19 March 2015 / leggypeggy

Our daughter got hitched—and we missed it!

Daniel, France, Jordan, Libby, Madhya Pradesh, Moruya, Paris, Sydney, Syria, tigers, travel, Tuesday, Turkey, weddings

Libby and Daniel at Inle Lake in Burma. They are travellers too.

Libby and Daniel got married almost four weeks ago in Sydney Australia. Poor John and I were in India at the time. In fact, we still are.

So how do parents miss their own daughter’s wedding?

Two things for the record.
They didn’t elope, and we aren’t in the midst of some family feud.

So here’s how it unfolded. About nine days before we were leaving for India and Bhutan (an 84-day trip that had been planned for many months), I called Libby from Moruya on Australia’s South Coast.

Hey hon, there’s a great sterling silver cutlery set for six here at the market. The price is right, shall I buy it for you and Daniel?

Thanks mum, but no. We’ll probably be moving and I’d prefer to travel light.

Hmm, moving? Could we have this ‘moving’ conversation now?

About three years ago, Libby and Daniel made the much loved Prinzregententorte for my cooking blog. Around that same time, they moved to Sydney. But recently they’ve been feeling ready for a change. Turns out that on the morning I called about the cutlery and after months of waiting and trying not to think about applications, Daniel was offered jobs in Melbourne and Paris, Yeah, the Paris in France.

He was going to take a few days to weigh up the offers and decide what to do. In the meantime, I wasn’t to buy anything. So I got off the phone and bought the cutlery. Good grief, I figured someone would need it.

Of course, he chose the job in France. We are thrilled for them. What a wonderful opportunity and adventure for a young couple.

Then a day or two before we went to Sydney to fly to India, Libby called to say there was a hitch in the new employer’s terms and conditions. For them to be entitled to all the allowances and considerations, they would have to get hitched.

Great, I said. We’ll be there Thursday and you can get married Friday.

Daniel in Kuşadası in Turkey—they were taking pictures of one another

Libby in Ephesus in Turkey—they were taking pictures of one another

Unfortunately, it isn’t that simple in Australia any more. Prospective couples must register their intention to marry, and then wait a month before going through with it.

So instead of going to the registry on Friday to see them marry, we went to see them register. And that night we took them out for a crash-hot ‘rehearsal’ dinner at the Almond Bar, a well-loved Syrian restaurant. Very appropriate because Libby was born in Damascus.

Given that we were going to miss the wedding, I did make one request at the registry. They registered on 23 January and would be eligible to marry on Monday, 23 February.

Can I make a suggestion hon?

Sure, she said.

Thirty-five years ago, your dad and I got married on a Tuesday. I reckon Tuesday is a good day to do anything so why not wait one more day.

So they did. But they kept it simple. While they intended to be together forever, they never planned to marry. Their simple ceremony was on Tuesday 24 February at the registry office with Libby’s sister and Daniel’s mum as witnesses.

In order not to disappoint their many well-wishers, Libby and Daniel organised a Saturday party at the Waverley Bowling Club near where they live. Ahem, we missed that too.

Now they are off to France before we get home. Their departure date is quite suitably 24 March—another Tuesday. And we’ll be going to visit them later this year—most likely on a Tuesday.

Oh, and what were we doing on the day Libby and Daniel got married? We were in Bandhavgarh National Park in Madhya Pradesh. To make that adventure worthwhile we saw a tiger in the distance. On the day of their party we saw two tigers in Pench National Park. I could have reached out and patted one if I hadn’t cared about losing my arm. More about them soon.

Tiger on Tuesday at Bandhavgarh

A few words about us getting hitched

Poor John and I eloped. We hadn’t really planned to do that, but we were in the Middle East and it seemed a huge fuss to go back to the USA and arrange a wedding.

It’s a long story that I’ll tell another time. But enough to say we got married on a Tuesday in Ajlun in Jordan.

P.S. Libby says she’s not ready to share photos from her most special Tuesday. So the pics here are from other times. And I can’t share any from our elopement, because none were taken. Oh, and the cutlery is still sitting on my dining room table.