Countdown to the wedding! – “The feared budget”

Finally I had the scary “wedding budget talk” with my family. And I say scary because I am fully aware that my family’s economic situation at the moment is not great. Since closing the ice-cream parlours, my uncle has realised that maybe we can’t continue having the lifestyle we used to have. That barely includes me, as I’ve always been the “saving bee” of the family. But I know that at the moment they are having more expenses than income due to the global credit crunch that is affecting half the world.

But the outcome of the meeting wasn’t as negative as I thought it would be. I was told not to worry and whatever happens they will be responsible of 50% of the wedding expenses. They are relying on the sale of an old house in order to get the money. If that house doesn’t sell, then they’ll have to get a loan or something similar to obtain the money. Of course, I am not 100% happy with this arrangement, as I don’t think it’s fair that people have to get in debt in order to pay for my wedding.

So now the question is, how much do we really need to spend on the wedding? I’ve heard that the average wedding costs around £20,000, which I think is outrageous. There are websites like Nicola Ray’s that give you lots of tricks to get your wedding as cheap as possible (She had hers under £5,000!). But can’t you get something in between? £12,000 sounds about right to me.

The greatest chunk of the budget goes towards the wedding reception: welcome canapes and drinks, 3 course meal, more drinks, evening buffet, more drinks, a few more drinks… Then the flowers and the photographer are the second and third largest chunks of budget. This is, of course, without taking into account the honeymoon!

A lot of money for just two sets of parents…

To acclimatise

To acclimatize
A     verb
        1     acclimatize, acclimatise, acclimate
                     get used to a certain climate; “They never acclimatized in Egypt”

I would have never imagined that after just 3 years in this country I was going to acclimatise so well. Anything over 25 degrees is now hot for me!

I’ve been to Spain on holiday for a week and I’ve suffered a lot. It has been one of the hottest Augusts in history and even my family was having a rough time. When I called my mum a few days before going and asked her “Is it going to be really hot? I can’t wait for some sunshine”, she said “You’re going to die here”. Of course, I thought she was exagerating, but no, she wasn’t. With temperatures of around 34 degrees everyday and humidity of 75%, life was almost unbereable. I couldn’t sleep at night, I would sweat non-stop, I would get very tired easily… Even after having bought a couple of electric fans for the flat, the heat was intolerable.

I felt sorry for my poor Jon and his parents, because at the end of the day, I am a bit more used to the heat (having lived in Spain all my life). The poor souls wandered around town looking for the shade as kids look for sweets. Not comfortable at all.

Towards the end of the holiday I thought I was acclimatising back again to the Spanish heat, but it was just a trick of the weather as we had a couple of “cooler” days. The last day, when I though I was going to be okay, it got even hotter. I got in the car and sat in front of the air-con without complaining a bit.

So when in my previous post I said “I’ll enjoy the heat of the midday sun” I didn’t really mean it. I didn’t enjoy it at all.

I’ve never been happier to come back to my 20 degrees average

What I’ll do in a week

Feeling Homesick 1, originally uploaded by marialachica (in Spain for a week!).

I’m off to Motril tomorrow for a week. Jon and I are taking his parents for a visit to my hometown. It’s promising to be a very interesting visit…

Things I’ll do:

I’ll see my family.

I’ll probably see some friends.

I’ll be staying in my flat for the first time.

I’ll eat fish.

I’ll swim in the sea.

I’ll “enjoy” the terrible heat of the midday sun.

I’ll go to the wine bar and have a very cold “Rueda” wine.

I’ll eat pipas.

I’ll go to the ice-cream parlour like 50 times in seven days.

I’ll get a tan.

I’ll relax.

I’ll get fatter.

I’ll bring lots of pipas back.

In the mood for some traditional Spanish cooking

Since living in England, I have become much accustomed to British food. Now, to those of you who think that British food is crap, let me tell you otherwise. It’s not. The only problem is that people rarely have the time to cook dinners from scratch, but when they do… mmm… You can’t really beat a roast dinner with its roasties and gravy, or sausages and mash, or the very traditional curry!

But tonight, I don’t know why, I was in the mood for some traditional Spanish cooking. I’ve tried making potato omelette before, and roast pepper salad, and even Spanish rice (a distant relative of paella, but not the real one), but Spanish cooking requires so much effort and dedication (and time) that I don’t bother very ofter. So tonight, having left work at a relatively early time, I decided I was going to cook something new and different.

I went for San Jacobos (Breadcrumbed fried chicken with ham and cheese) and pipirrana (thinly chopped cold salad made with lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, green pepper and spring onions). Also, to go with it, some Ainsley’s citrus couscous (better than Tesco’s lemon and coriander one).

Preparing the pipirrana was a bit painful. I’ve seen my mum doing it thousands of times and the process itself is quite simple. It was my first time, yes, and the results were as expected. It just took me 3 times longer than I thought it would! Still, it was very enjoyable, very summery and refreshing. The San Jacobos were easier than I thought, although “stuffing” the chicken with the ham and cheese was a bit tricky, mainly because the chicken breasts that I used weren’t wide enough, if you know what I mean

So, all in all, we had a very different special dinner tonight. And it feels so much better when you cook it yourself!

Countdown to the wedding! – “What’s in a name? – Part II”

On my research about “should I change my surname or not after the wedding” issue, I came across a website called “Spaniards.es“. It is a community of Spanish people living abroad or people who want to move out of Spain. It is a very good idea, as it gives lots of first-hand-experience advice and lots of information of all kinds, from legal to recipes.

After having received an email from the Spanish consulate in London which said that it is against the Spanish law to change one’s name, I posted a new item in the forum of this community asking for legal advice. Basically the post said that I had discovered that information (that it is illegal to change your name) but I was sure that people had changed their names before, when marrying an anglosaxon. So could anyone advise on how to do it.

I am amazed about the responses. People haven’t insulted ME personally, but the fact that I was considering changing my name after the wedding was outrageous for them. They said that it is an out-of-date and chauvinist tradition that degrades women, and many things like that. I honestly don’t think like this, and reading all these messages from “ultra-modern-women” makes me want to change my name even more!

Their argument is that you lose your identity when you change your name, you suddenly become “property” of your husband, and things like that. I suppose that Spanish people would have very strong opinions about this, as changing your surname has never been part of the Spanish tradition. You just get one surname of your father and one of your mother to create your two-surname name. And that’s it, for life.

But, what identity would I be losing? My father divorced my mother before I was even born, never met him, he never cared to meet me, then he died and I will never know what it feels like to have a father. So by having carried his surname for 30 years already I have honoured a tradition that I never asked for. Now I may want to follow a different tradition, one that is up to me to decide, but of course people wouldn’t understand.

I still haven’t made my mind up. Still have up to Christmas to decide, but it is becoming more and more obvious that it is going to be a difficult choice, whatever I decide to do in the end.