Our last months and weeks in the US were hectic, to put it mildly. We had already been preparing for the move for weeks: making and adding to lists of things to give away and enticing friends to take them, getting various paperwork we needed to be able to get into Australia (only Australian citizens and their immediate family members are currently allowed in), canceling subscriptions, insurance, utilities, etc. You don’t know how many financial and logistical ties you have to a place until you’re trying to unravel them all.
We had planned all along to do our own packing, to avoid possible COVID exposure from the movers. It would be a big job, and we started weeks in advance, putting everything we wouldn’t need to see or use for a few months into boxes. (Another advantage to doing your own packing is that it’s far less wasteful: I spent well over $1000 on packing materials, but we used clothing, linens, etc. to pad our breakables, and therefore less bubble wrap.)
Though we haven’t said it out loud to many people until recently, our move to Australia has been in the works for years (very fortunately, because it took two years to get my partner visa!). In that time, the people we have told often had questions about why I would want to move “so far away.”
The grimly ironic situation now is that no one questions our decision to move – many are frankly envious.
But, even before COVID, there were plenty of good reasons to move to Australia.
“There having been some days in preparation, a splendid time is guaranteed for all…”
Having a home-grown wedding is a lot of fun, as well as a lot of work. The final efforts for setup and decoration reminded me strongly of the parties, dances, open houses, fairs, and festivals that we used to organize at boarding school. Now, as then, it took a squadron of friends and family to pull it off. I’m trying to reconstruct everything that everybody did, but this is a bit like giving an Oscar speech – I’m afraid I’ll leave out someone who made a crucial contribution!
I have heard of weddings that disallow children, but that is not my style. I grew up in expat communities where kids usually attended grown-up parties, and then raised my own daughter in Italy, where kids are expected to socialize with adults in a civilized manner. Many of our guests had children, and our own family includes Mitchell, Brendan’s ten-year-old son. So I made sure that our guests knew their children would be welcome and even, as far as we could manage, looked after.
The current tradition in India is for the bride to have a mehndi party for her female friends some days before the wedding (mehndi needs a few days for the color to set and deepen). There are many mehndi artists in the Bay Area, but the wedding date turned out to be a problem: August 17th was the weekend after Indian Independence Day, August 15th, and many of the artists were booked for other events.
