To treat these two imposters just the same

What I've been inspired by these days, from the Spring 2012 runways.
First up, a bevy of beautiful evening gowns from my favourite evening wear designers: Marchesa and Elie Saab.
Hands-down, these two always do it for me where gowns are concerned.
They always have gowns that do what evening gowns should do: dazzle and take one's breath away at the gorgeousness of it all.

Absolutely dripping with high-octane glamour.

 

 

Marchesa Spring 2012

 

 

 

 

 

And of course, my absolute favourite - Elie Saab.
I lurrrve the colour palette and the elegance of his evening wear. This is in spite of the Style.com fashion writer's lacklustre review of this collection. Lace, sequins, and flowy chiffon, these are everything I'd want on any gown I'd don for a glitzy affair. (And I've always wanted to work a gown with a thigh-high split like Megan Fox or Blake Lively - both of whom do so with such aplomb.)


Okay this is a very random post.

One of my favouritest poems, ever.

"If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you.
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

...

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!"

If
Rudyard Kipling

"I have spread my dreams beneath your feet...

... Tread softly because you tread on my dreams."
W.B. Yeats




The weekend was a fulfilling one, wedding-wise.

Thought through more decor to be done and tested out some ideas, went to choose and confirm my flowers for the church arrangements and my bouquet, got Clem's shoes and ties, collected the studio album, sat down with my programme ICs to hammer out the details of the wedding day programme...

Up next: settling the decor for the lunch hall, finalizing the dinner seating arrangements, finalize dinner decor.

WOOHOO! Things are getting settled one by one.

The list though, is never-ending.

Quick peek of what my bouquet is slated to look like:



Flowers make me happy.
If I were to consider an alternative career, I think I'd be a florist.
In my opinion, flowers are everything "pretty" should be. Delicate and vivacious at the same time, in all the colours the world can hold.

4 more weekends to the day, and I already am looking beyond that.

"But ultimately, there comes a moment when a decision must be made. Ultimately, two people who love each other must ask themselves how much they hope for as their love grows and deepens, and how much risk they are willing to take. It is indeed a fearful gamble. Because it is the nature of love to create, a marriage itself is something which has to be created, so that, together, we become a new creature.

To marry is the biggest risk in human relations that a person can take. If we commit outselves to one person for life, this is not, as many people think, a rejection of freedom; rather, it demands the courage to move into all the risks of freedom, and the risk of love which is permanent; into that love which is not possession, but participation. It takes a lifetime to learn another person. When love is not possession, but participation, then it is part of that co-creation which is our human calling, and which implies such risk that it is often rejected."

Madeleine L'Engle

Songs they sung as they walked...

"The Road goes ever on and on,

Down from the door where it began.

Now far ahead the Road has gone,

And I must follow, if I can.

Pursuing it with eager feet,

Until it joins some larger way.

Where many paths and errands meet;

And whither then? I cannot say."

Satisfaction is a flighty thing.

Everyone gleans and perceives it differently; travels down different roads to get there.

Me? My path is about to fork; I can feel it. Yet, I do not know which path I should take. The path well-trodden, or the hidden path? Safety and surety are values that I cannot pretend I don't care about. But remaining ensconced in certitude, floating in the balmy waters of Comfort, is something I cannot luxuriate in if I want to fly.

I guess I can dream, dream the biggest of dreams, and then just see where that will all take me.

Back to the gritty reality of humdrum? Or to someplace else just as gritty?

I'm under no illusion that the grass is greener on the other side - that has been dispelled many times over and I'm no longer wide-eyed and brimming with optimism at the vastness of the future. No; I know that the horizon is always bounded by chains, there is nothing I can humanly do to transcend the bounds of my own limits.

What I wonder at though, is what are my limits?

Am I there? Or can I still be stretched til my nose touches the glass?

No one knows. I don't even know myself. But what I know is that I will never find out if I don't try.

The hardest thing to do is to take the plunge into the icy waters of the calm surface, take that first step away from the straight path before me.

And still, there must be faith and trust.

"Still round the corner there may wait,

A new road or a secret gate.

And though we pass them by today,

Tomorrow we may come this way,

And take the hidden paths that run,

Towards the Moon or to the Sun."

The Lord of the Rings

Bright Young Things

"It's easy to forget now, how effervescent and free we felt all summer. Everything fades: the shimmer of gold over White Cove; the laughter in the night air, the lavender early morning light on the faces of skyscrapers, which had suddenly become so heroically tall. Every dawn seemed to promise fresh miracles, among other joys that are in short supply these days. And so I will try to tell you, while I still remember, how it was then, before everything changed - that final season of an era that roared."

My past month in pictures, for when words are not enough.
One month to my wedding day - the days are crawling by slower than ever. I'm not sure if I'm just making sure I savour every minute of each day that goes, or if I'm wishing for time to slow down just so I find the space and time to catch a breath.


Turn my head with talk of summertime

 

  



Swan Lake on ice, Watami, Michelle's wedding, my favourite furry feline.

"That is what I want to tell you about: the girls with their short skirts and bright eyes and big-city dreams.

The girls of 1929."

Peek to your heart's content:

"Some people search for a fountain - promises forever young. Some people need three dozen roses - and that's the way to prove you love them. Hand me the world on a silver platter, and what good would it be?"

In the midst of all the craziness, all the madcap rush to get things done, it's the little things in life that keep me going. That, and hope for the future; my heart is swollen with that.

"If I ain't got you."

How did this turn out so ugly?

Weddings. They're always supposed to be in celebration of a happy union of a couple, but why do they inevitably end up ugly in the midst of the planning? Everyone wants things to go their way - and if it doesn't, they resort to threats, angry words, and emotional blackmail.

The people I thought least capable of descending to this sort of behaviour were my own parents.

Yet here I am, fighting many battles but feeling like I'm losing the war.

Tradition is something I admit I have not been the best at adhering to. So I would be the first to admit that it is usually the first thing I overlook, the first thing I belittle. So when my parents point it out, I begrudgingly admit my failure to recognize, and I concede.

But all that aside, they've been giving me a very hard time.

I haven't felt so disappointed and so utterly alone in such a long time.

How ironic it is that the closer I get to the wedding, the more miserable I feel.

 

Not looking forward to it? Don't come.

Afraid that you'll lose face? Go hide somewhere.

Wonder what the old folks will say? Go join them.

 

Just last night, the mother wanted to try to force me to remove some of my wedding pictures from the album.

"Kissing pictures should be censored!!!"

Seriously, if one cannot kiss during one's own wedding, then... whatthefuck?!

I gave in to my parents over the traditional stuff already. Fine.

Now she wants to try to influence the other aspects as well? No way in hell.

 

Alright alright, I'm trying not to degenerate into juvenile ranting of immense angst here.

But fact is that I'm hugely overwhelmed by too many dark thoughts at this point in time.

I wish 19 Nov would hurry up and come, cos I'm not enjoying the planning process at all. :'(

 

"Family quarrels are bitter things. They don't go by any rules. They're nto like aches or wounds; they're more like splits in the skin that won't heal because there's not enough material."

F. Scott Fitzgerald