cozier and more homey, which is my main complaint about wedding parties: in my experience they tend to take this formal/artificial air where you're stuck at a table with some strangers and a maybe couple of friends for 12 hours and occasionally forced to dance.
i don't necessarily prefer being with friends at wedding parties, because of the impersonality - from a point on (after like 5 hours?) i feel that it starts to reflect its sleazy gleam on whatever is intimate and dear to my friends and i - i feel it like a slight itch. but it's not bad. with family, on the contrary: i find being in it together strengthens the clannish ties. weddings are family business.

this story, however, is not really about the wedding. more about the long unnecessary hunt for the bits of my outfit, as per my mum's strong request that i put on an appropriate front on such a special occasion.
i was like, "okay, i think then maybe we should buy a dress..."
cue dress-shopping with my mum, in my parents' town.
carmen's typical discourse upon entering a shop:
"i'm looking for a wedding dress...i'm the bride's cousin so it has to look not-cheap and without a huge cleavage...nothing too frilly, i hate ribbons, nothing asymmetrical. a nice fabric that doesn't wrinkle, nothing shiny...and i need something around knee-length, because she [point to my mum] won't allow me to wear short dresses in this country!"
yay.
so we found the dress:
mum: "look at this one!"
carmen: "yay i like it. bummer, it's a bit expensive."
mum: "i'll pay".
carmen: "whatever, it's not like i really wanted a dress."
carmen: "let this be my birthday present from you." (my birthday was 2 months plus away from the purchase date.)
mum: "you'd better not put any more weight on, or you won't be able to zip this."

"rehearsal" picture taken at easter, in the village (one month before the wedding) (after eating easter lunch, just to test that zipper or smth.)

next, the problem of accessories. i somehow had a scheme in my head where turquoise went wonderfully with the purple of the dress, so i had to look for ideally a turqoise clutch. no such luck, as none of the shops i entered (only half serious) had anything remotely interesting to me. i own no clutch to this day, and for "events" i always borrow mum's black one.
instead of which, (by giulia's fault) i ended up buying a belt in the color of...see below. it's somewhere on the spectrum between blue and green, but hell knows what that color is. petrol blue/dark turquoise? after buying it, i NEVER encountered anything else for sale in that color absolutely anywhere.

now, my mother is a pretty matchy-matchy person.
mum: "but your sandals are black, why don't you put on a black belt?"
carmen: [tries to explain the concept of "pop of color", as per giulia and fashion blogs]
mum: "how will you find earrings that color now?"

carmen, in accesory store: "i have this belt here...so i'm looking for biggish earrings that would be visible against my hair, that are either this color, or silvery, but not too cheap looking, something dangly, sparkly..."
no go. we ended up buying turquoise (NOT THAT COLOR)  stars-of-david. oh well.
i also ended up losing one of the earrings in church and prompting a "search the earring" game right after the wedding vows.

the sandal situation was not as dramatic, though i scoured the two malls of cluj looking. the requirement was prettty standard: black, thin not-too-high heel, thin straps, silver detail if any.

i took this pic to show my mum after my visit to polus. actual buy is less glittery/fussy, with a small silver accent.

wah. that sounds exhausting, really.
so have a couple of pics from outside the church on the big day:

my favourite people of all the favourite people in attendance: the bride with our mutual grandfather, and in the back row my parents in very typical poses

and this one is to show off the bride's dress and the person of the bride's sister, my table mate through the partytimez

my other table mate, our cousin tea, who's 14, playing with food in a creative way: this is a mini-statue of  ronnie, the bride's dog. good resemblance too.

and something that looks like some character from "where the wild things grow"...? i don't know.

post wedding i realized i didn't have pics from the wedding, because, apart from food, i hadn't bothered to photograph anything or to ask anyone to photograph me for documentary purposes. so okay, my mum tried her hand at it for about...20 mins, with results of this caliber. note that my heels are really buried in the carpet etc. whatever. no more excuses.

and a pic of my mum because she's beautiful, and of our sooo out-of-any-concept-of-style hallway wood panelling

and a well-deserved selfie, because i get professionally made-up only...once every 32 years, apparently.