Ryan's here!

Okay, there was no way I was going to keep up with this blog during the wedding week. Nor, as you'll soon understand, during the subsequent month of crazy that followed. I'll do my best to back-date these and capture the experiences as best I remember them going down. Welcome to my wedding week:

You know the wedding countdown clock is really ticking when family members start landing in your time zone. Over the weekend, while I was partying it up with my ladies, my parents and aunt landed in London. And another cousin and his girlfriend are already on this side of the Atlantic. Finally, yesterday, Ryan arrived. When the cousin who hit all life's major milestones with you—first communion, proms, graduations—arrives in town, it definitely makes the wedding atmosphere feel more real.

Hahaha, poor Ryan, he looks so overwhelmed by that crazy cousin to his right.

Ryan and me, living it up after our first communion.

After we met at the airport and headed back to my parents' hotel to drop off our bags, we had an afternoon of time and London at our fingertips. We did our best, and the London weather more or less behaved.

London, baby! An afternoon was all it took to hit many of the major sites: Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, the Globe Theatre, Tower Bridge, and of course a couple of pubs.

We woke ambitiously early the following morning. After all, it was only Tuesday, and the wedding wasn't until Saturday. Plenty of time for touristing!

Ambitiously early wake-ups do not preclude essential tourist travel shots.

Thanks to a free birthday trip-for-two National Express (bus) voucher to be used before the end of April, Ryan and I were headed to Canterbury, the very place of the namesake tales in every* high school English curriculum. *Every anglophone high school— Nicolas had no idea why we thought this destination was so funny.

Canterbury, beyond the tales

If quaint medieval English town is what you're after, you can't go wrong in Canterbury. We basically wandered around aimlessly and I fielded wedding- and visa-related emails as my phone pinged throughout the day. Our highlight was stumbling across Saint Augstine's Abbey. This place was seriously old, one of the first bastions of Christendom in England. We're talking 3-digit-years-on-their-gravestones old. And we were the only ones there, left totally free to roam, climb over, and lounge on top of any historical artefact. Not that we would ever do anything that disrespectful. We history buffs? Never.

That time we crashed Saint Augustine's Abbey. (Sad word choice, as there were thugs paid by the crown to actually crash this place back when the Catholic Church was being cleared from England.)

After dining in a restaurant literally older than our home country, we caught a bus and some shut eye.

We ate dinner here in a 517 year old building. Because Canterbury.

With a troupe of family scheduled to arrive in Brighton the following day, it was time to snag some beauty rest while I still could.

My last minute bachelorette weekend in London

With just one week to go before the Big Day, I hopped a train to London for my "hen do" festivities. It was time to forget the planning and chill with my girls. I cannot believe it's been just over a half year, but I've got a group here who cares enough to ensure that a three-month engagement is not too short to squeeze in a final ladies' weekend before I say "I do." Saturday night, I highjacked a Disney-themed party to test out my bridal tiara and hunt for an extra guest to fill a last minute cancellation. Well, check and check.

The Disney-themed party where we informally kicked off my "hen do" festivities.

 And the next day, properly partied out, we detoxed at a hammam with some overly enthusiastic exfoliation, followed by a late afternoon picnic along the Thames. Could it have been any more perfect?

My "hen do" Sunday!

Only when we capped it off with salads and a movie in yoga clothes back at Sharon's!

Possibly the world's chillest and healthiest end to a bachelorette weekend ;)

So now it's Monday morning, my family is officially in the UK, and the wedding week has begun! Not sure how to feel right now: I can't believe it's finally here!!

Good news!

After months of searching, traveling, and sending CVs into the abyss, my job hunt has officially come to an end, and not a moment too soon, just before we dive into full-on wedding mode. This week, I didn't get one but two job offers. And while one of them had been a long time coming, more than two months after beginning the interview process, the other, which I've decided to go with, feels like it magically materialized only a couple of weeks ago. I'm proud to say that I have accepted an offer, and I will be joining Scientifica as a Test & Installation Engineer. 

