Отмечать годовщину свадьбы мы пошли в тот же ресторан, в котором состоялся свадебный ужин — Luxor Stakehouse. Всё же стейки там ну просто обалденные (даже я, не большой любитель мяса, это признаю). Мы с Данькой заказали шампанское, обменялись нашими новыми кольцами.

Дело в том, что Даньку осенила идея купить что-то памятное на годовщину. Ну, почему бы и не кольца? Мы остановились на 2х одинаковых, относительно недорогих, титановых, с золотой полосочкой. Хотели что-то на них выгравировать, но не нашли где. Данька будет его кольцо носить на смену — обручальное платиновое очень тяжелое, а титан суперлёгкий. А я своё ношу на правой руке — теперь и по американским, и по русским стандартам обручальное кольцо одето на правильном пальце. Read more…

Today my parents celebrate their 30th anniversary together. I wanted to wish them 30 years more and to thank them for our (mine and my sister’s) great lives that we owe completely to them. To think, 30 years! It’s longer them my whole life (for obvious reasons too).

I only wish to be able to do what they have done, and I think I’m on the right way! And the hardest part will be raising such a great pair of children.

Thank you for being the best parents anybody could hope for! All of us love you very much and wish you long long lives together.

P.S. Vika gave my mom a great present for her birthday - a romantic dinner aboard a ship on the Hudson river for two. I just spoke with my dad and they sound like they really did love it. Great thinking, Vika.

Several days ago we booked a trip to Las Vegas, yet again. We timed it so we’re going to end up there during the 1st anniversary of our wedding.

For the moment it’s going to be Alena and I and Eldar. If anybody else wants to join us for this vacation we’d be glad to hang out with you! That’s why I’m posting our exact booking information below.

We’re staying in Luxor (which by the way costs us $565 for 6 nights with all taxes and fees included). We’re flying out from Newark airport on Continental. The flight to Vegas leaves at 8:50am and arrives at 11:53am on Sunday, November 18th. The flight back leaves at 2:30pm and is on Saturday, November 24th. And our anniversary falls on Friday, November 23rd.

Come on and join us now!

А вчера у нас было 4 с половиной года с нашего первого свидания! С одной стороны время летит с огромной скоростью, с другой - уже столько всего произошло.

6 декабря 2002ого года Алёна была мне совсем не известным, чужим человеком, а сейчас такое родное, любимое чудо, которое, как кажется, я уже знаю вечность.

Эх, жизнь хороша, и жить хорошо, особенно когда рядом есть такой человек, который является частью тебя, как моя Алёнушка! Чего и вам желаем!

P.S. Wanted to post this yesterday, but was too tired, so I went to sleep instead.

Сегодня у нас почти годовщина свадьбы. Ну, вернее Сегодня = 1/2 * Годовщина.

Уже сто раз говорила, как быстро летит время. Повторюсь… Летит, только пятки сверкают, да хвост по ветру развивается! Почему-то время мне представилось эдаким озорным чертёнком, который с воплем “А попробуй-ка догони!” несётся вперед и только иногда оглядывается, чтобы показать нам красный высунутый язык.

Так о чём это я? О свадьбе. Вернее, о Семье. Нашей. Как же хорошо быть заМужем!

We decided to try to load the video into Youtube and post it on our blog for those who wasn’t able to make it to our wedding. Youtube rejected it because it was “too long”, but I was able to upload it to Google without any problems. Of course the quality went down, because I tried to compress it as much as possible, but it’s better then nothing. My favorite part is the way Alena was crying throughout the whole thing.

Update: Trying to upload it to MSN made the quality much better then that of a Google. Who would’ve thought?

Interesting thing happened. If you saw some time ago, a journalist from New York Daily News left a comment on our blog about doing a small story on our wedding. Well, we contacted her, she set up an interview. We told her our story, and today it was published in a Sunday issue of Daily News.

Наверное, возраст такой… Выходят замуж подружки… Кто-то раньше, как Олик Вашкевич, кто-то позже, как я и Кузя. Сегодня Олик прислала мне фотки с Марининой свадьбы, которая состоялась, если я не ошибаюсь, в субботу, 6 января. Как-то заскучала прям по ним по всем. Вспомнились университетские наши времена - походы в кино, посиделки и разговоры, разговоры, разговоры…

I saw that Alena posted her version of our wedding day, and before reading it I decided to post mine as well. I didn’t read hers at all yet, so I’ll probably be repeating the same things, but I guess that’s the point.

To begin I’ll just say that the day was just perfect. We’ve been waiting until we could even start planning it for years, we were planning it for over 3 months, and I was very nervous about everything. I’m really happy that it worked out great. If I could change anything it would be the fact that I was in such a hurry in the morning that I slipped in the shower and barely survived. The bruises that you see on some of the pictures are from cracking my head on the wall and the floor. Other then that the day couldn’t possibly have been better.

