Almost A Portuguese Wedding, part II
Part Two continues and if you want to read Part One first here it is. Thursday is a long day, writing about it now makes me realise just how exhausting.
The Letter of No Trace, Thursday am.
A lot was riding on this letter. What Bikerboy was told by the registrar in the UK was that this letter in some countries is accepted instead. Bikerboy had pleaded with the local registrar for something when he found out we couldn’t have the certificate. This local registrar rang the office in London spoke to a senior registrar there and they suggested this very real alternative. On Thursday morning we both had a job to do. Bikerboy’s job was to drive 4 hours to Southport to the registrar head office to pick up the letter at midday, and then drive 4 hours back to Standstead airport to catch the 6 o’clock plane back to Portugal. This would just about give us enough time to have the Friday at the registrar’s office in Maia with the dragon lady, to sort and sign papers for the wedding...if…they accepted the letter as an alternative, as some countries do. I hear you…call us the forever optimists, I know.
While that was happening back in the UK my job was to head to the dragon lady and explain about the letter which was coming and how important it was. I think Bikerboy had the easiest job out of the two of us, don’t you? The letter was written on Home Office letterhead, searched and signed. Unlike the certificate of no impediment which is just a table with names and dates on it, on plain paper which appears like anyone with a computer could produce, the certificate of no impediment does not look like a certificate or anything produced by an authority.
I took Liliana along on this trip to the registrar’s office, it had been a very fraught morning and she was upset, it seemed best for her to spend the morning with me. Not the best plan for me as a hot, small first floor office with no lifts are unwelcoming to a three year old on a pushchair. I can not remember how long my brother and I spent across the counter with the registrar, explaining why this letter was of importance and not something just typed out by a distant cousin.
The response we kept receiving was, “…does it say on the letter that it’s a certificate of no impediment?” we said, “No” she would then say, “…well if it’s not a certificate of no impediment or a letter stating the UK does not issue such a certificate then I can’t accept it”. We were on a roundabout and the only exit she gave us was, “Try the British consulate in Porto and see if they’ll accept it as a certificate of no impediment, and if they do, then I will”. She gave us the tinniest bit of light in this conversation by saying,”…well, I really need to see the letter before I can make the final judgement, but it doesn’t sound like I can accept it”.
Nearly forgot to say, we also showed her the new translations done by my brother’s lawyer friend in the right format as she wanted. Guess what? She wasn’t happy with it. No…really? You’re surprised right? Yep…me too! And why were the translations not satisfactory? Well, because my brother’s friend had attached the translation to the other translation done back in London and not to the original absolute decree sheet. Why had the lawyer done this terrible crime? Because my absolute decree was sealed to the London translation with one of those wax seals, bright red, looks very impressive but sort of melts into the document and at the other end it had been punched with a special kind of metal ring with a ribbon through it. I suspect as any normal person would, the lawyer didn’t want to tear the papers apart and risk damage…god only knows how much that would impair proceedings. But the dragon lady was complaining about that not being correct procedure and should be attached to original document! Do you suspect as I do this woman enjoys complaining?
When we came out of the registrar’s office heading towards my car we spotted the car had been clamped. I stood across the road with my hands on the pushchair and just could not move any further. My brother, bless him, went to sort it and I turned to the cafe with Liliana and sat having some cold water looking at it. Didn’t know what to say. We had parked one car space behind the last time we were there and had no problem, but apparently where we were parked today was for the police, only there was no notice that either of us could see.
Sshhh…The Secret British Consulate in Porto, Thursday pm.
In the afternoon we headed to the British consulate in Porto, which in fact is not in the city of Porto but across the river in Gaia, or more specifically called Vila Nova de Gaia. If you’re a foreigner you wouldn’t notice the change from one city to another. I challenge you if ever in Porto and you have crossed the river to where the many port wine houses are displayed on the hill overlooking back to the city of Porto, to find the British consulate. My brother had a summer job for a few years as a tour guides in one of the port houses, therefore knows the area very well and yet he had trouble finding the consulate. It’s up one of the many steep narrow streets which appears as if going nowhere, dead end, and only warehouses around. We stopped local workers on the very road the consulate was suppose to be on to ask where the consulate was and they said there’s nothing at the end of this road, it just leads to a dead end to one of the warehouses. The consulate was there, at that dead end where no one can walk past it, bump into it or in fact purposely find it.
