Visa Tips for Brazil

I recently applied for a marriage visa (known a ‘family reunion visa’) so that my wife and I can move to Brazil (any day now!)  While not a particularly difficult process, it takes a long time and there is a lot of red tape to navigate through.  These notes should help anyone applying for a visa for Brazil, although they should be especially helpful for marriage visas, and the procedure should be similar when applying from countries other than the US. 

1. Check the website of your nearest Brazilian Consulate.

This may seem obvious, but the procedure may vary depending on your nationality and where you live so make sure you follow each instruction.  The websites are typically easy to navigate, with good instructions in English.  There will be a checklist with instructions but the basic procedure is:

• fill out the appropriate online application form
• once that is submitted you can make an appointment for the Visa interview (ensuring you bring all necessary documentation)
• wait for the Visa to be processed
• move to Brazil
• register with the Federal Police within 3 days of arrival.

2. Identity History Summary Request

For a permanent visa, you will be required to obtain a “non-criminal record”, issued by the FBI for visas issued in the US, which is less than 90 days old.  The instructions on the website describe this as an “FBI Clearance Letter” and for more information, you should visit www.fbi.gov.  There are several information service available; what you need here is an “Identity History Summary Request”, which involves taking your finger prints and sending them to the FBI for a records check.  US citizens and permanent residents (ie Green Card holders) can do this electronically at companies who provide this service, called Live Scan.  All others must get a set of ink fingerprints, taken at a “local, county or state law enforcement agency.”

I think that Live Scan gives results within days (I can’t confirm this, though), but as I am in the US on a visa, I had to get ink fingerprints.  Here is my advice for anyone who needs to do this

• The first thing you should know about this process is that it can take up to 14 weeks to get the results, so make sure you allow plenty of time.
• Check to see whether you need an appointment.  I went to the San Jose Sheriff’s office, which is the main one for Santa Clara County.  Appointments are not needed for this office, but all other Sheriff’s offices in the county require appointments, so check first.
• Check what payment options are accepted.  For Santa Clara Sheriff’s offices, it’s $20, cash or cheque only.  I’m not sure about other areas or agencies, but check before you go.
• Print out the fingerprint card from the FBI website.  Law enforcement agencies will have their own, if you find somewhere else that does ink fingerprinting, they may not have the card, so take a printout just in case.
• When sending the forms to the FBI, check and double-check the paperwork – make sure it’s signed, has all the right information and – of course – ensure that the payment is included (cheque, money order or credit card form.)
• Finally, there is no way of checking the progress of the request, so I would recommend sending the prints by a method with a tracking number.  This though occurred to me within minutes of putting the forms in the post box and would have avoided three months of wondering whether the prints had actually arrived.

3. Making the Appointment

You will need to make an appointment at the Brazilian Consulate to obtain the visa and you should know that they WILL NOT work to your schedule.  If you need a visa to be issued within a matter of weeks, then you need to hope like hell that there is an appointment available. 

To make the appointment, you must first fill out the online application form (see the visa section of the website for your nearest Brazilian consulate for the link).  You will have the option to upload electronic copies of your passport and a passport photo if you wish.

You will only be able to access the appointments section of the site once you have submitted your application and been given a receipt number. Note that you must make your appointment for within 30 days of submitting the form.  For me, there were no appointments within 5 weeks, but I didn’t have any problems – I suppose they know how quickly the appointment slots are taken.

If you are applying for a visa that requires a non-criminal records check (see section 2) don’t worry if you have not yet received the report, we were advised by the consulate to make an appointment anyway and if the report were not available, we could return when it was without needing a new appointment and without losing our place in the queue.  

4. Legalised Marriage Certificate

This section obviously only applies to people applying for a marriage visa.  If your marriage was held outside of Brazil, the Marriage Certificate must be validated by the Brazilian Consulate under whose jurisdiction the marriage was celebrated (as we got married in Scotland, it was validated at the consulate in London.)  I would advised getting this down as soon as possible after the marriage, especially if you move somewhere in the jurisdiction of another consulate.

5. Proof that the applicant has been living in the jurisdiction of the consulate for the past year (only for permanent visas)

This can be a letter from your employer, utility bill etc.  My wife was required to do the same for an “atestado de resedência” – proof that she lived outside of Brazil for at least 12 months and thus allow her to import her personal belongings without having to pay tax on them.  For her, it was particularly difficult as the majority of our utility bills were in my name and numerous US visas, employment authorisation documents, housing lease agreements were not sufficient.  I would therefore advise that each person is named on utility bills if at all possible (eg get the electricity in one person’s name, the phone on the other person’s name.)

