As
it’s a few days from our anniversary, I’m going to write a bit about the
wedding. Between volcanoes, castles and
super-human feats of travel, it’s not something that anyone present will easily
forget!
To set the scene, Sheila had returned to
Brazil in November 2008 after being diagnosed with cervical cancer. I went to visit a few times over the course
of 2009 resulting with us getting engaged in the latter half of the year. I’d like to tell you that I made a grand
sweeping gesture; I whisked her away to a beautiful deserted beach, got down on
one knee and proposed. The clouds parted
and sunlight fell upon us as Sheila fell into my arms...
But I’d be lying. The truth is less dramatic, but it’s part of
our story together. We hadn't really
thought about marriage: we loved each other, who needs a piece of paper and bit
of metal to remind them of that? It’s
not so simple when you live on separate continents though – we wanted to be
together and if immigration policies stipulate that we must be married to do so
then we would get married. At this
point, it’s starting to sound like a cold, heartless business deal, which was
certainly not the case – we just realised that it was the right thing to do, without
someone needing to get on one knee. I
eventually got on one knee (Brazilians love a show) but I’ll get to that later.
 |
| The Claddagh Ring |
We have never been an overly traditional
couple and once we had decided to marry, there came the question of The
Ring. Sheila quite liked the style of
Celtic jewellery and happened upon a picture of a Claddagh ring – an Irish ring
with two hands around a heart with a crown.
She sent me a picture (and a piece of knotted string to get the size)
and my aunt had a ring made in exactly the same design. I got a bit carried away when I eventually
gave Sheila the ring in Brazil. It was
the most expensive restaurant overlooking Copacabana at sunset, the soft, warm
light casting a gentle glow on Sheila’s face as I gave her the ring...
 |
| The 'proposal' |
But that’s not true either. Sheila and her brother, Rafael, met me from
Curitiba airport. I was so happy to see
her that I forgot to mention that the Atlético Paranaense football team were on
the plane (that and I didn’t actually know any of the players or speak enough
Portuguese to ask. I thought they were
just very committed fans.) It was only
when Rafael returned from paying for parking and saw the team bus that we found
out. (They had just beaten Corinthians
3-1 in São Paulo (hehe), but my comments of “I saw him” when watching the tv
highlights were not well received...)
Anyway, back to the story. We
stopped at Habib’s, which is a kind of Arabic fast food chain in Brazil for a
bite to eat. As I said, I was a bit
excited and wanted to give Sheila the ring.
Rafael jumped out of his seat, ran to the car and reappeared with a
camera and I took out the ring.
 |
| The other 'proposal' |
Skipping a few days, we’re in Pato Branco
for the engagement party. We had decided
to get married in Britain as that was where we were going to live, so we agreed
that the engagement part should be in Brazil.
A lot of planning had gone into making the night memorable; there were
savoury snacks (salgadinhos), tempting sweets (docinhos), wine and a good
single malt whisky with good friends and Sheila’s family. During the course of the evening I was gently
encouraged to give a speech in broken Portuguese; got down on one knee to
‘propose’, Sheila threw the bouquet (erm, pot plant) to an emotional gathering
of, err, men, I had my mug-shots taken and ultimately got approval from
Sheila’s grandparents. It was all
slightly surreal!
There is always a great deal of planning
that goes into a wedding and ours was certainly no exception. Indeed, throw in marriage visas, bringing
Sheila to live in the UK again and planning how to get the Brazilian contingency
to the wedding and it became exponentially more complicated. In a break from tradition (shock, horror) we
split the planning between us. My
brother got married at the Ramnee Hotel (plug!
www.ramneehotel.com) and it
seemed like the ideal place for us, so I got the ball rolling. We settled on 17th April as it was
after Easter, but the 10th was already booked. A fiancée visa only allows for 6 months
before getting married and applying for the next one, which ruled out waiting
for summer. We crossed our fingers and
hoped it wouldn’t rain...
I don’t want to dwell on the visa, but it
was a large part of the planning. For
anyone going through the processes, there are many blogs that will help you
with the paperwork (of which there is a mountain) the details of which has
slipped my mind (repressed memories?) but it involved a lot of online form
filling, saving, msn conversations to fill in the gaps, printing, signing,
scanning, e-mailing and posting. The
British Embassy website is singularly unhelpful when it comes to these forms,
which is why I strongly advise that anyone going through it seeks help from
someone who’s already done it. The
advice I can offer is to send EVERYTHING.
