The slideshow ...

The aftermath ...

This Monday its going to be four weeks since the wedding,and its quite hard to put into words that amazing , crazy stressful , beautiful day. I wouldn't say it was the best day of my life ( too much stress and rain to qualify ) but then the wedding started in the evening, the ceremony at 6pm and fro then on the stress fell off and it was all about celebrating hugs and champagne amazing food and speeches ,it definitely was THE BEST EVENING of my life. Seriously no ifs or buts all around best.

I still wish a little I could redo the day , the whole bit where I woke up at 5am and didn't take my eyes off the sky, praying it would change and not look like it was going to rain any minute for four long hours.

Then got in a cab to go pick up the girls get ready it starts raining and I'm there sad because the entire thing we've been planning for 18 months meticulously is not going to happen as envisaged. No dancing outside under the stars in the beautifully lit courtyard. So yes for most of the day I felt disappointed . I wish I would have just gotten over it and not cared, i also wish that stupid custom of not seeing the groom wouldn't exist cause 1, he could have cheered me up in a minute flat and 2, all our attendants were mingling and sipping champagne outside our getting ready rooms and I couldn't leave for fear of bumping into the groom.

Also there were moments where i should have been MORE of a bridezilla , like when the room got full of people who had no business seeing the bride before ceremony , or no business being there in the first place.

Then again this is not meant to be a rant just my thoughts on the day. And there was so many great moments... Just upon arrival being smothered with a Creme de La Mer mask looked like some weird lets rob a bank mask ( and scared our photographer Csaba). The girls aka bridesmaids! Having all those amazing girls around me was great and really they were amazing and so sweet and just the whole excitement of getting ready together and getting into the swing of things .I loved the hair and loved the make-up as well as the people who administered it , the look that came together just as I thought and it was great to see all the girls dresses I loved the different styles coming together. And seeing Jas. made up so georgeaous , and for J. to like her gift , for M. to be so happy with her dress and Sz. so caring and into the wedding drama and just to know that KC friggin flew from New York for 48 hours then back to Manila to be there . I was amazing and very very emotional.

I guess this is goig to be in installlments as it will get too long for one post . And I was going to wait till we officially get the photos from the amazing Csaba @ naszriporter.hu but i'll post a little teaser now and lots and lots more in a bit ...

Image by naszriporter.hu

I've got a love/hate relationship with travelling. I'm so happy about leaving Paris (and work!) behind for four weeks , absolutely ecstatic to go home, get married, have our honeymoon, Barcelona , Santorini, Cote d'Azur all of that BUT I hate packing the airports , waiting, being uncomfortable, flight turbulences, waiting for luggage at arrival , crossing fingers that nothing is lost /stolen /broken ... Well all of that. And DF is always making fun of how much i hate living out of a suitcase that whatever hotel we go (even for a night) I need an hour to unpack arrange my things and nest otherwise i won't be comfortable . Oh well one of those lovely things my 'husband' will just have to live with.

Now packing my suitcase I am at 10 evening dresses, 6 day dresses 5 skirts 2 jeans about 10 shoes and it goes on ..; as usual not sure how it will all work , but having grown up with about 4 back and forth trips between Hungary - Germany every year I'm quite masterful at packing . At least DF is taking me to the airport.

But yeay tomorrow afternoon I will be home looking at our garden surrounded by cats and dog and chillin in 30C, shouldn't be too bad.

We were legally married yesterday afternoon at the Mairie de 19eme in Paris. It was the most wonderful day, I'm still glowing!

I got to wear my pretty pink Dior dress and DF got me a pink peeony/rose bouquet to match, the room in the mairie was stunning , which I really didn't expect all high ceilings and and grand paintings and red welwet upholstered chairs , and after 15 minutes we signed everything and it was over , we were married.

We took the 15 or so friends that were there and walked over the street to the sunny Parc de Buttes Chaumont for champagne picknick with lots of strawberries cherries and raspberries and special macaroons our friend Pia brought and celebrated the afternoon away. Even though it wasn't that many people it felt a little overwhelming just being there and having them around was so lovely.
I still have a huge grin on my face ( which is saying something i'm at work and hungover) then we had dinner with the remainder of the group at our fun thai in Belleville , and after dinner went to the Hemingway bar for lots of champagne and cocktails and the best ever bartenders ( Pierre & Romain ) who completely spoiled us and pretty much let us take over the Bar till 3 am!