6. Visa fees

The fees are listed on the website and vary by visa type.  Citizens of some countries are required to pay a “reciprocity fee” in addition to the normal visa fee, which is equal to that paid by Brazilians applying for visas to that country.  The San Francisco website lists on the USA ad United Arab Emirates as being required to pay reciprocity fees (respectively $160 and $55) with no fee required for other nationalities.  I was however asked for a $155 reciprocity as a UK citizen.  I was able to get in touch with the Consul (not an easy task!) who apologised that the website was not up to date (it still isn’t) but confirmed that there is indeed a reciprocity fee and that I could verify on the website of the Brazilian Consulate in London.

Therefore I recommend that you check the website of the consulate in your home country (if you live in a different country to your citizenship) to avoid any surprise extra fees.

By the way, all consular fees (in the US at least) can only be paid by Post Office money order, so ensure you have them in advance or be prepared for a last minute run to the nearest  Post Office (in San Francisco, this is a couple of blocks away on Sutter Street, I (now) know it well!) 

7. Termo de Responsibilidade

This section also only applies to people applying for marriage visas.  The Brazilian partner is required to fill out a form called “Termo de Responsibilidade” which says that he or she will be responsible for you when in Brazil.  This form must be signed in front of the consular staff.  The person we spoke to didn’t realise this and told us we were finished, if my wife hadn’t known that the signature had to be witnessed, we could have potentially faced more delays.

8. Notarise this, Notarise that

Everything needs to be notarised, which doesn’t really make sense to me.  They take your passport and presumably make a copy.  Then they ask for a notarised copy of the passport (this is the same person that you just handed your passport to) and you need to pay for the privilege too!  That’s $20 please.  You’ll also need $10 to sign the Termo de Responsibilidade (section 7.)  If you don’t know about this in advance (or forget) you’ll be going back to the Post Office.

9. Collecting your Visa

This information relates to the Consulate in San Francisco, I have no idea whether it is the same elsewhere but it helps to be prepared – at least you will be told when to return to collect your visa and at what time.  In San Francisco this is between 12 noon and 1pm and that’s all the information you get.  After 11am, the ticket machines are turned off and the attendant has a tendency to disappear.  We waited at the machine for about 15 minutes before my wife asked for instructions at one of the windows.  We were told to take a seat near windows 1 and 2 (the visa windows) and wait to be called.  At approximately 12 noon, people collecting visas were asked to form a line near window 1 and they would receive their visa one at a time.  I was asked to have a seat and wait until the other visas were issued as mine was a permanent visa and they had to give me instructions for my arrival in Brazil.

10. Registering with Immigration

If you have a permanent visa, you are required to register with immigration at a Polícia Federal office within 30 days of arriving in Brazil, taking the approved application form that was given to you when you received the visa.  As I write this, I am still in the US awaiting my departure to Brazil so there isn’t much to say at this point.

Visa for Brazil

Having lived together in England for 2 years and the US for 4 year, my wife and I decided to try life in Brazil.  Aside from everything, it is a pain living so far from both of our families – holidays must be planned around which family to visit (either option is inevitably expensive) and neither option allows for a weekend visit or bank holiday getaway.  Of course we have other reasons, but I’ll discuss them elsewhere.  Click here for my advice on applying for Brazilian Visas.

Having made that decision, it all came down to practicalities, the biggest of which is the Visa.  Being married to a Brazilian, I qualify for a Family Reunion Visa – a permanent visa.  Like any interaction with any government, the process takes time, so I started the process well in advance of our planned move date in September.  Little did I know that certain delays would lead to a final move date of mid-December.

The information on the website of the Brazilian Consulate appeared very accurate and concise, just as well, because it’s practically impossible to ask questions without going to the consulate itself.  The procedure differs slightly depending on your nationality and the country you are applying from, but basically, the procedure is:

•  fill out the appropriate online application form
•  once that is submitted you can make an appointment for the Visa interview (ensuring you bring all necessary documentation – more on this later)
• wait for the Visa to be processed
• move to Brazil
• register with the Federal Police within 30 days of arrival.

While it is tempting to go through the convenient check list of activities one at a time, I recommend reading every step thoroughly before beginning.  One of the documents required at the interview is a “non-criminal record”, in the case of the US, issued by the FBI.  The instructions describe this as an “FBI Clearance Letter” with instructions to visit www.fbi.gov for more information.  This document must be less than 90 days old, but as an appointment at the consulate may only be made for up to 30 days after the completion of the application form, it is advisable to procure this background check first.

