And now, the high point of the story...


Hello again everyone!

You can probably tell that the last email was largely written before the wedding. I began it, but then wedding stuff took over and it took forever to come back to it.

I forgot to say that while Joni was traveling I spent most of my time in New Orleans in the company of her brother Philip and one of his friends. This was pretty unremarkable except for going to the Greek Festival. This festival centres around the Greek Orthodox cathedral on Bayou St John. Many, many tables of fetta, olives, ouzo (ever had an ouzo daiquiri?) and baklavas (I was in a happy place). Also grilled lamb, which I've never before seen in the US. As I understand it, the Greek community in New Orleans took a big hit in Hurricane Katrina - a lot of that community moved away from the City - but it seems to have rebounded strongly now.

Moving on: From last Sunday my people began arriving - my oldest sister and her fellow arrived in NO where Philip and I had dinner with them. They then went on to Pensacola to do some scuba diving, and then returned from there to Thibodaux. On Wednesday last week my parents also dropped out of the sky in NO after spending a couple of days in Denver. Some where in this mix my second oldest sister and her husband also arrived in Thibodaux after spending a bit better than a week in San Francisco.

The time between that Wednesday and the wedding was filled with my people meeting Joni's people. I guess I should spare you the details of all of that. Although, one of the highpoints was taking my people (I.e. sisters plus parents) on a tour to Laura Plantation (a Creole plantation where the "Uncle Remus" stories were collected - "please don' throw me in a briar patch brer fox!") and on a swamp tour. This last was great fun and got us face to face with alligators and one snapping turtle. This all took place on the Friday before the wedding. I was pretty nervous and distracted on that day, and I must have looked it pretty bad as a couple of people commented on it the next day.

I forgot to say that on the Thursday before the wedding we had the wedding rehearsal and the rehearsal supper. The wedding rehearsal is probably self explanatory. The rehearsal supper is, if you like, the formal part of the reception done on its own. It's a formal sit-down meal limited to the immediate family of the couple and to the wedding party ( I.e. maid of honour, bridesmaids, best man, groomsmen). We had this at Madewood Plantation (the wallpaper on my computer at work, if you're interested). GREAT venue!

The night before the wedding I stayed at Joni's place and she slept at her parent's place in Labadieville. It was not a good night: to be frank, by 11:00 I was thinking "I can't do this… I can't go through with it…". So, I sat down that night and for a couple of hours the next morning and thought about all the pros and cons of marrying Joni. Well, by the end I was able to commit myself to it, and I did.

As I've surely bored you all with before, the wedding took place at St Philomena's church, Labadieville, on June 2nd before Fr Jason Labbe. Joni's maid of honour was her niece Amy Rivere; my best man was Joni's nephew Dave LeBlanc. Both of them, due to a quirk in birth dates, only a few years younger than she and I! I guess we've all been to weddings before, so I'll let the photos tell the story when they finally come up online. All I'd note is that we had to spend most of the service kneeling (Joni, Amy, Dave and me): we were all wondering if this would be the first wedding involving anointment with Deep Heat and reception of vows by a chiropractor.

Anyway, I did, and she did, and now we are!!!

The reception took place at the Thibodaux country club. A Cajun wedding reception is, frankly, something different from anything else you might ever have seen. The dinner is essentially a buffet with an open bar, no speeches, and a lot of music. There's two traditions unique to the Cajun people. One is the broom dance. If a person in the family marries before one of their older brothers, the said brother is required to dance barefoot with a broom. Joni's brother Phil is unmarried: he took this as an opportunity to make the broom dance his own. Wait for the photos! The other tradition is the money dance. Basically, folks line up to dance with members of the happy couple, for which privilege they pin money on his tuxedo or her dress. The tradition was originally meant to give the couple a start in married life, and now usually funds the honeymoon. I'm trying not to be hurt that Joni made twice as much money in the dance as I did!

Joni and I snuck away from the reception just before it finished for a night all to ourselves in the honeymoon suite at Madewood. I can tell you it was good to finally get a few moments alone!

