The most important day in life is probably not one single date, but rather a drawer full of notes and little pieces of paper collected over the years, all with the same title.

The day I was born was definitely important, but probably more for my mum and dad than for me — a tiny human with the awareness of a growing cucumber.

My First Holy Communion was important for God, who was probably quite disappointed with how things turned out later.

My high school final exams — so important for the world, yet completely irrelevant and changing absolutely nothing in my life, except for a stomach ache from stress and a torn exam skirt situation happening right before the exams.

Getting my driving licence was important when it comes to getting around, but not the most important thing. Because who really wants to be a driver at 18 when you’ve only just started discovering the taste of wine called Written with a stick”?

Meeting Maciejka — at first unnoticed, but with time becoming one of the most important events on the life map of Agowca.

The wedding — is this the most important day? The most important promises were already made 12 years ago. The wedding was just a beautiful confirmation of our sweetness and a little preview of all the important days we still have ahead of us together.

Let’s be honest — both Maciek and I hate weddings.

For a decade we photographed and filmed our clients’ weddings, and after looking at this enormous collection of memories, we still feel like they are coming out of our ears.

No names, but…

Jadwiga and Darek, forced into marriage by their families, who (unlike them) loved loud parties and disco polo. When Darek saw Jadwiga in the wedding dress for the first time, his first question was: – Why is the slit so big? Then, instead of a kiss, he simply shook her hand like a businessman closing a deal. Before midnight she was already standing there with tears in her eyes, dreaming about escaping the wedding in a pumpkin carriage — probably already being eaten as a late-night snack by some drunk uncle.

Paulina and her husband — just as proud as heavy. Both running across the beach with a loud sound under their feet, surrounded by a cloud of mosquitoes. Both with backs covered in red bites. Both pretending it was sweet, romantic and carefree, while quietly cursing the bloodsuckers every few minutes.

Foie gras for a vegetarian who had already spent 12 hours running around with a camera attached to a heavy gimbal — meaning my personal tragedy and one accidental bite of the most horrible nightmare-food imaginable for someone who doesn’t eat meat. All that was left was to cry and mumble how much I hated weddings.

A famous football player and his wife with the slogan:
– Don’t take photos of me, I’m not photogenic.
And later:
– Where are my photos? Why am I not in any photos?!

Rice with ketchup during a 20-hour shift because fries are – Reserved for children.

Suits ripping apart during fights in whipped cream. Boobs being exposed during princess races, where women fought like lions for the winning half-litre liqouire.

A band murdering Billy Jean because the shots started hitng too early.

Loans taken for one night full of fireworks and white doves.

All of this made us completely lose interest. We don’t want a party like that.

We don’t want a wedding.

We held out for 10 years.

Of course, there were conversations. That, technically speaking, it was a useful piece of paper. That we didn’t have to do it like everyone else. That maybe? Hmm? No? Or maybe actually yes?

And then it happened!

Like a lightning bolt in slow motion, after 10 years Maciek pulled out a handmade ring from his pocket — with a tiny copper triangle, sitting in a beautiful walnut box — and told me he loved me for the thousandth time, but somehow… differently.

I always wondered: why do these girls cry so much during proposals?

I don’t know. But I cried with them.

Through my completely soaked eyes, I managed to mumble that of course the answer was yes. Because he is my other half — or maybe even my better, sweeter three quarters.

It happened.

Officially.

Almost two years later, we finally decided to take action.

Grandma Sabcia’s garden — my dream.

My grandma had her wedding there too, so obviously sentimental Aga wanted the same thing. Because how could it be any other way?

Of course, at my grandma’s wedding someone fell into the outdoor toilet and had to be dressed in my grandpa’s less shitty clothes afterwards. But who knows what our own party would bring…

During a wild dance with my mum, I said:

-So, you didn’t know this side of me?

To which she replied:

– Sweetheart, you’ll only be surprised when you get to know my side.

Today we know that we did, in fact, get to know someone’s side — and it was an anonymous shit incident (as Maciek’s brother called it).

The groom, together with the aforementioned witness, handled the situation armed with a garden hose, like two firefighters from the department of unexpected sewage emergencies.