Before walking in I sat on the ground outside this small inconspicuous building at the very top of the hill and phoned my very heavily pregnant cousin in Lisbon, who’s third child was expected any minute, to take up on her offerings of help. My cousin who’s a journalist had offered to help before I left the UK because she had recently interviewed the head of registrars in Lisbon and had the contact number and if I was having trouble with the registrar my cousin said she would ring the head and see if she could help. I felt guilty asking her for help since she was supposed to be taking time to relax and I felt like I was intruding on her time, but she was very sympathetic and said she would make the phone call as soon as she got home.
You’ve Met the Dragon Lady, but Have You Met Her Sister? Thursday pm
Walking into the British consulate I felt very different from walking into all the Portuguese offices before because I could, for the first time converse in my natural language, make myself understood properly. You know I can be quite persuasive at times, with well thought out and logical reasoning. Occasionally I’ll take time to write to the top dog of say Tesco, Sir Terry, and explain the unfairness of the offerings their customer service manager is giving me and succeed in achieving the right result…ok so they were trying to shut me up and make me go away…I know…but I did get Bikerboy and I, bumped up into business class on the way back from New York on a Virgin flight when all they wanted was for us to fill in a complaint form when we got home. Bikerboy was in absolute heaven, I had the worst flight in my life, unbeknownst to me I was just having morning sickness because I was pregnant with the third child.
My intent was to speak to a senior member of staff, explain the importance of the letter of no trace, where it was coming from, and how I had the phone number of the registrar back in the UK who was very happy to speak to someone in Portugal explaining what searches they do for this letter. In this tiny reception you are confronted with a counter with a sheet of glass all the way up to the ceiling as banks have. A tiny stocky middle aged woman, dressed in a 1950′s style suit with hair I would described as coiffured, wearing neat but badly chosen make-up sits at a desk in an empty office visible from the front desk. Prim and proper in an old fashioned way would be a good description of her.
She comes to the counter, we explain who we were, my brother had already spoken to her on the phone twice. I asked her, “Can I speak to your supervisor?” and she said, “That’s me”. I said, “You’re the supervisor of this consulate?” she said, “Yes, that’s right I’m the manager of this office”, then I said, “…so there’s no one else in this office?” I look around behind her head at the other empty desk and door leading somewhere, and she said, “No”. I tried to clarify this even further because I couldn’t quite believe it, “…you’re the only person that works in the whole consulate, there’s no one else?” she tightens her lips and as she’s talking her head wobbles from side to side like those toy dogs people have in their car that sway their heads, “yes! I’m the only person in the whole building!” I must of had the look of shock at this point…she did not like me. What I really wanted to say when she started exerting her pumped up chest was, “But you don’t even speak proper English! What kind of accent is it? Sounds like a cross between South African and Australian…you’re not really English are you?” Can you imagine how that would’ve gone down? The things you feel like saying sometimes but have to bite tongue instead.
I’m going have to be honest here but I can not recall exactly how the conversation proceeded but along the way there were lots of, “No! I’m not going to ring anyone back in the UK! I only answer to the foreign office, that’s who I take orders from.” and lots of comments like, “…no I can’t do that” and because my brother and I just kept bombarding her with buts and ifs she eventually had enough and said, “I’m sorry I have to go now and take a conference call…” and that was that! She had given us a copy of someone else’s certificate of no impediment with their names blanked out and as I’ve already mentioned it’s a plain piece of paper with a table and the couples details but no sign anywhere of it looking like a legal document. And yes forgery of that table did cross our minds but the possibility of ending up in jail put a stop to it.
The Horse is Taking Its Last Gasps, Thursday eve.
Bikerboy was coming back and I couldn’t wait. I spent the rest of the day at the venue talking to the florist and occupying my head with pretty things, that was all I could do for now. It had been an exhausting day in every possible way and I couldn’t wait for the end of it. I collected Bikerboy from the airport after getting lost about three times on the outskirts of it, it’s a bit of a maze if you’re not in the right lane getting to it. I remember screaming while on the phone to Bikerboy saying, “…I can’t freaking believe I’ve missed the turning again…arrrrhhhh” Bikerboy had told me he went to the notary again and singed an sworn affidavit, because he heard in some countries this also works. On the way home I think we talked non-stop of all the possible ways of breathing life into this event, how we could rescue it but…well that was it, there were lots of “buts”. We had heard back from my cousin in Lisbon and the news was, the head had rang the local registrar in Maia but because the certificate of no impediment was missing there was nothing she could do.