Over the following couple of days we met with Joni's people again (a crab boil this time), then returned my people to the airport at NO to start their various trips back to Australia. Joni and I spent a night in New Orleans at the Hotel Monteleone (which included many, many trips around on the carousel bar) after which we also returned to Thibodaux. We've since been here most of the time, doing the fairly mundane things I guess you'd expect: packing her stuff and preparing for her to move to Australia; changing her name on her drivers licence, and adding me to her bank accounts. We'll go for a proper honeymoon at Destin in Florida at the end of the week, and then return to Australia next week.

I think that's brought everyone up to speed: I hope you're all doing OK and that winter in Melbourne isn't appalling. In case you're wondering, it's running a steady 25 degrees here. I haven't felt the need for a pullover while I've been here: God help me when I get back to Melbourne!

I should send a few more dispatches while I here (hopefully); failing which I'll bring you all up to speed when I finally see you all again!

Stephen

We did it!!!

I think the story needs a little updating from where it left off last (i.e. with the proposal in July 2006). After that, Stephen returned to Australia, Joni returned to work, and life failed to return to normal. That is, Joni now had a wedding to plan, Stephen had a religion to convret to, and they both had immigration documents to prepare. Between then and the big day, Joni made a further pilgrimage to Melbourne for a Thanksgiving 2006 cookapalooza for the Tuck clan. We then didn't see each other for 6 solid months, after which Stephen travelled to the USA to wed Joni. The story so far is described below in an email to Stephen's work friends titled "Give me your tired, your poor, and a Goddamn aisle seat!" ...

Hi everyone,

As I recall, the Statue of Liberty says "send me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses longing to breathe free". Well, Joni's migration to Australia has now seen her tired (which she still is), poor (in specific terms), huddled (in several consecutive window seats) and longing to breathe free (40 hours breathing recycled airliner air can do that to you).

Perhaps I should explain.

The best news of the week is that on Friday her passport arrived back from the Australian embassy in Washington, complete with her prospective marriage visa. Hence, she was allowed to migrate to Australia subject to two conditions. One, that she has to marry within 9 months of the visa being granted. Two, that she not marry before first entering Australia on that visa. The first of these obviously isn't a problem. The second we were aware of when applying for the visa. Some of you may already know that we'd planned to get around this by having a purely religious wedding: that is, we'd go through the rite of marriage prescribed by the Catholic church, but without having a marriage licence. Hence, no marriage known to the law of the State of Louisiana. Therefore no marriage as far as the Department of Immigration was concerned. Which would let her marry me in the church, then we'd marry civilly in Victoria once installed there. We'd sought advice from lawyers in Melbourne and Louisiana who both said this plan was legally sound, if unorthodox. So, that was what we'd do. Plain sailing all the way to the chapel and beyond, right?

Wrong.

The flaw in the plan was that it assumed that the church would go along with it. When we met with Fr Trey (one of the priests at St Philomena's Church) he doubted that it could be done but made a few enquiries, including with the office of the Bishop of Baton Rouge. Ultimately the answer came back: yes, what you want to do can be done, but no, the bishop won't provide the necessary approval as a matter of policy. There followed a call to the Embassy, who were sympathetic but clear: the requirement to enter Australia before marrying cannot be waived, although there's no minimum time to be spent in Australia.
So there was one option left: hop onto the website of United Airlines, book a return ticket to Sydney, go through immigration in Sydney, then fly back. Sounds insane? Yes it was. Oh, and she would have to make that trip alone: My visa allows me to stay in the US till 22 November, but only if I don't leave. So, Saturday evening Joni starts the long round trip from New Orleans - Los Angeles - Sydney - Auckland - Los Angeles - New Orleans. She safely passed through immigration in Sydney, and left the country 8 hours later with her passport duly stamped, arriving back in NO on Monday evening, 20,000 miles later, tired, jetlagged, and completely sick to death of air travel.

Eight Hours. It must be one of the shortest stays in the history of migration.

Anyway, the good news is that this means she can properly migrate to Australia once we're married. The wedding bits will be the subject of the next email.

Stephen.