The first difficulty was that there are several information services available from the FBI, but there is no such thing as an “FBI Clearance Letter.”  After several fruitless e-mails and phone calls, I was eventually able to confirm that the required service is an “Identity History Summary Request” (I’m going to refer to this as “IHSR” for simplicity).  Unlike in some other countries where you simply provide your details to the appropriate organisation to obtain a records check, for the Identity History Summary Request you are required to provide a complete set of 10 finger prints – nice…

There are several organisations that can provide this service (given the somewhat shady title of “Channelers”) via Live Scan (electronic finger prints,) although this service is only available to US Citizens and “Lawful Permanent Residents.”  As an L-1 visa holder, I do not qualify as a permanent resident, which means I have to have a set of ink fingerprints taken at a “local, county, or state law enforcement agency.”  Nothing quite like dealing with US Government Agencies to be made to feel like a criminal…

It wasn’t so bad, they were friendly and chatted about what the prints are for – I got the impression that it’s usually for employment purposes (when it’s voluntary of course!)  Some advice for anyone else in this situation:

• Check to see whether you need an appointment.  I went to the San Jose Sheriff’s office, which is the main one for Santa Clara County.  Appointments are not needed for this office, but all other Sheriff’s offices in the county require appointments, so check first.
• Check what payment options are accepted.  For Santa Clara Sheriff’s offices, it’s $20, cash or cheque only.  I’m not sure about other areas or agencies, but check before you go.
• Print out the fingerprint card from the FBI website.  Law enforcement agencies will have their own, if you find somewhere else that does ink fingerprinting, they may not have the card, so take a printout just in case.
• When sending the forms to the FBI, check and double-check the paperwork – make sure it’s signed, has all the right information and – of course – ensure that the payment is included (cheque, money order or credit card form.)

So, I was now in possession of my very own set of finger prints, I filled out the forms, put them in the mail and thus started the waiting game…

Three weeks had passed, and I was still waiting…

Nine weeks: by this point you wonder what’s taking so long, did they even receive the prints?  Is there anyone I can ask?  Any online status?  Nope, I crossed my fingers, hoped for the best and kept waiting…

In the meantime, we got some good news when my wife visited the consulate.  It is possible to schedule an appointment even without the IHSR; they understand that it takes a long time so you can take what documents you have and then return with the IHSR when you have it – they will recognise the process as having started so you won’t need an appointment.  So my appointment is booked, the nearest I could get was for 5 weeks later, hopefully I’d have the IHSR by then…

Ten weeks, still waiting… 

Thirteen weeks – my credit card statement for September indicated that a payment was taken by the FBI, so presumably that meant the check was complete and results were in the post.  So, I’m still waiting…

Finally, 13 weeks and 2 days after posting my finger prints, I received the IHSR results, just in time, as my appointment at the consulate was four days later.

The appointment at the consulate went reasonably well, although there were some peculiarities.  Firstly, they require a notarised copy of my passport, which involves going to another window, so they can stamp the photocopy for a modest price of $20.  It doesn’t seem to matter that they have my ACTUAL passport, so they could make all the copies they need and be safe in the knowledge that it is a true copy.  Secondly, my wife was required to sign a “Termo de Responsibilidade” form in front of them, which is a form that says that she will be responsible for me in Brazil.  This one was a bargain at only $10!  Of course these additional fees can only be paid by a post office money order, cue a run to the post office before the consulate closes its doors at 12:30.

One week later, I received a call from the consulate to say that as a British citizen, I am required to pay a reciprocity fee of $155 (by post office money order, what else?) when I collect my visa.  This was a new one to me, especially given that the website for the consulate lists the only nations with reciprocity fees as the USA at $160 and Arab Emirates at $55.  This is a fee equal to that paid by Brazilians applying for visas to that country and all other countries than the two mentioned previously are exempt from this fee.  Except that apparently, UK citizens do have to pay a fee.  I discussed this with a friend who recommended that I raise this with the consul.  He apologised that the website was not up to date, but confirmed that there is indeed a reciprocity fee and that I could confirm this information on the website of the Brazilian Consulate in London.  What annoys me about this is that my wife paid this extra fee when she applied for her British marriage visa, now I’m paying a revenge fee for my Brazilian visa!  So rather than sticking a middle finger up at foreign governments for charging extra fees for their citizens to obtain visas, they punish the couple (including the Brazilian citizen of course) that is applying for the visa.  There’s something not quite right about that…

So, begrudgingly, off I went to the post office, bought the money order and returned to the consulate.
 

We arrived at approximately 11:30 and the ticket machines (select visa, passport etc and get a number) machines weren’t working and there was no attendant.  I’m not sure whether the machines are always turned off after 11am or this was a one-off, but the attendant is usually there.  We were told that for collecting visas, we should take a seat by windows 1 and 2 (the visa windows at the San Francisco consulate) and that we would be called.  The official recognised me and called me over, but this was to take the money order and give me the receipt; I was asked to wait until the other visas (mostly tourist or business) were issued (for anyone picking up one of these visas from the San Francisco consulate, you should arrive between 12 noon and 1pm, you’ll be asked to form a line, show them your ID and then you’ll be on your way.)  As my visa was indefinite, she had to give me the instructions: I must enter Brazil within one year and must present myself to the immigration department of the Polícia Federal (federal police) within 30 days of arriving in Brazil.

So that was it, simple, eh?  Next stop Brazil!

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...