We stopped at my French cousins on the way to write down their children names again because I had given my note book to Liliana that morning to keep her quiet at the registrar and she must have dropped it. My French cousins met Bikerboy for the first time and with some of their little English, Bikerboy’s school French they exchange dialogue and we had a much needed laugh. I adore my French cousins, lost touch with them as an adult, and so very glad we have re-connected. As a kid I would spend Easter weekend with them, my dad would drive to France to our French uncles and aunts and then I would also meet up with them in the summer in Portugal. I hadn’t seen one of my French cousins in 20 years but he still looks exactly the same to me, his daughter’s name is Azelia, for the first time ever there were 3 Azélia in one place, not a common name. What was lovely about seeing them all again this week was me and them messing around and talking if no time had passed at all.
The Dragon Lady v. Us – The Final, Friday am.
Bikerboy and I finally went to bed around 2am after spending a lot of time with table names and other wedding stuff. When the alarm went off first thing, I think the both of us woke up with a ton of weight on our shoulders, this was the day. We headed to the registrar’s office in Maia and on the way debated whether we should find a solicitor’s office first to translate the letter but I decided it was more important to get to the dragon’s office first because I didn’t want her to think we weren’t turning up and not giving her enough notice to deal with us. I knew she had minimal English to decide if it was worth having the letter translated. The money we spent at the Portuguese consulate, London translations, copies of originals, foreign office stamps on three separate occasions and travel cost, had come in excess of £600 and since we were walking on such thin wire I resented paying a penny more, unless it was worth it.
Before writing about Friday I asked Bikerboy what he thought at the time of the registrar in Maia, what he remembers from walking into that office and seeing the dragon. Up until now we hadn’t shared any experienced with the authorities during that week. All the perspective of these events I have written about have been through my eyes but that morning he had his own view and feelings on how it was.
I walked into the dragon’s lair with some optimism, a small hope that reason would win the day. Bikerboy said he thought from the moment he walked in and saw the dragon he read the body language very differently. His view is that she was not going to allow us to get married regardless of what that letter said or who it might have been signed by, not even the queen. Since he couldn’t speak the language and I was doing the talking he spent the time reading the dragon’s demeanor and in his opinion she wasn’t there to help us one little bit, but rather to put any obstruction in the way.
The registrar read the letter, asked me to translate a few words she didn’t quite know what they meant and then said since there was nothing in there declaring this was a certificate she couldn’t accept it. I think we spend a further 15 maybe 20 minutes discussing the issue, with me having to translate back to Bikerboy and then back to the registrar. She repeated what she said yesterday and asked us to seek help from the British consulate in Porto, oh yes…we knew where that was going to lead…right up the dead end road the consulate stood. The sign of stress and gloom were now showing on both our faces. The implications were now fast forwarding through our minds. That dark small reception room with no natural light seemed to suddenly become pitch black, our shoulders descended like animals that have been finally defeated and we walked away. We had lost.
The very short walk back from the office to our parked car was a very long road, Bikerboy’s face said it all. He kept saying I can’t believe this is it, I can’t believe I don’t have a contingency plan! That’s how I make my jobs work, there’s always a way! That was his engineer training coming out. We sat in the parked car for a while and tried a few times to ring the British consulate in Lisbon and see if they had more than one employee and had some suggestions. It appears not, when you ring, the phone system puts you on an automated waiting queue and then sends you back to the automated switchboard and back to queueing again, this loop it seems just keeps going round with no human intervention. That’s it then. Everything and everyone ready for a wedding with no wedding.
My childhood friend Lina, her husband and boys.
It Takes an Outsider to Show a New Avenue, Friday 11.30am.
Driving back I wanted to stop at my childhood friend Lina, the hairdresser and tell her the news. Lina’s personality is similar to ours, there’s always a way, we just need to look at things differently. She said, ok, so you can’t have the marriage papers signed here, but why not have a wedding service, then registrar the marriage when you get back? We went from her home to the local registrar’s office in Vila to cancel the registrar coming out to marry us tomorrow. It was this car journey that everything turned around for us.
Our conversation turned into all the things we wished we had done differently back home when the whole Portuguese consulate debacle happen with loosing my divorce papers. How hard it had become just getting the very simple things done. Had we had thought of it differently with enough time we would have registered the marriage back in the UK and then just had a ceremony in Portugal as many others have done. I joked about how on the Thursday when it was all falling apart I really wanted to ring Bikerboy while he was on the plane to ask him to stand up and ask the passengers, “Excuse me everyone…but is there an English minister on board who would marry us?” This little joke changed events from a near disaster to our saving grace.