It was just perfect, we are happy , no regrets , no nervousness , we are all good and releived after all the paperwork that went into it. Invited to another little soiree tomorrow nite not to mention brunch in the morning.

Update ...

Back here writing again , and since this blog will soon come to an END .... I have a confession to make. About two weeks to our mairie wedding and 4 to our proper big proper wedding in Budapest and I am getting scared. Mind you not about marrying DF , that's all good no worries there.

Its just that while I enjoy organizing the event and making decisions about details I somehow forgot that this whole big hoopla will happen around me!I will the the bride this time , quite hard to fathom. Brides are meant to be blushing and delicate and ladylike , whilst I well i can be quite cynical and i cuss and well not so delicate even with spanx and south beach diet. Hmmm.

I guess I got caught up in the organization aspects of it ... and doing the ultimate event for us is great, but this time the show pony is us. The thought is scary though I'm trying to calm myself by focusing on the fact that all/ most of the people there will be close friends and I will be happy to see them.

Speaking of organizational aspects I managed to have the first big fight with my mom, which is quite traumatic(though now we are ok... till round 2) Obviously she is paying for the whole thing, and has been great about it, I mean we got the band we got the place, the catering , really we are spoilt.( Though we did compromise on things) But now when we were speaking of adding some personal touches, ( naming the tables after our special restaurants in Paris with photos ...etc ) she was completely against it and found about a million reasons. One side of me wants to let it go , but on the other hand it would be sweet and for us meaningful, and I'm worried that I would regret not adding those touches, and giving in.Not to mention that DF would really love to have it. I just feel like in weddings its so often the little things people notice . But maybe I'm misguided...

Image by ellen von unwerth..

Can it be ? Can it be that after all the planning and prepping and money spent and my unwavering enthusiasm for all things images, magazines and details wedding , we finally hit the point of wedding fatigue. Yes me and DF both of us , literally just want to get it over with .Enough of spending money, worrying about details, stressing about guests and bridesmaids and family and catholic and French bureaucracy. We are still excited , but with only 8 weeks to go we want the time to pass already , the day to come to know who is coming and to celebrate!

We got our date for the town hall wedding yesterday, its June 5th in the afternoon which neatly places all of it in one month and we have May to chill out and prepare.
It’s true that if we haven’t had waited this long we wouldn’t have that wedding we imagined the whole lovely fairytale , but if it could have been helped I think a shorter engagement( if only by half a year) would have been better.

We are looking forward to just get on with life , travelling, maybe looking for an apartment in Paris ( now that’s a new project!), maybe find a new job around autumn, or look into mowing abroad.

So there, until then I’m trying to enjoy my last weeks as a fiancée I have a feeling I’ll miss it a lot once its over.

peony bouquet from googleimages.

Somehow today was a really hardcore monday ... not only did I have a short weekend (was workin on saturday as well as the coming two saturdays) and 1 day weekends just don't do it for me, I also got in a fight with one of my bridesmaids and am slightly annoyed with another . I guess it makes sense that the friends who've been the biggest help and kind of moral support in this whole planning crazyness are the ones that recently-or semi-recently got married , they are just angels and I really appreciate them. Not to completely bust on all my single friends or get into bridezilla territory , but the wedding's coming up and its getting intense and well they've all seem to've got their lives filled with their own drama.

Nevermind ,i got home smooched DF, ate some grapefruits and listened to DF's best man, J.'s song,( ) i love it when friends make songs, it helps that I actually like the music , but something wth recognizing the voice as well.... it just makes me happy , same with my friend Kc's album 'Melt with you ' .

Another thig that cheered me up this weekend was the fact that me and >DF tried dancing. He's a great dancer but me ....another story.Despite all my years of toddler and child ballet classes, its sad . But we put on Sinatra ( We're thinking ''Fly me to the moon..) and actually managed to dance even though some of DF's more ambitious twirls bumped me into the tables in our small living room it was hilarious . It gave me some hope though we might manage to look OK dancing together.