Let’s start from the early morning. I woke up at around 9am and couldn’t sleep any longer. You should know that that is exceptionally early for me, as I can easily go on until at least 2pm. Alena was already up by that time and was getting ready to go into the hair salon. We packed the dress, met up with Eldar and Vika and took a cab to MGM. Walked Alena and Vika to the salon and dropped off a dress in the chapel. Then me and Eldar met up with Lenchik who just got to Vegas, ate some breakfast and went up to our rooms to get ready.

I was running around my room like crazy trying not to forget anything. First order of business - a shower and a shave. Jump into the shower, slip, fall, hurt myself badly - no blood - check. Shave - check. Shirt, pants - check. Tie - check. Suit jacket - check. Rings and the marriage license - check. What time is it? 12:45!! I should be there first, I’m going to be there last.

Met up with my family and Eldar’s family, grabbed 2 cabs, went to MGM. Got to the chapel on time, feeling a bit nervous. They put me, Eldar and my dad into groom’s waiting room. Our minister came in to talk to us. He turned out to be a very cool, funny guy. After a bit of waiting we were called into the main room by the minister. My dad went out the other way to walk Alena in.

Me and Eldar got into the room and stood up next to the minister in the front. The music started playing. The door opened. My heart was racing. First Vika walked into the room, and the door closed. Then the door opened again and I saw my dad and Alena walking in. My heart stopped and I felt my eyes started to tear up. I was very close to totally losing it. I noticed that Alena was totally crying at this point already and it made it even harder not to start crying myself, but I managed to control myself.

I couldn’t believe this moment was here and she looked so beautiful and we were minutes away from becoming husband and wife. I shook my dad’s hand, took Alena’s hand and we walked up to the minister. He said a lot of great, wise things, then gave us the rings. Soon after we were married and were giving each other our first “married” kiss. We turned around and the minister in a loud voice said the following: “Now, for the first time, let’s announce them as Mr. and Mrs. Daniel and Alena Rubin!” Later on I noticed that not only Alena was crying, but also my mom, my sister, Eldar’s mom and Eldar’s sister as well. Oh, the happy tears.

After that we had a small photo shoot done by a professional photographer. We walked out of the chapel, met up with our guests and went to the closest food court to drink some champagne to celebrate.

Then we had a small Vegas tour in a limo and then we met up with all the guests again near The Venetian. From there were started to walk back to Luxor and kept taking pictures. We probably got at least a 100 congratulations and smiles and cheers. A lot of people kept taking pictures of us. And I’ve got to tell you, the bride was impossible to walk by without noticing!

By the time we got back to Luxor it was already 6pm and it was time for our dinner. The restaurant and the staff turned out to be great. I was worried that we only had 2.5 hours, but we ended up spending over 3.5 hours in there and nobody said anything to us. They made our day even greater. A lot of great toasts were said and the atmosphere was awesome. Only 17 people of whom everyone was either a close friend or a family member. The food and the cake were great as well.

Closer to the end one of the bus-boys dropped a huge pile of plates on the floor smashing all of them. At first he looked shocked. Then when all the guests realized what has happened, they started cheering, yelling and applauding. The bus-boy looked even more shocked at that point. What he didn’t know was the fact that it’s considered a good luck in Russia for something like this to happen. Some staff including the manager ran in to see what happened, and were quite puzzled too. The next day, the manager told me that instead of punishing the bus-boy, everyone was making fun and teasing him now.

Well, there is so much more to be said, but I guess nobody is going to read so much, so I’m going to stop. I’m just extremely happy and grateful to our guests to making this day as awesome as it was!

At last we are officially married!!I enjoyed our wedding so much! It was just a perfect one - even better then I imagined.

I woke up at 5 a.m. in the morning and was tossing and turning in the huge king size bed till 8 a.m. - time, when I planned to get up and to start getting ready. Danya and Eldar escorted me and Vicky to the beauty salon. They also dropped my dress at the wedding chapel. In the salon a nice Russian lady Svetlana arranged my hair and some other girl took care of my face. Vicky and I had a nice chat, which helped me to relax. After that we went to a bride’s room in the chapel where Vicky and Danya’s mom helped me to get dressed for the occasion.

Oksana was so worried and was breathing in a special nervous way. She is a very sensitive, kind, thoughtful, loving, smart person. Boris is one of the most interesting and open-minded people I’ve ever met in my life. Ha!! I have the best parents-in-law!!

Danya’s dad walked me down the chapel to soon-to-be husband. When the door opened and I heard “Here comes the bride”, I was so overwhelmed with emotions, that I could hardly hold myself from tears. The minister was great - he seemed sincere and said a lot of good words. We’ve got a DVD of the ceremony and to tell you the truth I was crying both times I watched it.

After the ceremony a professional photographer took some pictures and we left the chapel. All of us then drank some champagne in a local food court and around 3 p.m. a black limo picked up Danya, me and 4 other guests for a 1 hour tour around the city. Eldar, Lina, Vicky and Sergey went with us. We took some pictures by the Las Vegas sign and by the oldest chapel in the city. Then we met the rest of our guests by the Venetian hotel