There's a lot to be excited about here. Scientifica is a company that designs microscopy and electrophysiology equipment for neuroscientists, people doing exactly the sort of work that I've done for most of the past decade. But what's more, I was always the neuroscientist in lab tinkering with the optics. (Thank you, MIT Engineering!) As a postdoc back in Denmark, I actually worked on Scientifica equipment, the same sort of stuff I will now be installing worldwide. This position draws absurdly well on all the aspects of my academic training, both the biology and the optics, while still offering a major pro of consulting: constantly meeting new people and learning new things at a fast-pace, only now it'll be learning about new neuroscience research topics and equipment needs, rather than the travails of stocking grocery store shelves.

And did I mention that Scientifca's headquarters are only a 30 minute drive from Brighton? That's right, guess who isn't moving after all?? How amazing is that, this highly specialized company known and respected throughout the international neuro community, nestled right outside my favorite English city without my even realizing! And I won't just be trapped in a suburban office: every other week I'll be traveling internationally, anywhere from Paris to Cali to China (but often with less glamor: think Detroit). Time to invest in some melatonin and a sleep mask. I am in for one exciting professional ride!

Topping it off

Last week, I had an interview run late. That sounds great, but it left me unable to make it home to Brighton in time to be seated in front of my computer for my second interview of that exhausting day. Instead, I landed mid-route while returning from interview #1, in a town called Lewes, where I found a cafe in which to take my skype interview with the second company. Besides providing the backdrop for my latest job interview, Lewes offered me another chance finding: fascinators at an affordable price. So.many.fascinators. Suddenly, that dressy headwear that is all the rage for English ladies attending weddings and horse races was financially accessible. Many WhatsApp selfies later, my parents and I had picked out a selection for my mom, my aunt, my sister, and even for my bridal reception outfit. Yay!

Only one thing quickly became glaringly obvious: I'd forgotten about the other half of my family. That's right, I'm not just a Repak/Aloia anymore. This wedding is all about blending two families into one, which means there was a clan of Kouzan women to consider. One group email thread later and I'd confirmed their interest in this delightfully English accessory and their color requirements. It was off to races (aka ebay) for me, where the selection was anything but wanting.

The English ladies know how a thing or two about accessorising for a wedding.

With all the feather- and ribbon-topped hats tucked carefully out of reach of our enthusiastic cats, we are all set for some extra English fun when all the women gather together for our pamper party the evening before the big day. I'm looking forward to the looks on their faces as they open their hat boxes. Here's to hoping everyone likes the selection!

Final headcounts & payments & last-minute to-do's

This is it, folks. We have less than two weeks to go, which means it's time for full panic mode to begin. Our RSVPs are confirmed, the headcount finalized, and we even survived the agony of multiple rounds of reception table planning. We settled payments with our venues, our photographer, our baker, and our DJs. Just this past weekend, we chose our wedding cake flavors- yum! Everything looks like it's nicely lined up. Everything but those vicious wedding details, which have begun to rear their ugly heads.

How do we ensure that a rogue wedding slideshow doesn't chop off our heads and include the world's worst candid shots? How does that last friend find his housing in Brighton? How do we ensure that every family member knows exactly when and where to go all our various family activities across town? And in between all that, I've had a zillion phone calls and emails to write as I hunt down al our vendors for various logistical arrangements.

I find myself wondering why we've decided to have a party at all while I watch the last remnants of our bank account rapidly circling the drain. My job prospects are gleefully chasing the horizon, abandoning me as I scramble to explore the legal quagmire that will leave me spending the first months of married life forcibly separated from my husband while we fight to exercise the right to live together as a married couple.

And then there's the weather. England is hardly the place to leave a bride reassured that the big day will be sunny. That's right, between my concerns over visas and job interviews, your standard bride issues still haunt me.

Look at how sunny Brighton was this weekend? Why does the weather forecast call for "more clouds than sun" on April 15? It's not fair!