PS,For cheering up, waching High Society helps too.

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter to you all! Mind you I'm in the office working ( not too much of it though as it is blessedly calm)

Brought wedding work with me too as I'm planning to start writing the place cards this afternoon and answering letters from those family members who can't come. We are just at the stage where we try to hunt down our invitees who haven't sent their RSVP's trying to figure out who we can still invite last minute and starting to work out how the tables will work. Which goes something like this " So if I invite uncle S. then I can't not invite aunt E. but with her we still have 2 free seats and I don’t want to punish people by sitting them there so let’s invite the two horrid cousins and just make it a table." Yeah family is fun! That’s the worst of it though the seating rest is way more pleasant.

Also lots of things made me happy this weekend , it started with the blooming Park in Levallois ( tulips, magnolia trees, pansies...) then I bought a bunch of new books in WHSmith’s , and Vanity Fair arrived in the office which always means days of reading . I got two cute hair bands both with bows ( cause, "Who doesn't like bows?!" )
Went to the Marché in rue Cler ,on the 69 bus my favorite line in Paris, bought flowers and a pot of daisies and D. showed me where to get cupcakes, aaaand they are amazing ,not to mention the 3 cute guys who work in the shop are serious eye candy.
And DF made the yummiest healthy dinner on Saturday and got me some noix st jaques ( which I managed to overcook AND over salt my pea puree soup, (I'm SO not a cook!)

both images taken by me.

The day is approaching and things are nicely rolling along… The big good news this week was that I’m keeping my job ( our company is downsizing and letting go about 10 people) so when back from our honeymoon in beginning of July and will be moved to work on Dior perfumes & cosmetics instead of the leather goods stuff. Oh well love beauty stuff and extremely grateful for the French labor laws and my CDI contract right now. somehow didn’t feel like going off on my honeymoon with unemployment looming.

Our dossier is given to the mairie and in 10 days we get our appointment , and flights etc booked.

Oh yeah and last Sunday just after our big we are starting to diet so good bye fabulous food lunch ( fois gras & sauternes , duck leg with honey marinade and ile flottantes) I was walking through the Marais and enjoying all the open shops and decided to drop in to les petites where I ended up buying the dress , the dress I fell in love with weeks ago and DF despised ( he’s coming around now)

We are still on the search for the flower girl dresses , and my adorable bridesmaid J. led me in the right direction with US websites having these amazing offers ( forget Paris , nothing proper under 100Eur) except that somehow the sizing doesn’t work, it might just be that we have no idea about kids sizing.

Oh and a few photos of the controversial dress for the civil ceremony..

Here we go again!

Writing about diets can be boring , but the blog is about the whole process to get to the wedding , and right now that involves hardcore not eating starting this Sunday ,so I need to put it in writing to strengthen my resolve in the matter. The goal is at least 10pounds in 4 weeks.

So the plan is :

-carbs ( brown rice , vasa crackers, brown pasta) only until 12am – not that I will feel like eating much of those in the morning.

- vegetables , fish, meat, fruit allowed as much as I like.

- When possible , no eating after 6-7 pm

and NO SUGAR ! NO BREAD , NO PASTA ! –God the sugar thing is going to make me suffer , but hey for vanity’s sake and only until June 20th aka our wedding day.

This actually works when I hold to it ,last time I did the same thing I lost 5kg in 4 weeks , in time for my dress fitting so I’m hopeful it’s going to work this time around.

The thought of our fabulous wedding feast sustains me , just thinking of our menu , the wedding cake , our honeymoon , tapas in Barcelona etc … makes those two and a half months of fasting not seem so bad . I’m almost looking forward to eating all healthy stuff except for my sugar addiction I love fish and vegetables , so no problems with that .

Images by me , the last carrot cake ...



And I promise next time , I’ll find some other silly topic to write about then my food intake .

Just spring!

We got the papers , finished the preparation course, ( actually quite sad , it was great ! ) So now its off to the mairie and hopefully we'll get our appointment in about 4 weeks or so ! yeay !