Bikerboy’s very good friend who without we would’ve had a different story
A New Plan Was Born, Friday noon.
Bikerboy said to me, “..but then it wouldn’t be in Portuguese and most of the guests won’t understand it”. My response was, the people who matter the most are the ones getting married making the vows, so it wouldn’t matter it was in English, we would understand it. Bikerboy then says, well if it doesn’t have to be in Portuguese and we can do it in English…then I have the perfect person to do it!
One of our wedding guests, was one of Bikerboy’s very good friends, who a few years back he had one of his best holidays with, flying planes around the United States. When these two get together the adventures of the holiday will always come up. Bikerboy’s good friend is a quietly spoken man, tall and charming man and I took an instant liking to him. He doesn’t talk about his past but I knew he had a military background many years ago and with his chaplain experience he was going to perform the marriage ceremony, he just didn’t know yet…
Bikerboy’s friend had barely landed on Portuguese soil, he was still in the taxi on his way to the hotel when Bikerboy made the phone call. I think he was not expecting that at all and the thought of, “..oh heck I should have listen to the wife and packed more formal shoes” went through his mind. OK then, so we are getting married. We were half kicking ourselves that we hadn’t thought of this before and half delirious that we had a solution. I still recall so well now how that one car journey went from ‘..oh my god what are we going to do?’ to ‘..oh my god why didn’t think of this before?’ to ‘..yesyesyesyes…yesss…can’t believe! Can’t believe we’ve actually going to do it! All that stress, time and money for nothing!’ We both had big smiles on our faces.
The Eve of the Wedding
The next few hours, in fact the next 24 hours were relentless and run like a military operation. I had to spend the afternoon at the venue to do table planing and put final touches to tables, translate and type out menus, the sort of thing I had planed to spend all week to do calmly. Best laid plans of mice and men as they say. And isn’t table planning complicated when trying to sit people that know each other together? Bikerboy spend the afternoon split between seeing his friend about the service, collecting his other friends from the airport, going to buy another shirt for the wedding, we only realised that day we left it at home, and buying a wedding ring for himself.
The evening went in a flash, we packed our stuff in preparation for our four night trip in Spain, went to have a meal with our friends were they were staying in the hotel. For the first time had a relaxed meal, discussed with Bikerboy’s friend the service for the ceremony and we finally put our head to the pillow at 1 am, with the alarmed booked to wake us for 5 am. I didn’t sleep more than 2 hours anyway, my stomach still full of knots. Everything was running through my mind, from worrying about middle daughter who was not having a good time, the venue, the food for middle child, the vows, had I forgotten something? What was going to go wrong? I remember looking at the clock thinking reception forgot to give us the wake up call, to see it was 4 am.
Finally It Was Here
The wedding was booked for midday. We arrived at my parents house about 6.40 am so I could make biscuits for middle daughter as I had forgotten all about her dessert at the wedding. Bikerboy had to print out some more inserts for the menus as I had run out the day before. My hair was booked with Lina at 7.30 am because I then had to drive back to the hotel for 9 am for the make-up girl. The make-up girl was excellent, the first time in my life I’ve had someone do my make-up and I must say, I can see why celebrities have it done all the time. When Bikerboy saw me at the wedding he said, “wow…that’s the best I’ve seen you” followed by the backtracking, “…I mean..not that you don’t look great the rest of the time!”. Made me laugh. I very nearly didn’t organise a make-up artist, I had forgotten to book it with everything going on and then on the Friday afternoon made some calls and was lucky to find her.
While the make-up was being done I was on the phone to Bikerboy to discuss details of the service and our vows, he was upstairs in the hotel lobby with our friends while I was downstairs in the spa. Two girlfriends would act as messengers when I needed to read any changes or approve things, they also tried to calm this now stressed out bride having a panic episode. I felt sorry for the make-up girl, I was not a relaxed easy bride. I had to be picked up by my brother to go via the venue, speak to the chef about middle daughter’s meal and allergies, then on to parents home to get dressed. It was a hot day, luckily not stupidly hot, but hot enough when you’re running around. There I was walking around with make-up, hair & tiara wearing old pair of trousers and top still worrying that something was going to go wrong. And this feeling didn’t leave me all day, I think because things had gone so terribly wrong from 5 years ago I was expecting yet something else to ruin the day.
