Wednesday, November 12, 2008

I wanted to post an update: we've now officially booked the reception hall for the wedding. We'll be hosting the reception at Montreal's Musée des Beaux-Arts, in their Hall of Mirrors (pictured unadorned below). We both feel like the receipt of confirmation is an important milestone in the long process of planning the wedding and it gives us some relief knowing that this part is complete. There was confusion surrounding the issue of insurance and to be sure, not all issues surrounding the reception have been sorted out. We still need to sort out music, a DJ, a sound system, etc. We've selected a caterer for the event and we'll surely have more logistics to go over with them as well. We're still thrilled that things are progressing and that this one important piece has been laid down.

I uploaded a few photos from our most recent visit to the Musée this past August.

Sitting on the "cow" together.

A photo of the Michal and Renata Hornstein Pavilion, on the north side of Sherbrooke street in Montreal.

A photo of the hall itself, without any chairs, tables or flowers. But we had Joelle and Keith!

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

It’s been a year since Mikhail told me that if I was to be involved with any man, he would want it to be him. And what a year it’s been. It’s also been almost a year since we started talking about marriage. The journey has been rough in some places, but has given us ecstatic rushes in others. We have learnt invaluable lessons about communication and eloquence, patience, timing, contentment, idolatry, and have found a much richer meaning in our lives than we otherwise would have discovered had we not discovered each other. Maybe the hardest part is over. Maybe the hardest part is still to come. In ten years we will look back at this period in our lives probably with a mix of amusement, admiration at the ordeal we had to go through and relief that it’s over. Waiting is excruciatingly difficult sometimes. At other times, we’re able to enjoy our time apart as a time of stretching and growing, and a time of learning life lessons that better prepare us for married life.

The biggest issue we’ve recently wrestled with, and are slowly coming to terms with, has to do with living a purposeful and meaningful life, a life that does not follow worldly conventions but one that is deeply spiritual. We’ve observed the all consuming drive of North American culture to be highly educated, well-liked, and successful in career. We feel the pressures, as much as the rest of you, our readers, to conform to the expectations of the culture we live in – to pursue the highest level of education possible for the sake of being educated and for the prestige of that final degree, to be well-off and live a comfortable life. But there is a way to live life differently, more vibrantly, carving our own niche in the face of all of that expectation.

The next year will be one of those life-changing years. We still don’t know what to expect, but we know that it’ll be good. We’re well taken care of.