Happening last few days , work then …. friends over for impromptu dinner… going for marriage prep course , and last nite was spent on my friend kc’s film set , they were on their last day of shooting and we had fun going from location to location eating sushi in the van , her rehearsing her lines? very enlightening seeing my friend at work like that . When I worked for fashion file before, we were shooting fashion shows for TV , so not completely unfamiliar with the effort it takes to get the cameras up and in place , the right light , angle etc , but still surprised how much work goes into a scene of a few minutes. Love the feel of film sets though, the team , and how it comes together for a scene. I guess it’s what I used to enjoy about the fashion shows. When you know the work that it takes those few minutes of perfection are so much more precious. I guess I should go into production…

We got our rings , mine’s so delicate , very tiny eternity set diamonds and things in Budapest seem to be on track even if largely over budget , oh and we finally booked our honeymoon, not Cali , the Maldives or a sailing trip , but nevertheless I think the med in June is pretty foolproof and fun and a boat (albeit of slightly larger proportions) is involved which alone makes me happy . So we are going to Barcelona staying for a few days then 12 days on sea. C A N T. W A I T.

Pressure is mounting at work , our contract is finishing in June ( great timing ) and when I’m back who knows if I’ll even have a job or where . Applied for a position in New York , but who knows yet , papers for DF would be complicated , and well working without papers , not ideal. As usual que sera , sera, ..

image of capra from googleimages/capra

I know not everybody might share this passion , but I simply looove pretty wallpapers, so much so that yesterday when we went out to le magnifique on rue richelieu ( a great cocktail club by the way) i found myself tipsily effusing about their amazing wallpaper, ( bronze base with pink waterlilies if i remember right) So i decided to share some of my favourites from de gournay in the hope that one day when i'm a proper grown up i will be able to afford just a little tiny room with their chinoiserie papers...

all images from www.degournay.com

For a while now I haven’t written here. Lately I have been feeling ambivalent about blogging , and preferred to start writing my private diary again. There is something about the public nature of a blog that has stopped me from airing opinions here. I find it hard to balance writing without constricting myself for reasons of certain people might read it etc . ..

But if I think of the people who might read it , it just turns into a dull public newsletter .

Never mind I will still try. There has been some major wedding drama going on, to the point of us almost having to cancel our wedding. The Hungarian ministry of culture tried to put nuit blanche on the night of our wedding , and as it is held in a museum, they would have had to cancel us ( 3 months before the wedding!!!!) but thanks to my mom who fought like a lion, contacted Df’s dad , ambassadors and almost the press, whilst on the brink of a nervous breakdown ,it’s still on.
I was left blissfully unaware of this as DF and mom conspired not to tell me of it for fear of my nervous breakdown.

All is good now , and I spent Saturday looking for flower girl dresses and a mairie dress in Galleries Lafayette. ( the dress I will wear for my civil ceremony) The experience left me swearing to myself to never again go shopping with DF and friend in tow, not to mention to avoid Saturday at Lafayette at all costs .
I found the perfect dress and now as DF doesn’t like it I’m left pondering whether it’s worth buying a dress and wearing it to your civil ceremony that your beloved doesn’t like , and says it makes you look bigger , yikes! I still love the dress though and know I would regret not buying it. Its grecian style knee length vanilla colored chiffon pleats , absolutely gorgeous , like something out of a patisserie. What to do?

As for the flower girls , no luck yet.
I also went to the opening night of the European Independent Film Festival , Partying with my friend KC , who is here doing a soap opera, to catholic marriage preparation class with DF, and to the Swedish Club for brunch ( my new favorite place in town) so it’s no wonder that now I’m left to nurse a spring cold and have no energy left whatsoever.

photo by penn

And it was.....March !!!

OK so maybe not the most impressive photos ever, but little signs of spring in the park where I have my lunch on sunny days.

And yet in the face of it all...

Lets see what my oracle Oscar Wilde had to say about marriage or related issues :

"I have always been of the opinion that consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative..."

"Lord Henry: ...the one charm of marriage is that it makes a life of deception absolutely neccesary for both parties.