At this point, I'm my own worst enemy. Or is it the Immigration Services? <rant> The system that puts up every hurdle for loved ones to come together. The system that prevented happily employed friends from attending our wedding, friends who are living in France and Canada, with no intention of moving to the UK, who are unable to cross the British border because of the massive administrative and time requirements just to process a simple tourist visa. I watched as friends from Russia, Iran, India, and the Philippines had to decline because they aren't lucky enough to hold the "right" passport to attend my wedding, all because of where they randomly happened to enter the world. </rant>

As if the rest of this post doesn't scream it, the last bits of wedding planning have left me running around like a chicken with its head cut off. So let me try to wrap this up on a lighter note. Despite the immigration frustrations, we've anticipating a lovely crowd to celebrate our big day. Here are the numbers:

Total headcount: 58 guests
Nationalities represented: 11 (US, France, Switzerland, Ireland, Turkey, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Poland, UK, South Korea)
Countdown to seeing all these guests: 12 days!

In full bloom

With just four weeks to our wedding eve (!!), it's time to start hammering out those final details. Today's task: flowers. This task was listed way down at the two-weeks-to-go category of my final month to-do list, but everything changed yesterday when I walked past some florists. First I saw these, and was completely smitten.

Why, hello, king protea. And how are you today?

The king protea is the national flower of South Africa, where it originates. It is part of a ancient flower family that originated over 100 million years ago, and it certainly has the looks like it could have been plucked straight out of Jurassic Park. These large, pink flowers have become particularly trendy in wedding bouquets over the past few years, though brides in the Southern Hemisphere have been using them for much longer.

Then I walked into these gems, and immediately fell for them.

Rainbow roses! Who'd have imagined?

I shouldn't have been surprised that in the gay capital of the UK (Brighton), florists randomly stock rainbow-colored flowers. After some consulting with family members as to whether straight people are allowed to decorate their weddings with rainbow roses, I had the go ahead. So today, I filled a trial vase and placed the floral order for the floral arrangements for our reception table.

Floral arrangements for the reception? Designed and ordered, check and check.

Then I was off to the big league: Hunter Florist, home of Brighton's stock of king protea. I tried to place a pre-order for my bridal bouquet, but it turns out that this notoriously difficult flower is hard to come by, and can never be guaranteed. Noooo! I'd already spent an hour finding the perfect king protea bouquet inspiration the previous evening. Here it is, by the way.

Wedding bouquet inspiration, courtesy of theknot.com

As I watched my bouquet dreams circling the drain, the florist informed that the king protea dry beautifully and can still be easily incorporated into a floral bouquet after drying. Problem solved! Now the guest room just has some unusual décor for the upcoming month.

The focal points of my future bridal bouquet, adorning the guest room

With the reception flowers ordered and my bouquet's central flowers chosen, the rest is in my floral expert of a mother's hands. She'll be making the bridal bouquet as well as all boutonnières and corsages for family members. For now, I'm checking flowers off the ever-shortening to-do list and keeping an eye on that countdown clock. 29 days to go!

Accessories fit for a wedding day

I have allowed myself— or rather, been unable to resist— the pleasure of discovering a new favorite designer in the midst of all this wedding planning: Mary Frances. It all began one fateful day while wandering through the North Laine in Brighton. An innocent peek inside Pretty Eccentric, lured in by the SALE sign in the window.

Oh, Pretty Eccentric, you Pandora's box of accessories

Before I knew it, I was smitten. Mary Frances is a San Francisco Bay Area-based designer whose love for big jewellery morphed itself into the design of hand-beaded bags with three-dimensional motifs, starting in early '90s. She's come up with thousands of original designs, all of which are hand beaded and embroidered in the Philippines. While her prices, ranging from $200-$300, are very reasonable compared to her competitors (her lines were awarded "Best Design" in Milan in 2013 and 2014), they're hardly in the price range of a not-so-freshly unemployed bride in the midst of wedding planning. But I couldn't help myself. Prices out of my range? Challenge accepted.

With several interviews looming large, the only thing to do was prepare, prepare, prepare! Naturally, I shopped. And boy, did ebay deliver. I got Mary Frances accessories for my wedding day (and beyond), as well as gifts for our maids of honor, all at 90+% off sticker price. Finally back from my travels Stateside, I got the pleasure of opening the last of the packages and admiring (and sharing!) the entire collection.

Purses for myself, including a silver ("mercury rising") bridal accessory, and gifts for the maids of honor (right, top & bottom)

Aren't they lovely? Whoever said retail therapy wasn't worth it?