BEFORE

There are girls who, from a very young age, play weddings and practise being brides, planning every little detail of their dream fairytale ball.

At the same time, I was playing Need for Speed and trying not to throw up because of the rather primitive 3D graphics.

So it’s easy to imagine how extremely not-princess-like my approach to the whole wedding thing was.

More than anything, I wanted to feed everyone myself, because that’s how I show love — by filling people’s bellies and increasing the cholesterol levels in their vains with my baked goods.

My mum said no.

– Because it’s too much work on such an important day.

I froze my ears off and did it anyway.

I baked three poppy seed cakes, five plates of angel wings (faworki), blueberry cake, “Drunk Cherry” cake, three blocks of chocolate straight from the PRL era, and a wedding cake made of 60 little jars filled with tiramisu from Sara’s recipe (a real Italian, our friend — or rather Fido’s friend, because he’s the one she actually treats on a daily basis).

Her tiramisu stole my heart — or rather my stomach — during the Christmas Eve dinner I organised in Norway for 25 people. Back then, dumplings were dripping down the walls and fake bigos filled every single cubic centimetre of air in the house.

I made the wedding cake at 3 a.m. on the (let’s call it) day of the wedding. After a few beers, mixing the cream with my bare hands, my arms buried up to the elbows in mascarpone, because the mixers simply couldn’t handle it.

Although Domcia lent me her KitchenAid (which, in my opinion, is basically like temporarily donating a kidney — thank you!).

Miraculously, it worked!

Rumour has it that it even tasted good (because my hands were clean).

The first steps of organising our cosy, very “us”, grandma-garden-style party were crushed — like a car trunk crushing my five-year-old fingers — by my parents’ idea of having the wedding in a restaurant at Wilanów Palace.

The first clash happened before we even properly started. Confused tears and questions to ourselves:

–  Why are we doing this?

Luckily, everything was solved with kindness and the palace forces retreating from the battlefield.

So I continued organising — now on my own, but with strong support from my family, who had become much more careful about the whole wedding topic.

The wedding timeline can be divided into several stages.

First, being dragged against your will to your aunt’s wedding, where you have to dance in a little circle with other children who would much rather be climbing a playground pole right now (weddings usually don’t have playground poles).

Later (at least that’s how I imagine it), comes your mum’s work friend’s wedding, where the parents are going wild, and you can secretly and illegally dip your lips into the Devils drinks .

Then come the weddings of your own generation — the ones where your friends are the first brave souls to jump ahead of everyone else.

You drink, you dance, you gossip about long-forgotten rivals from your school desk who now have six children hanging off their backs, while having absolutely no idea about the enormous wave of preparation happening behind thewedding scenes.

Then comes your own wedding.

Obviously the best one. None can compare.

But it’s also the moment when you finally taste the real flavour of work, effort and the madness of organising everything.

Every wedding after that becomes a moment of admiration for the bride and groom — for actually managing to throw a party — and an instinctive offer of help, because let’s be honest: one human being cannot handle this alone.

Men say construction work is hard.

And it probably is.

But they have no idea what kind of superhero you need to become to organise a garden party for 60 people: part strongman, part mathematician, part brutally assertive bastard, and part sweet little bunny.

All just to make sure everyone gets delicious food, can pee in a toilet that doesn’t smell like a crime scene, and has somewhere to sit without rain dripping directly onto their heads.

You have to think about everything.

And after a while, thinking becomes harder and harder.

But somehow we managed to think of enough things to create the best, most delicious catering ever (recommended by Gucia): Szeroko Catering — with the wonderful Mrs Małgosia, who not only wanted to start planning a trip to Norway after our conversations, but also complimented my voice (and as everyone knows — this is exactly how you win over an Aga immediately).

DJ Antoni — who signed a pact with us: no disco polo. And despite strong pressure from Podlasie, he did not surrender. His speakers continued playing our favourite songs (such as Teardrops by Womack & Womack, Son of a Preacher Manby Dusty Springfield, Blues Brothers, Deepest Blue and other equally “modern” tunes).

There were also ice creams — because summer simply tastes better with ice cream.