...every experience is of value,and,whatever one may say against marriage it is certainly an experience.

...Women try their luck; men risk theirs."

"Lord Illingworth: Twenty years of romance make a woman look like a ruin; but twenty years of marriage make her something like a public building ...

....Men marry because they are tired;women because they are curious.Both are disappointed. "

"Mrs Cheveley:Ah! the strength of women comes from the fact that psychology cannot explain us. Men can be analysed, women...merely adored. An Ideal Husband


"Lord Goring: It is the growth of the moral sense in women that makes marriage such a hopeles, one sided institution."

"Mrs Cheveley : Oh there is only one real tragedy in a woman's life.The fact that her past is always her lover, and her future invariably her husband.

Take all that , the fact that I'm reading Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates (wanted to read it before going to see the movie) that two peple who are quite close to me just announced the separation from their husbands.It makes us think, and yet in the face of it all we are getting married...


Quotes:Oscar Wilde:Nothing...except my genius; image : wedding 1933 , condenast.com, image of Oscar Wilde: www.wilsonsalmanac.com

"Pleasure is the only thing one should live for.Nothing ages like happiness."O.W.

Somehow last night Paris magic struck and the evening turned into one of decadent delights.

It even started well when I met P. DF's best friend who lives in the Congo currently and works for an NGO, at WHSmith's (they had a sale on all Penguin books and I found some great one's including one on Oscar Wilde)then we went to a lovely tiny Thai / Vietnmese that I didnt know in the same street as Maria Luisa and the Souffle restaurant.

When we finished we hadn't talked nearly enough and were debating going to one of our usual places like Juveniles or the Caveau (de Montpensier) but somehow P. mentioned the Bar Hemingway and we got very fired up (except I told her that DF would kill me if I lots) but P. in her endless generosity ivited me.I guess she needed a partner in crime and well there isn't anything more fun then sharing a guilty decadent evening and about 6-7 cocktails with a friend who shares the same expensive habits. We cosied up in the bar, struck up frienships with Pierre and Romain the barmen who still remembered my friend from previous visits(Colin was off) got served pretty drinks with roses and orchids and cucumber water and warm almonds and ... oh well the whole place just enveloped us in its golden shine until closing time , when reality had us back.

And this morning a raging headache / hungover , lovely. But if any bar is worth the morning after then that one is. Next time will be after our mairie wedding if ever we get it done.

Tomorrow DF will take me out for our proper, belated Valentine's dinner,we had an unplanned impromptu one on valentine day , but that doesn't cancel out the need to go to Le Recamier once every winter for a souffle feast, before it gets warm again an d souffle feels too heavy . Life can be quite pleasurable sometimes, sure old papa and colin would agree.

Dominos falling

I'm back in Paris , back to work back in our cosy little apartment back to evenings alone watching Godfather till too late eating Ben & Jerry's taking a break from my break. No wedding planning no diets ... for the moment at least and there is much more to write.

But for the past half hour I was going through dominomag.com I'm sooo sad to see my facourite interior design mag go that I downloaded every image I liked for future inspiration, when one day I will own a home I can remodel to my hearts desire and without limitations given by DF's guidelines on colour etc... ah one can dream.

Really Conde Nast broke that little piece of my heart that beats for pretty pretty apartments , wall colours , mirrored beds ... pretty lamps, wallpaper etc..;

Seriously each image is like perfect real estate escpism...

all images from dominomag.com

Honeymoon time is over...

Wow this wedding planning business is getting a bit overwhelming especially having my mom and DF's oppinions raining down on me from two different countries while I alone (ok there is our planner) am left with figuring out budget etc... So as much as I love being engaged and the process and all the pretty things involved . Today it happened : I finally got sick of it all and just wish it was all done alrady and we could move on.