Surrounded by Childhood Memories
Fortunately nothing did go wrong on the day. It was a relaxed wedding, people were at ease chatting to those who they knew and catching up with those they hadn’t seen for a while. I was surround by people who were part of my childhood. I had uncles and an aunt who had recently suffered tragic loss but were there supporting me and that was very touching to me. I had family friends who make up a big part of my childhood memories, of summers on the beach; eating Tia Lina’s rice and chicken taken to the beach still in its cooking pot…no sandwiches for us Portuguese.
Aren’t Weddings Exhausting?
We were both happy the day went well without a hitch but I can not quite understand those couples who say they had such a fantastic time at their wedding because we both felt at the end of the day we weren’t able to really enjoy it as you spend the whole time making sure everything is running ok. We never felt relaxed until the very end of the day and by then we were so exhausted. Having spoken to my friend Gill about wedding experiences we both concluded weddings are not really for the couples as such to enjoy themselves but for the guests.
The woman in blue is my youngest aunt who I adore, Lina, while I lived with my gran between the ages of 3 to 10 she looked after me, she still makes the best chips and fried egg. Here in the photo she went to say hello to Bikerboy and give him advise, of course she can’t speak a word of English and Bikerboy doesn’t speak Portuguese, but little things like that don’t stand in the way of my tia Lina.
The Ceremony
For us the best of the day was the ceremony itself, we both got the teary eye, and my voice wobbled quite a bit when saying the vows. The ceremony was perfect for us, said everything we wanted, far more personal than having a stranger registrar conducting it. The words were beautiful and meaningful to us and our emotions throughout the ceremony showed how much heartfelt they were. The girls were wonderful, smiley and so happy all day, the little one in the morning kept shouting, “mummy is getting married..mummy is getting married…mummy is getting married..” They made me proud.
The Venue
The venue was perfect and both the Portuguese, French and British loved it, it had an air of tranquility, plenty of space to find a corner to chat or wonder. The modern extension to the old farm house where the sit down meal takes place is cool on such hot days and the old part of the building is full of rooms which can be used for when the rain comes. On a day like we had, after the ceremony is over which took place by an old mill and river, the tables for drinks and nibbles are set up by the pool under the shade.
The Food, the Most Important Part at a Portuguese Wedding
In Portugal the only important thing about a wedding is the food followed by wine. No one cares about the bride looking nice or any other wedding things, the whole point of the event is good food and plenty of it. Nibbles are a little understating it, these nibbles aren’t just mini saltcod fishcakes or croquettes but also platers of fish salads, bean salads, traditional substantial dishes such as sausages, saltcod & potato dishes, cured ham, meats and many others. I think there were around 20 different things to eat and yes you could easily fill yourself with those alone and one of our English friend’s did just that, indulged in prawns and lobster until his belly could no longer cope. After the very filling nibbles you have a four course sit down meal, with a dessert and cheese table too. If that’s not enough there’s the bbq in the evening, if you have an ounce of room left in your stomach. Now you get the picture how food is the most important part.
The food is catered by outside caterers and what I hadn’t realised is you pay and deal with them direct. Learn from our mistake and make certain everything is written down and clarified the price per head given to you is not going to change depending on the number of guests, to avoid what happen to us. I only found out by chance three days before the wedding the caterers were increasing the price because we had less guests than we had mentioned when booking with them the previous summer. Had I not rang I think I would’ve only discovered the price increase after the wedding when settling the bill, which I thought was very poor on their part. We could never had a wedding like this back in the UK because the food bill alone would cripple us. In Portugal you buy a package per head which includes all food and drinks, drinks means everything, spirits and sparkling wine, unlimited food and drinks.
This wedding wasn’t just about the two of us, the girls were very much part of it, they were involved in the whole process, and they made the day for us all the more special.
I made a request to the caterers, “..there has to be enough prawns for my aunt Lina…make sure there’s plenty”, she is crazy for them and will eat anyone under the table, she also has the peeling of them down to an art, do not stand between her and a platter of prawns.
Bikerboy’s father and one of Bikerboy’s best friends tried really hard to go through one of the seafood boats by themselves and thought they had cracked it when there was only a few muscles left. They were quite pleased with themselves for not letting any lobster, crab and prawns go to waste…the waiters took the nearly empty boats away…and brought out another!
My gran with my mum and my aunts.
The Star of the show was youngest child who after only an hour nap in my arms went on dancing and dancing the night away using her walker.
There’s something about weddings that make even the oldie couples feel a little romance, my aunt and uncle.
…and there’s always the odd couple 
The woman in the middle is the venue owner who is an extremely nice lady and was very helpful.
I think every girl should walk around with a tiara…makes you walk with a straight back!