Pilsner (why did we even need those?) disappeared immediately, and Bartek and Ola ran to the local shop and petrol station to buy every single bottle they could find, saving all the thirsty people. Respect, dear ones!

Prosecco Aperol — for those who thought ice cream and summer were not enough.

Vodka — why did we buy so much? Almost none of it disappeared, so after the wedding we had to smuggle the leftovers back to Norway together with the rest of the cargo.

A cheese board (brought from Podlasie by Hubek, from the Bieszczady mountains by Ala, and from Norway by Else and Janek) — as a counterpoint to the traditional Polish “country table”, which always disgusts me at weddings. It smells strongly of smoked meat and somehow I still end up there every time because it offers pickled cucumbers.

Maciek’s dad’s homemade lightly pickled cucumbers, mom Beata’s soup,  dad’s Kuba pâté and a million cakes made by our guests — because I only believe in homemade sweets (with all respect to catering).

The wasps agreed with me, by the way.

They ate all the icing, slimming down my poppy seed cakes, and flew lower and lower above the ground, overloaded by their tiny sweet-filled bellies.

There were no traditional wedding games, but there was a first dance.

However, despite the song Drawning by Ólafur — chosen by Maciejka a long time ago — just before the announced dance we were both sitting in Grandma’s room, phones pressed to our ears, desperately searching for a better option for that particular moment.

Because the moment was that we hadn’t prepared any kind of rhythmic swaying or choreography to the chosen song, so improvisation was our only chance.

And as everyone knows, when it comes to improvisation, the best choice is our beloved Krystyna Pańko with Deszczem w Cisnej.

The improvisation went so incredibly far that I think pretty much everyone got to see the pale parts of my body (the ones never touched by the sun, because in conservative Norway you don’t exactly walk around showing your butt with confidence).

There were tears of emotion, but laughter and happiness definitely won.

Dancing barefoot — my apologies to my poor toe, crushed by my husband, for joining the barefoot dance madness.

Sparklers and a spontaneous performance by Celien with a beautiful song titled by Maciek: – I don’t know what this is called, but I like the way she sings it.

And even though I always thought that the best party of my entire life would forever be my middle school prom, where the love of my teenage life asked me to dance…

our wedding beat it by a thousand times.

For adulthood.
For friends.
For family.
For being real.

And for Maciejka.

Just so it doesn’t sound too perfect, let me tell you this:

The dress I ordered arrived one week before the wedding in a size called “one hundred times Aga”, causing one hundred times the amount of my emotional breakdown.

In a moment of pure desperation, I went with my mum to Centrum Mody Nadarzyn to look for a replacement.

Nadarzyn is basically an indoor market with prices like a bowl of soup at the Sheraton. It is divided into little halls, and in each one you’ll find either a fearless businesswoman on a mission or a retired jeans-selling veteran — the kind of jeans you tried on as a kid while standing on a wet cardboard box on the street.

Every little shop has exactly the same selection:

Long, heavy ball gowns covered in lace and ruffles.
Meringues. More meringues. And even more meringues.
Or tight, shiny creations that look like the wedding outfit of some exotic bird.

My mum did not give up. She kept fighting, trying to find something that looked even slightly like me.

– Something simple, maybe a little boho, please, I squeaked.

Those two requirements immediately disqualified me as a customer in this magical kingdom of polyester.

And suddenly…

Oh!

There she was.

Shining with a thousand sparkles.

A sequin beauty.

My inner magpie woke up and I screamed:

– Mum! This one is cool!

My mum looked at me and said I must have some kind of split personality, because not only was it not simple or boho — it was shining so aggressively that it was like a Doberman’s balls blinding a dachshund.

I resisted.

Although not for very long.

We left Nadarzyn empty-handed because, unfortunately, nothing suitable appeared.

Luckily, my maid of honour Madzia saved me by introducing me to her dressmaker.

A woman who had previously sewn for Beata Kozidrak — which immediately made everyone assume I would probably end up wearing leather.

Mrs Teresa, whom we lovingly renamed Saint Teresa of Alterations, saved both the dress and me.

Thanks to her, I did not appear at my own wedding wrapped in layers of tulle like a meringue drowned in whipped cream.

However, the sequin beauty would not leave me alone.

