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Clothes: Most wedding dresses in this part of the world look like Disney princess gone awry. Here's a sampling from the first couple pages of a Google search; these are very representative of what's available in the stores around here:
Basically, they're way not my style; many of the dresses I saw here could easily be confused for the wedding cake. If I'd been more on the ball, I would have picked out a dress I liked from the internet and had someone custom make it for me, but since it didn't occur to me early enough, I was limited to what was already on the rack. Fortunately, we did find one dress that isn't shaped like a church bell, and even though it's still sleeveless (i.e. it's a corset top - don't think I'll be eating too much!) and covered in strings of blingy rhinestones, it's still a pretty nice dress. We got a little bolero to go with it, so I won't be cold or feel so naked. I also bought my very first pair of peep-toes, so it's a good thing that my salon work-up includes a pedicure (along with manicure, make-up, and hairstyle).
Of course, I'm not the only one getting a new outfit. Reziko bought his first suit and dress shoes (do you know how hard it is to find a coat and pants for someone as skinny as he?), Gogi got a snappy new shirt, pants, and dress shoes, and lovely Inga got a new haircut and a dress, and will even be wearing heels!
Food: Basa, Gogi, and Tamazi set off at about 4 AM yesterday morning to the villages in the mountains to buy meat. They came back with about 30 kilograms of cheese, an entire cow, hacked up and stuffed into grain bags, four live piglets and about twenty live chickens. Our courtyard has temporarily been turned into a barnyard. The animals are cute but stinky; the chickens are constantly knocking over their water, and one of them is an escape artist, always squeezing out through the wire. We eventually just let her roam; she can't get far anyway, as the yard is fenced. Butchering time is scheduled for four o'clock; I'm not sure yet if I'm going to watch. I'm half grossed-out and half curious, since I never have seen how animals are butchered before. So maybe I'll watch one or two and then skedaddle. All of this food will be taken to the chef at the reception hall tomorrow morning so they'll have time to cook everything by 4 PM on Wednesday.
Clean-up: We've been scurrying around getting the house guest-ready, which has involved a lot of sweeping, mopping, scrubbing, etc. I try to stay out of the way and stick to what I know how to do, which has been mostly dish-washing and sweeping. I had a little battle of wills with Inga this morning as she physically tried to stop me from moving the couch with Gogi, saying, "You can't do that, Alli! You're a WOMAN!!" Which, I know, is just how she was raised and is used to looking at the world, but it really pissed me off. And I moved the couch anyway, and explained to her that in the US I don't just wait around for a man to show up to move something marginally heavy for me, and fumed about it for awhile afterwards, and now I'm mostly over it. Most of the time I can deal with this gender-role stuff without much trouble, but when the reason why I can't do something is not because I'm not strong enough or not tall enough, but specifically because I'm a female, that irks me. Anyway, in the end we've got the house pretty presentable, which is good, because my parents arrive tomorrow!
I hope Mom brings her camera, because I don't have one, and I'd really like pictures of us looking all spiffy, and of all the food, and of the party in general. Georgian weddings typically run to 300 people, sometimes even 500, but we're keeping ours to about 100. Still, it's going to be raucous. Stay tuned for updates after Wednesday.
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