(Of course I still look forward to it, just slightly less enthusiastic about the process,it starts giving me headaches)

Thank God, after my morning dress fitting I was booked for an entire afternoon at the beauty parlor , literally two hour facial, massage , pedicure all of it. Gotta love Hungary for that though it only cost 25$ for all and my skin feels heavenly. Yup takes work to stay pretty, well in this case the work of 5 lovely talented ladies , not mine , but work nevertheless. I feel like Dita looks on that image . Soooo pretty

(image from google images/ www.ahlanlive.com)

Somehow even after all this time the beauty of this city takes my breath away every time I cross a bridge over the Danube , I had one crossing today on tram 6 over Margaret bridge at dusk , with the whole city , parliament and castle hill in pink candy coton light and later from the other side crosssing at nite everything aglow in golden night lighting.Breathtaking.

I guess I should stop gushing and there is plenty places tht are a bit shabby , dodgy or just plain ugly , but it just makes me love it more.With all that I like about Paris and all its architectural beauty there is rarely that I get the same feeling I have every single time I cross the Danube. Its home i guess.

Could have something to do too with the fact that I got contact lenses today and for the first time in a long while aactually had some spatial sight , well and could actually see.

As for wedding stuff , we got lots done while DF was here fun stuff like cake tasting, choosing first nite suite, tasting the menus , meeting the priests (slightly less fun more nervwracking) and thanks to our lovely wedding planner things seem to go smoothly.

Although after almost a whole week of it and another full day to come tomorrow, I have a sudden urge to take a nap from all things wedding and just wake up after all of it is done . Then again I'm way too perfectionist about details and all matters easthetic to just lean back and let other people deal with it.I never thought i could get sick of it all but , though i still look forward to it , im starting to get sick of the planning , the worrying about documents and shedules and family and budget and all of that. Maybe I just need a holiday from my holiday or something like that...

Sailing...

I just desperately fell in love...though DF doesnt have to worry just yet, I fell in love with a ship, Its called Sea Cloud, and I guess DF would still be worried as its far out of our budget. In fact their website www.seacloud.com doesn't even mention prices .It does however mention butler service, gilded faucets only 60 guest per ship etc. But the ships are heavenly and I love being on ships where you get gusts of saltwater into your face , that are closer to the water with lovely wood plank flooring and oil paintings hanging in the dining room. I guess we'll just have to save it for our 10th wedding anniversary (another good reason to stay together) until then i'll just be hopelessly in love...

(images from www.sevenstarsandstripes.com-view of the cabin, www.jhcbh.com for image of the ship)

Hah feel pretty damn smug these days, its been almost a month since I started with the whole lets loose weight thing and so far am down by 6 kg( 12pounds), turns out my friend kc was right , I just had to stop whyning about it, stop packing away the amounts of beloved junk food and it would work just fine. Vanity is great motivation, whats the point after all of a great photographer if I wont like myself in the photos anyway.

We are still fighting germann / french buroucracy, who knew there are that many documents we need to get together, looks like the easiest country to get married in Europe is England , of all places. All you need is birth certificate, passport and seven days stay in the country. If only we'd have known about a year ago. Now there is no way we can get another week holiday off, so we'll have to just get a notary and all the docs together for the mairie here.

Can't wait for Saturday , am off to Budapest, have already a completely full schedule , but oh how blissfull it will be two full weeks without work even if its busy, though i can't really complain, we'll have about two trial dinners with DF , chose the cake (cake!) pick up wine from Austria, meet up with priests , dress trials etc... cant wait!Plus hankg out with my girls, yeay!

I guess its a bit boring to complain about January , but honestly , is there a less inspiring month???

Am working two full weeks plus saturdays in a row which is sucking away my energy especially paired with the diet, and having some issues getting papers for our city hall wedding in France all together. One would think that the European Union being the EUROPEAN UNION we would not need special documents as an EU citizen to get married in France , but of course the French bein French and German buroucracy being what it is, which is quite frankly a pain in the ass, I've got one more thing to worry about.

If anyone out there has thought about getting married in France (I mean the official marie/city hall mariage) let me just tell you certificat de coutume, and certificat de celibat, oh well in good old Hungarian fashion I still think everything will work itself out in the end.