The day before the wedding, my unofficial bridesmaid Domcia — involved in the whole thing like she was running a presidential campaign — drove us back to the fashion centre.

After the third round, we finally found the shop where my sequin diva was waiting for me.

The old business warrior behind the counter, of course, showered me with compliments. For her, I’m pretty sure even a crocodile wearing high heels would look sexy.

She put the dress into a bag saying “Paris” (just so there was no doubt where this fashion masterpiece had travelled from), did not give us a receipt, and pushed us out of the shop.

We almost peed ourselves from this little grey-zone experience, beautifully packed in a from Paris bag (because “from Paris” sounds much more expensive and mysterious than polish fraze “z Paryża”).

I also ordered my shoes three sizes too big — apparently, in my head I am much bigger than I actually am in real life.

Mum rushed to help and immediately ordered seven — yes, SEVEN — pairs of shoes to the parcel locker.

She brought them home, surprisingly without entering through the chimney.

All of them were too big, but I liked the style, so from that moment on things went smooth.

Nobody wanted to carve our wedding rings immediately.

But eventually we found someone who agreed.

He forgot about them and ended up carving them even faster than originally planned.

And when you have as many birds at home as we do, at some point you simply have to get yourselves ringed too.

The earrings arrived perfect — with feathers from American little birds, in exactly the right colour.

That was genuinely a success.

But what does it matter when I forgot to take them to the wedding?

Maciek — the man.

Walked into the first suit shop, wearing sandals and walked out dressed from head to toe.

Simple, right?

At the very end, Ala sewed our duck and chicken feathers onto his boutonniere — because Ala is basically a walking emergency kit.

Thread, screwdriver and wine opener included.

All the wedding tents available for rent looked like they came straight from an Ordo Iuris promotional fair.

So Maciek decided to build the roof himself.

A 12-metre-wide one.

Yes, wider than Grandma’s house.

By himself.

Because why not?

After all, one week before the wedding is basically loads of free time.

He built it.

Then Norwegians, Belgians and Poles flew in and helped finish the construction. They even built a wooden dance floor with a frame for a disco ball.

Nothing left to do but build, decorate and eat Grandma Sabcia’s pierogi.

The best wedding “before party” ever!

Thirteen people ran around until late at night, helping us bring this future wedding to life.

I love you all for that!

And what about Grandma in all of this?

Grandma made 300 pierogi.

She renovated the staircase and cleaned the whole house.

A little too early, actually, because before leaving to meet the groom, while doing my final wedding-dress bathroom visit, I was still washing the bathtub and sink covered in dog hair.

The dog was dressed up too!

And because she has serious FOMO (fear of missing out), she almost died from exhaustion, running after us for a whole week — through wedding preparations, the wedding itself and the dismantling afterwards.

Eventually, she fell asleep under the table during the actual wedding, doing what many guests secretly could also do.

The madness of preparations had been going on for half a year.

Dad was planting grass, painting the fence, and planting everything he could with Mum.

Meanwhile, the hedgehog Anaszpan was quickly eating everything they planted.

Maciejka’s dad was setting up a small distillery to provide everyone with courage-enhancing liquids.

And his wife was arranging hotel rooms for the guests.

Unfortunately, because of my own mistake, I booked it further away instead of the closer to the party — which brought me to tears the day before the wedding.

Classic me.

A hotel-booking dyslexic.

Everyone had their hands full.

No mercy.

Food, catering, drinks collected by my Dad from all over Warsaw.

Mascarpone cheese transported from Makro shop on pallets (because apparently my recipe calculations were a tiny bit too optimistic).

Thai ice cream, because my mom Beata loves attractions (and honestly — she was right!).

Chairs rented from near Mińsk Mazowiecki, deck chairs, tables from Ukrainian ladies, a microphone from a man who was clearly just waiting for us to turn it on so he could talk even more to Domcia, who was keeping us on speakerphone during shopping in his store.

And many, many other little details rolling forward like a snowball, collecting bigger and bigger piles of wedding chaos along the way.

Mum robbed a bank.

Dad attacked Auchan.

And Hubek raided a sunflower field.

And somehow…

Everything worked out better than anyone could have ever imagined.

