Weddings

(Starting with a deep deep breath...)
To be quite honest, I never thought much about weddings. The only thing I envisioned was doing something small, for few people, outside during the day, informal...
But, as the world likes to twist things up, I ended up with 3 (but potentially 5) weddings! I mean, I know girls that would have killed to get one! And they look at me when I complain about wedding hassles as if I should be burning in hell... the world is truly unfair.... :D

So here we go:
Wedding 1: in the US, sometime in May. I'm going back to NC for a week, for graduation, dismantling our apartment, selling my car, good bye parties, graduation parties and... marriage! Now, VERY few people know about this event. Mainly we don't want to advertise and want it as small as possible since there are 2 other big weddings for people to attend (but since many of our friends live in the US and won't be able to attend....). The main reason to get married there is the easiness of the process: no paperwork, show up at the courthouse, pay the fee, sign the contract and it's done!

Wedding 2: Ok, so A. and I are still considering whether this is worth the hassle. This would be the legal marriage in Brazil. The up side is that once it is accomplished we are recognized as married in Brazil and do not need to validate documents from abroad (like the US papers). However, we need to submit a request for permission to marry 30 days ahead of time and get a ton of paperwork ready (especially since A. is not Brazilian)...

Wedding 3: Big fat Brazilian wedding. To get an idea, the day after I told my mom that we'd be getting married she called me and asked if I had a guest list ready... because she had made one with 200 people and wanted to compare it with mine. I had none. So despite my visions of something small out in the open during the day... we just kept the "open and during the day" part and are now complying with the lists of requirements necessary.

Wedding 4: This is the most likely to be dropped. Legal wedding in India. This requires even more paperwork than the Brazilian legal marriage and might not help much (especially if we have the US papers) in requesting my PIO card.

Wedding 5: This one will be in Tirupati in South India at 7am. Very traditional, following all the requirements set by A.'s mom. I have no say at all in this one but to a large extent it makes things easier. As A. said... it would be great if you were just a puppet for 10 days. Guess that indicates the level of free will I'm entitled to. This might (or not) be followed by a reception later (to be determined by family politics).

Talking to a professor a while back she recommended: "as long as you can view through an anthropologists' eyes, will no doubt be very entertaining.". My mom didn't like the idea of us taking our wedding as an anthropological experiment, but I like it.

And if I make it out alive I'll be greatful!!!
;o)