Yakshira´s and Josés´ Wedding

One of our ministries at our base is maternity ministry called "Seeds of Life". Jamie Dudeck, who is in charge of it runs courses where the young mothers and pregnant girls learn about taking care of themselves and their babies, what is a healthy family like etc. One of the girls that did her course last year is Yakshira, and because of the things that were taught on the course, she wanted to get married to her boyfriend, José, the father of her two beautiful children.

It took many months for them to get all the paperwork done (I guess that´s why many people don´t get married here, because it takes a looong time to get all the permits if you want to do it for free), but now finally last month they were able to do it!

Because of their financial situation they couldn´t do anything special for their wedding, so they just wanted to have a simple civil wedding and enjoy a dinner with our former base leaders Salla and Diego, but Salla, Jamie and I wanted to make the day a little more special for them. We had a white dress for her to use, Salla had a silver ring to give to her, I did her hair, made a bouquet for her and a little cake for them to enjoy after dinner. Jamie and Julia (Salla´s and Diego´s daughter)
set the dinner table for them. And I also took some pictures of them.

Wedding pics

I love taking photos at weddings! It´s such a special day, and to be able to be there to capture those beautiful moments of love and joy, it´s so precious!


These following pictures are mostly from the last few years- it seems like only with practice you can master things, and when I was going through the wedding pics I´ve taken in the earlier years, I started to feel almost sorry for the people I´ve taken the photos of!! I should´ve always told them to get someone better, and then I could just have practiced while the other one is being the official photographer. Well, of course there were nice pictures too, but I wish there were more!

If your pictures didn´t make it onto this post, don´t worry, there are a lot of pictures I really like of your photos too, but I realized, there would be way too many to put on the same blog post, if I picked all the pics I liked. So I just chose these ones from these seven weddings.

Four Seasons Part 4 : Fall

FALL

A night in August; friends leaving our house after a nice evening- me and my sister saying goodbyes. It´s still summer, but something in the air tells that the summer is turning into fall.

The vibrant colors of trees against the blue, blue sky. Crisp fall air. Kids (and, umm, some adults) playing in the leaves. Evenings getting darker. A cup of tea with a friend in the candle light while the rain is falling melancholically on the metal roof. It´s warm inside.

Four Seasons Part 3: Summer

SUMMER
Those lazy summer days.  Summer house: sauna, a plunge in the lake, sauna, lake, sauna, lake, grilled sausage, sauna, lake, other grilled foods, sauna, lake, muurinpohjaletut (big Finnish crepes). Fresh, sparkling mornings, nights that never get dark. Beautifully scary thunderstorms. Picking up strawberries, blueberries, raspberries. Spending time with loved ones, family and friends.

Four Seasons- Part 2: Spring

SPRING
Grayness turning into green- not just one kind of green but tens of different shades of green. Green so bright and intense that in the pictures it almost looks like it´s fake. Birch forests dressing themselves in green dresses- one day they´re just naked trees, next day you see a hint of green on them, but only if you don´t look straight into them, and then the next day they already have leaves! Beautiful flowers pushing themselves through the cold soil, sometimes even through snow. Apple and cherry trees blossoming. The feeling on the first day you can go out with a spring jacket- the hibernation is over! Memories of burning the old, dead grass with Daddy to make room for the new grass. Days getting longer.
Everything so fresh and new. Spring.

Four seasons- Part 1: Winter

I think the most expensive hotel(or one of the most expensive ones) in Costa Rica is called Four Seasons, but I´m not posting any picture of it- mostly because I´ve never been there (unfortunately;).

But I want to dedicate the following posts for the beautiful four seasons, because I miss them here, where you only have two seasons- hot and humid & super hot and dry. I will start with winter, because it´s still winter in Finland, and that´s the one season you never ever can get a glimpse here(unless you have a freezer big enough for you to fit in).

WINTER
Those freezing cold days! You can´t feel your fingers nor toes. It´s almost insane to get out of your warm house. But the beauty! It makes it all worth it! Dazzling sun makes the birch trees sparkle as it had millions of tiny diamonds on its branches. Some days the small snowflakes glitter on the air; diamond dust. Winter´s beauty is breathtaking!

[No animals(nor little sisters) were harmed during the photo shoots:) My sister voluntarily dressed herself up to a summer dress and played the role of the beautiful elf princess;). I think it was - 25 degrees Celsius(-13 degrees Fahrenheit) that day. She didn´t get sick. ]