THE DAY AFTER

The only task waiting for us was to let the catering people (or as Grandma calls them, the marketing people) into the house at 9:00 in the morning.

And yet, we failed even at that.

They bounced off the door.

Was it revenge for not feeding DJ Antoni on time?

No.

It was classic Grandma, who simply does not react to the doorbell.

The doorbell being Dżeta’s murderous barking.

We, like true celebrities, arrived late to the after-wedding party starting at 12:00, finding a group of well-rested Norwegians already chilling in the garden.

(You could clearly see who had escaped to bed at a reasonable hour.)

The after-party ended after 3 a.m., and for me it was definitely the most dance-filled, party-like part of the whole wedding.

The stress was gone.

The alcohol arrived.

You know how it is.

Mum, sweating like Rocky Balboa during a fight, stood over four frying pans, reheating pierogi, accompanied by Grandma’s constant commentary that she was doing it wrong.

The pierogi were flying onto the table and disappearing instantly — as if she was throwing them into the Bermuda Triangle.

Or rather, the Grabowski Triangle.

Gas fumes mixed with burning oil created some beautiful hallucinations and caused one tiny mistake.

Cheese pierogi were served with fried onions.

And potato-and-cheese pierogi (ruskie) were served with sour cream.

And what happened?

The triangle swallowed them just as quickly.

We danced while singing Polish songs to the Norwegians and Norwegian songs to the Poles.

We played pétanque — those metal balls that are supposed to hit a small target ball, which I cannot even see properly without my glasses, so you can imagine my level of talent.

We played “kokorok” with our beards glued to the table.

We played volleyball with Dżeta.

We lay on deck chairs and enjoyed the sun, which for the whole previous month had appeared only twice:

during the wedding and during the after-party.

Anaszpan must have prayed for it.

Or rather, Grandma and Mrs Wiesia from my mum’s workplace did — by putting money into the collection plate for good weather on behalf of us, the godless ones.

Thank you!

BACHELORETTE / BACHELOR PARTY
(Yes, I know — chronology is clearly not the strongest part of this blog post.)

We are officially old.

The girls who jumped over the fence into Maciek’s bachelor party all had an eight in front.

(And no, I don’t mean teeth.)

Meanwhile, at my bachelorette party, besides drinking Prosecco Zero, there was pumping breast milk and conversations about pancakes.

That’s what I call those tiny little creatures who can’t walk yet and just lie there flat like pancakes.

But is that a bad thing?

NO!

It was absolutely amazing!

Madzia made the most beautiful decorations, delicious food, and gave me the prettiest jacket in the world — made from fabric scraps by a certain magical woman from the Bieszczady mountains, Rustypaws.

Maciejka got an equally amazing feast from Hubek, drinks with fantastic company, and a beautiful little house by the Bug River.

You can drink vodka mixed with Red Bull in a club and dance on the bar…

…but that chapter is behind us now.

(If it ever really happened at all.)

We are wiser now.

And our friends are not random girls met in a bathroom anymore.

They are friends we’ve had for years, together with their sweet little pancakes. ❤️

A trip to a cottage house, the smell of old wooden walls, tall pine trees, a little mushroom growing under the balcony and ribbons dancing in the wind above my favourite girls.

It feels like dessert after a whole day of starving.

And since neither Madzia nor I have any pancakes of our own…

the whole bar was ours!

TRIPS

So, what do people usually do after their wedding?

Sleep? Relive the memories? Cure their hangover? Binge-watch TV shows?

I don’t know.

I’m still a wedding rookie, but that’s what I imagine.

We, on the other hand, woke up and—bang!—went sightseeing, showing our foreign friends Warsaw.

To let everyone see Poland the way Poles do—from above—we took the whole gang (fifteen people at our peak) to Varso Tower.

The view from the tallest building in Poland?

I’ll be honest.

Pretty flat.

But there was one thing everyone noticed:

How green it was.

Because, as our Belgian Tom had read somewhere, landscape parks cover around 8% of Poland.

Considering all those concrete town squares, that’s actually quite impressive.

Then I looked it up and found out that nearly 40% of Warsaw is made up of green spaces.

