One Wedding, Three Languages and Lots of Handmade Goodies

I met a young lady over 10 years ago in Melbourne and she has become one of my dearest friends ever since. We have joint memories and some mutual friends. We used to go to different cafes to try something new whenever we had a chance, we had a great holiday together once, and she was the first person to introduce 'chai latte' to me. 

She is fun and smart, she is hardworking and responsible, and she is inspirational in many ways. Since I met my husband and formed my family, she has become a family friend and we would enjoy one another's company whenever we find a chance. She moved interstate a while back which made it hard for us to find the opportunity to get together much, however, she has always remained as a valuable person and a dear friend in my life. 

                                   

Over a year ago, she found a person that she knew she could see herself with for the rest of her life. They became best friends and partners soon after. As time went by, they decided that it was their time to form a family together.

My friend was understandably very excited about the news and when she shared at the time not-yet-publicly-announced news with me, I naturally and very happily shared her excitement and was very happy for her. You know how you say 'you deserve happiness' to some people at times, she is one of those people that really deserves to be happy and she surely has the right attitude to pursue it.

A few months ago, she was asked for a hand in marriage by this special person in her life and of course her answer was 'yes'. We were thrilled to hear the news and also be invited to share her special day with them. The big day was on the 26th of April, 2014.

As a family, we decided to drive to their current location, the city of churches, Adelaide (SA), a few days in advance to have a little holiday. We stayed at an apartment in the CBD and our children shared a room for the first time. It was also our daughter's first time to sleep in a 'big bed' too. It was so much fun hearing all that giggling in their room until late hours, especially the first night. They talked and giggled for hours, thinking we could not hear them. The giggling became much less the remaining nights as they couldn't fight off sleeplessness anymore. However, almost every morning, we found our little daughter, who is 3 years old, in her 5 year old brother's bed. It was such a heart-warming experience and a picture for us.

While in Adelaide, we had a chance to go around in the city a bit and also met the famous pandas, Wang Wang and Funi, at Adelaide Zoo too, of course. However, the highlights of the place weren't any of them for us. It was when we went to some surrounding suburbs such as the German town Hahndorf, we were quite impressed. We also enjoyed the local farmer's market at Willunga. I cannot explain how tasty the sultanas we bought from that particular market was! We so regretted not buying so much more of them after we tasted them on the way back to Melbourne!

The wedding was at a place in Clarendon, another beautiful place that reminds you of the words serenity and calm. The wedding started with an outdoor setting and everything felt so romantic, so well organised, so 'wedding-like'. After the ceremony and some photos etc, we went inside for some drinks followed by a meal and lots of fun. I must admit, I don't ever remember of laughing so much at a wedding before as much as we did at this wedding. It was pure fun!

The bride originally comes from Japan. The groom is Peruvian. The immediate families came all the way from Japan and Peru for the wedding and they knew almost no English. The speeches were made in three languages (there were interpreters to read the speeches in Japanese and Spanish). However, the family members communicated with us so much more successfully than many English speaking people that we get to meet at times in our lives. The communication is not limited to language, definitely not.

Throughout the whole wedding, I thought that they used their multilingual and multicultural backgrounds to their advantage very successfully. They acknowledged and valued them really well. 

Everything was planned well and their organisational skills were exceptional, yet everyone was very relaxed. In fact, I haven't seen so many professional, great to talk to and fun-loving people together for a long time. By the way, I still don't know how it happened but at some stage we were all on stage doing the 'macarena' dance. It was a great laugh! There were Japanese dancing, Latin dance shows, fun personal video clips and more. Who said wives don't come with a set of instructions? My friend did! The groom, who had a great sense of humour, had the pleasure (!) to read out the instructions in public (while sweating) and cannot claim that 'he didn't know' in the future. 

I have always found my friend to be talented. It looks like it runs in the family. Her dad is an ex-school principal and he surely knows how to communicate with kids well. My children's Japanese is pretty much limited to counting to 5 and saying a few words like hello and thank you. The father's English was quite limited also. Regardless, he made my children (and us) laugh so much so many times. He even taught my son some magic tricks and my daughter a few dance moves!

Her mum was very talented too. She came up with so many origami objects and toys in such a short time using some of the paper that my children were using to draw on. She even asked for permission to use their paper using no English whatsoever. Beside the point, it was amazing to watch her fast moving fingers and determined face with a confident but warm smile. See the funny looking paper object above? It is one of the origami pieces that she made and when you throw it forward, it works like a propeller. Brilliant! Better yet, the little colourful bags in the first few pictures are also her work. They had some lollies in them and had our names on the back. Every guest had one and she had made them all by herself! I think we were about 60 or 70 people in total and she made one for each one of us. Incredible! Very precious!

The wedding was special. fun, relaxing, inspirational, and had lots of handmade goodies to enjoy (and I met two other friends of mine there too, what a bonus!). It was such a great pleasure to be there. Wishing the newly weds a 'happy ever after' ending!