The Wedding - part II

Sheila’s mum Cleonice arrived with her aunt, Cleusa and brother, Rafael, shortly before the wedding.  I prepared a cd with the Beatles (for Cleonice and Cleusa) and Oasis (for Rafael, my new brother-in-law.)  The rest of Sheila’s family would arrive a few days before the wedding, but for the time being we had 5 in the flat.  We took one air bed, Rafael another in the living room and the sisters took the bed.  I was working in until a few days before the wedding, but I was able to take my guests to London and Brighton during the weekend.  I can’t tell you how happy they were to experience all the new sights and sounds!

We drove to Forres a few days before the wedding to finalise the last minute plans.  Cleonice and Cleusa accompanied us on the 10-hour journey, while Rafael stayed in London to meet their cousins in London.  

They would fly to Forres on Thursday 15^th April, arriving in time for the stag night.  We had recommended hiring a people car and driving earlier, but they preferred to spend more time in London.

Everything was going well until Thursday morning...

My phone woke me up, a text message, my brother, something about a volcano...  ‘I can’t deal with this,’ I thought, and went back to sleep.  When I awoke (again), I remembered a dream where my brother texted me about a volcano.  Laughing, I reached for my phone: “Have you heard about the volcano?  Is anyone flying up?”  Bloody hell!  Volcano?  All I could think of was the extinct volcano on which Edinburgh castle is built, but if that’s gone up...  I eloquently replied “what volcano?”  Luckily, someone was clearly awake, he replied “there’s a volcano that’s erupted in Iceland.  It’s thrown a lot of ash into the air and the planes can’t fly.”  Expecting to see some kind of apocalyptic dark scene, I opened the curtains and was met by a sight even more unusual than that: sunshine and blue sky! In North East Scotland!

Northern Europe showing the high altitude ash on 16th April

Then my phone rang, Rafael, from London.   I can’t remember his exact words, mainly because they were Portuguese and I was very much a beginner at that time, but one word does stick in my mind: “cancelado.”  You don’t need to be a linguist to understand the meaning of that word.  I repeated, “cancelado?”  At which point Sheila woke up, wondering what was cancelled?  The wedding?  I passed her the phone and Rafael explained that they had arrived at the airport and all flights were cancelled.

We spent the morning trying to find a car hire company that had cars available, no mean feat as everyone on a UK domestic flight was now making alternative arrangements. We eventually found something and made a provisional booking, but the guys had second thoughts.  They had never driven on the left hand side of the road, let alone through London and along British motorways.  With the stress of last-minute arrangements, that was fair enough, so they went for plan B.  Or was it plan C? 

They found a train and piled on board.  Given the transport chaos and a line that is busy at the best of times, there were no seats available so they were left standing and sitting on the floor all the way to Edinburgh.  The changed trains in Edinburgh and were finally able to sit, but the train would only go as far as Inverness, 25 miles from Forres.  I spent my stage night sober, waiting until 11pm, at which time my dad and I each drove to Inverness, filled our cars with excited Brazilians and delivered them to Forres.  In spite of it all, they enjoyed the train journey and seeing much more of the country than they would have otherwise seen, had they flown.

Of course there were several other disruptions and changes to travel plans.  My Gran made the 8-hour train journey from Leeds with my cousin while others drove.  The friends and colleagues that could only fly up for the wedding, spend a couple of nights and return spent the Thursday and Friday on the phone and watching the news, hoping the ban on flying would be lifted so they would be able to attend.  The only one of my colleagues had driven to Glasgow for work then drove up the A9 to make the wedding.

Sheila and I

Finally, Sheila’s best woman, Taisa (she didn’t want to be a maid, but knowing about the tradition of the best man decided to create a role!) was due to arrive later with her sister, mum and friend, but it was beginning to look as though she wouldn’t be able to make it.  Sheila’s friend Pati, who had travelled up by train with the cousins, agreed to be the best woman in her place.  It wasn’t until the day of the wedding, that we heard that Taisa was on a train, heading to Forres.  With this incredible news, we continued the last minute preparations (I honestly can’t remember what I was doing, except that it involved driving backwards and forwards across Forres all morning) hoping that she would make it in time.

In the end, she didn’t make it to the wedding and we were unable to postpone the ceremony.  I have to admit to a tear when Sheila entered the room, and my mother-in-law was crying her eyes out.  The ceremony itself was simple, but beautiful.  It was a bit difficult for Sheila to understand the registrar’s Scottish accent and I seemed to forget how to speak English!

Left to right: me, Sheila, Pati, Taisa, Chris

After the photographs, we returned the function room for the speeches and then dinner when there was a commotion at the reception.  Taisa and her family had arrived, just in time for the wedding breakfast!  The hotel staff set the extra places at the table and they went to get changed while Rafael and I discovered the joys of bilingual speeches.  We appear to have survived intact!  My youngest brother Chris delivered his best man speech along with the obligatory embarrassing story from my youth.

We had planned a “mini-moon” instead of a honeymoon, a few nights in the Lake District before returning home.  With the Brazilian family being unable to continue with their plans of exploring Europe, we decided to return early and only spent one night in the Lake District.  In anticipation of a few extra house guests, our first job on returning home was bed shopping.  My old bed was miraculously still standing, but no one knew for how long and besides, all air beds would soon be put to use.  At one point, there were 8 people in our not-as-spacious-as-I-thought two-bedroom flat.  Pre-workday breakfast consisted of a careful tiptoe balancing act between sleeping bodies to reach the kitchen, quietly make a cup of tea and sneak out.  I hadn’t just married Sheila, I’d married the family!

The Wedding

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 17^th April as it was after Easter, but the 10^th 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...