Congrats Poland!

We took the ridiculously fast lift back down to the ground floor, while our stomachs tried to climb into our throats, and headed off for lunch.

After that, we went for doughnuts on Chmielna Street—the little kiosk ones.

I absolutely love them.

The others… didn’t seem quite as impressed.

Maybe they were simply too full after lunch.

Then came the Warsaw classic:

A walk along Nowy Świat to the Old Town, while unsuccessfully trying to get into churches that seemed to close their doors exactly when they saw us coming.

Finally, the Barbican, followed by a stroll to the Vistula River.

Because where else does life happen on a summer evening if not on the steps by the river and around the barges?

Well…

Apparently not that day.

The cold had chased everyone away, and the whole riverbank was almost empty.

Although it was shining beautifully, thanks to a moon almost as huge as my disappointment in Warsaw’s riverside youth.

The next day only the Belgians were left: Celien and Tom.

Or rather—we were lucky they were.

After everything they had already done to help us prepare the wedding, they stayed to help us take the whole thing apart.

By the end of the day, there wasn’t a single trace of the party left.

Well…

Apart from the damage to our brain cells.

Grandma’s garden looked innocent once again.

Eventually it was time to say goodbye to Tom and Celien.

We promised to bring them Grześki.

Or rather, the giant Dzieśki Mega version.

And we’ll see them again soon, back in Eidsdal.

We’re also bringing them a Pieroguszka pillow.

Because who doesn’t love pierogi?

But shhh…

THE WAY BACK

So…

Time to relax?

Hahaha.

Of course not.

Time to attack the parcel locker while there’s still time.

Go shopping.

Pack the trailer.

Hide the alcohol between the blankets.

Eat one last Chinese takeaway and one last plate of green beans.

Finish the beers hidden around the garden.

Loaded up, running late as always, we finally hit the road.

First came a cheese croissant.

Then one of Dad’s lightly pickled cucumbers.

A little later—a cebularz.

And finally, a radish.

It was that last duo that completely destroyed the newly-married Mr Ostrowski’s stomach.

The dying station.

The pooping station.

The puking station.

Not great.

Every petrol station became his petrol station.

But…

We made the ferry!

Once in Sweden, we finally decided to visit the moose park.

We always drive past it at night, and surely that counts as a honeymoon activity.

Or at least… a trip.

The moose were hiding somewhere in the middle of absolute nowhere.

Eventually we arrived, walked in through the souvenir shop.

…and discovered that the last Moose Train had left an hour earlier.

We missed it.

Our consolation prize was a little enclosure with goats and chickens.

And, let’s be honest…

Chickens are always cool.

We bought a fluffy moose magnet because it stole our childish hearts and continued on our way.

With way more alcohol than legal, logs of cherry wood cut from Grandma’s garden (treasure for Maciek, the wood-loving man), and a freshly bought golden chain tree), we looked like the leaders of an international smuggling gang.

As always during operations like this, we put the most innocent-looking person behind the wheel.

Me.

Never mind that this little princess was running on about three hours of sleep.

The important thing is that she looked innosence sweet.

We made it!

We now have more wine in our house than Norwegians could dream of in their wildest dreams.

For how long?

Time will tell, as the great Polish disco polo philosopher would say.

The plan is to keep celebrating for a little longer in our Norwegian home and show the locals how people from Poland know how to party.

P.S.

I’d like to end this story with the closing credits.

This post is simply my little record of one of the most important days of my life.

A memory.

Nothing more.

So I also want to leave here the biggest hugs-and-thank-yous to everyone whose tears were shed from emotion, from the hard work of preparing everything, or from laughing so hard during the celebrations.

Even in the middle of all that running around, both Maciek and I could feel our little party lifting off the ground, bringing joy to the people who were with us that day.

And also to those who couldn’t be there in person, but were with us in spirit.

If someone stopped me in the street and asked,

– What would you wish to win?

I’d answer:

– This life. These people around me. And the arms of the man I chose forever.

It still amazes me how beautiful my family is (and now even bigger), how incredibly kind and helpful my friends are, and how lucky I was to step on that one tiny string in life that led me straight to Maciejka.

Thank you.

For all of it.