The good news is when I went dress shopping for the town hall wedding this week things FIT me, I was quite proud of my dieting efforts. Even if I didn't find anything , though we did buy DF's tux.
Its very lovely and made from the same fabric that E. Zegna uses (apparently from the same roll, whatever that means) but we bought itin this small shop and for half the price of a Zegna suit. Its called Arthur & Fox and had a women's section too, completely nodescript store but apparently where all the ladies'n gents from the 16th buy their suits and cashmere coats. Lovely shop.
Another Paris tip is la maison du whisky which is on rue d'anjou in the 8th and pretty much a whisky lovers paradise. Speaking of whisky and tuxes our shop assistant let us in on Cary Grants secret for his shiny / almost laquered shoes apparently he rubbed his shoes with a slightly wet cottonball.So thats my gift to you , for today: shiny shoes! ;-)

of course my real old movie star crush is Bogie but in those pictures i must say Grant looks pretty damn well. ( images from google.com/images)

My mom did the sweetest thing yesterday , she sent me a care-package. Yup I'm 26 and got a care package from my mom yesterday , funny , but it made me very very happy. Wasn't anything special just my favourite lip balm that i'm out of and cant get in France and an Audrey Hepburn postcard and Volker Schlondorffs a Love of Swann dvd. One of her gifts for Christmas was Prousts A love of Swann( might have translated that wrong as the book is in German) and I've been complaining to her how very pretentious and cynical I find Proust , so she sent me the movie to sweeten it , I guess.

Either way it was lovely. Epecially since I'm sightly stressed out work is very very busy, though even when it gets stressful its still fun essentially its a very girly office. All of us tell each other about our relationships and exchane all kinds of info from what to do against UTI to sugar-olive oil scrub( my secret soft skin weapon) to what we bought on lunchbreak etc etc... it just goes on we bought our boss slippers so she can take of her sky high boots in the office and still look inconspicous when the big boss comes in ( they are audrey hepburn style with a ferragamo bow)and feted her birthhday today with rose champagne and 3 kinds of cake.

As for all things wedding , am slightly getting pissed off at our planner. She promised to send over trial menu before christmas and nothing yet , we are going back to Budapest in 2 weeks and need to have acaterer set, so we can try the foods) ahhh exactly why I hired a planner was that i didnt wanna sit in paris and worry bout things not getting organized and its happening!Just crossing my fingers...

At least our invites go out this weekend, so we can tick off another thing from our list. Oh yeah nd I'm on a radical sugar rehab , aka diet, which as far as healthy foods go is fine by me , but im in near desperation without sweets, thus the rehab.which is making me think of how i'd love cupcakes which made me think of Nigella (adore her) so there you have it Nigella with cupcakes curtesy of the dailymail.co.uk.

The year!

Ah a new year , new beginnings and all that.

2009 did start pretty well. Had a very grown up new year celerating at Juveniles (wine bar near Palais Royal) with friends amazing food and well lots of wine and champs.
The tiny restaurant was filled with lovely people kind of like one big dinner party, then we moved on to the Caveau de Montpensier (bar where DF used to work) and had a few more drinks ,then crawled back home by 5am, though I must say those last few did me in and I had a massive hungover on the first. Not helped by the fact that DF decided to make himself a lovely english fry up with bacon eggs and the like while I was officially on my first day of diet.He did bring me a bouquet of roses in the afternoon, to start the year right, so all was forgiven.

Today it was back to work , but for once we get to spend a whole weekend together which is very exciting. I have surprise date for DF planned tomorrow and we're going to the Fumoir for brunch with a bunch of friends on Sunday. Am very excited as its been a while that we could plan weekend things together like normal people , and taking over the big table at the Fumoir with friends is always fun, even if I'll have to take a little break in my diet for their eggs benedict.

2009 makes it official. We are getting married in 6 months , its insane , really, just the thought, and so soon. No cold feet though just a bit increulous at how grown up that sounds.

Oh and our invitations arrived from the States along with my earrings . Both are beautiful, the earring are perfect, a bit bling but not too big and will work nicely with a half-updo.

The invitations are elegant but..... well..... HUGE!!As in twice the size I imagined. Almost a bit embarrased. They have the perfect colour and everything , only the size does make it feel a bit like we are inviting to a state dinner. Oh well I just hope they wont raise expectations too high.