The immigration authorities want to see that you are a genuine couple
and it will make your life much easier if you have all the e-mails and messages
tucked away, the good photos, the bad photos – out of focus, half the head
chopped off, eyes closed... and send it all – it tells a lot more about your
relationship than a few carefully posed and smiling snapshots. I remember sending a packet of e-mails and
photos on A4 paper over an inch thick to Brazil.
With the first step of the visa process
complete and Sheila having recovered from her treatment, she moved back to
England in December 2009 and our first trip was to spend Christmas in
Forres. It’s usually very rare to have a
white Christmas in Britain, but that year it hardly stopped and of course it
started halfway through the journey. As
we drove through the highlands, it was so cold that the windscreen washers were
constantly freezing leading to frustrating cycles of wipers smearing dirty
water across the windscreen and pumping the washer until the pressure finally
released the washer fluid for a few minutes of clarity before the cycle started
again. The weather led to two instances
of the car getting stuck in the snow and one of a very snow sideways skid
across a road. Great fun. (A few months later, I was in Tromsø, Norway,
where driving on the snow was a much more pleasant experience – Britain is
never really prepared for snow and snow tyres or chains would be unfeasible
anyway.)
Between Christmas, New Year and fun and
games in the snow, we continued preparing for the wedding. We visited the Ramnee to plan the day,
visited the registrar and found a promising-looking photographer (maybe I’m too
much of a perfectionist, but in the end, I wasn't impressed with his efforts). We paid another visit to Forres in February
(would you believe it snowed AGAIN?) to finish the plans (cake, flowers etc.)
 |
| The Invitations, when they (finally) arrived |
We had our invitations made in Brazil by a
graphic designer in Pato Branco. The
invitations were sent to our Brazilian friends and family and the rest were
posted to us in England. As has so often
happened, they were delayed in the post between the two countries; when we
checked, the Brazilian Correios showed that they had left Brazil, but the Royal
Mail claimed to have not received them.
Time passed, we had excited messages from Brazilians that loved the
invitations, yet still nothing in England.
It was getting closer to the big day and we were starting to worry;
after all the work that had gone into the invitations, we didn't want to have
to waste it and buy boring, generic invitations (never mind the fact that I
couldn't remember the exact wording for the menu options!) Eventually, after 8 weeks and several angry
yet polite phone calls, we received them.
It turns out that the package left Brazil after 7 days, and then sat
lying around in customs for weeks waiting for someone to register it on the
computer. All this time the Royal Mail
had been making snide remarks about how it was the Brazilian post and it hadn't
come into the country. When the package
finally arrived, we were so happy to see the postman, he got scared! I finally got to see the invitations that we
had been waiting for and we sent them off to our friends and family in the
UK.
The only part of the plans that we found
hard to agree upon was the issue of presents.
As we had been living together for some time, we already had the
essentials and what we really needed was furniture. Someone suggested a wedding
wishing well, where if a guest wished to give a present, they could post a card
money. I have to admit that I didn't
really like the idea; I have never been comfortable asking for presents, or
even answering when asked what I would like!
But it made sense – it took away the obligation of potentially buying
presents we already had or would not use – so I was convinced. We scoured the internet for ideas, but
everything we saw looked either cheeky or vulgar – we didn't want to milk our
loved ones for money. We eventually
agreed on the wording for the cards that went inside the invitations:
In
English -
The best gift we could ask for is your attendance at our wedding.
You may wish to follow with tradition and bring a gift,
Or alternatively you may prefer to make a contribution towards our
new home.
For this reason we have chosen a wedding wishing well, which will be
at the reception
where we can receive your best wishes and contribution. Best Regards
Sheila and Daniel
In Portuguese -
Sinta-se a
vontade em seguir a tradicao e nos trazer um presente, porem, se preferir
contribuir para a nossa nova casa, havera um poco dos desejos na recepcao do
nosso casamento onde voce podera depositar este envelope, e nao se esqueca de
fazer um pedido!
Espero que ajude!
Sheila’s great uncle made us a beautiful
white wishing well, which was posted to us in England and arrived much quicker
than the invitations!
In case the preparations were too easy, we
moved house! We had been temporarily
sharing a flat with a friend in Horsham and then we moved to Basingstoke while
he moved to Hove. We found a spacious
two-bedroom flat near the town centre, in anticipation of receiving guests from
Brazil. As we had been sharing, our
furniture was somewhat limited; a few cabinets, bookshelves and a dubious old
bed that had been hastily repaired after disintegrating in the process of
moving into Horsham. It was held
together with angle brackets, screws and an insane amount of luck. We bought a small tv and used an air-mattress
as a temporary sofa. We bought a small
fold up table and chairs and we were ready to receive guests. Well... sort of...
Great story!
ReplyDelete