:David and Carolyn:
Their Celebration
So the story is told of a young man, a dashing young man who lives in Australia with his family. This young man, with jet black hair and a pleasant demeanor, is studying medicine. He follows in the footsteps of his parents, both doctors. This young man loves history and knows a lot about religious history. He picks up a book on nonresistance, written by Stephen Russell of Guys Mills, PA. This book is about Biblical Nonresistance, a position held by Anabaptists. He is intrigued and looks to see if there are any Anabaptist churches in Australia, and to his delight, he finds there is one not far from his home in Brisbane. He shows up at church and learns to love the beautiful, multi-cultured church. He soon notices a maiden. The maiden is very fair to look upon, and soon the handsome young man and the fair young maiden start a courtship. Their celebration of marriage was on 18 January 2014.
The maiden is a cousin of mine and the oldest daughter of my uncle Jason. I thought I had to go to the wedding and so I did!
I was thrilled when Melanie, my cousin, decided she had to go too, so we made plans to go. These plans included many travel decisions. We found it was a lot cheaper to go the indirect route to Australia and so we chose that. If you to ask either of us right now, after going and coming back, we might choose another route next time :)
I had a 5 hour flight to Los Angeles, where I met Melanie. We also met our airplane, a whopping A380:
These are the biggest passenger planes there are and they are massive. Holds 644 passengers plus the crew. I hear there is a nice lounge upstairs as well as a gift shop, where you can be if you have $10,000 to shell out. The economy class is nice too, with fairly roomy seats, and nice entertainment screens to watch movies or see what area you are flying over. On Emirates they also greet you fairly soon with hot washcloths with which to refresh yourself. Quite nice!
So we boarded (they use up to three jetways) and thought we had it made in our seats in bulkhead (area behind the dividers, with extra leg-room), with nobody beside us. However, an hour into our flight, a flight attendant came back and said a mother and baby are moving back with us because she needs the bassinet. So Karim (15 months old) and his mother came back and we were promptly charmed by his curls and big black eyes. He was happy for awhile, and then after we settled down to sleep, he thought it appropriate to start screaming, which he continued to do for a long time. As in hours. So we didn't rest very well and were kinda exhausted when we reached Dubai, 15 hours later.
We got to Dubai in the middle of the night, but you would have thought it was the middle of the day by the crowds and the noise. I was amazed again at the money that is in the place:
There were high end jewelry stores that were swarming with activity and many nice restaurants too that were filled. Since we had a nearly 7 hour layover, we walked around a while and then got a bite to eat and then looked for an adapter to use to charge our computers. We then looked in vain for a place to charge up. Everybody else was plugging into these outlets under floor tiles, so we eventually did too. It seemed unsafe and unsanitary, but it's all we had.
And then there was the funny Bangladeshi guy with very broken English who talked our ears off while we were trying to email our families. He would talk and laugh and so I would laugh and comment on every 4th English word I could understand. We finally got up and moved off to a more quiet space to enjoy some peace and quiet. Right before we left, he wanted to give his phone number to me so I could "remember to him" when I next come to Dubai. I politely laughed and thanked him and said "no thanks!"
We then boarded our 16 hour flight to Brisbane, with a stop in Singapore. Melanie and I had a good laugh over this screen in a Singapore bathroom:
I think we both gave it a good :)
Finally, many hours later, in the wee hours of the morning, we landed in Brisbane. Since it was such an unearthly hour, we hung out and tried to sleep until 7:00 when we saw the lovely faces of our dear cousins Heidi and Charity who had come to pick us up. Lolita and Hadassah H. had flown in from Poland for the wedding as well so we all headed to Gympie together where we reunited with the rest of the cousins and Jason and Melody. We each took long naps in the afternoons, while our weary, confused bodies tried to figure out where we were and what time it actually was.
The next day we hit the ground running with wedding prep. Carolyn had a very clear picture of how she wanted everything to be so that made it easy during the setup. Heidi, Melanie and I ran around collecting flowers and weeds for arrangements and may or may not have raided some beautiful flowering bushes beside a petrol station. There was nobody there to ask so we just kinda helped ourselves :)
Janae, busy at flower arranging.
Carolyn had collected white ceramic containers for her wedding and she and a church friend planted a bunch of greenery in them. The effect was gorgeous. There was a symmetry with each white container and green plant, but the plants were varied and unique.
Jason built this beautiful white arbor as the entrance to the reception area, and David and Carolyn also used it to take pictures with their guests.
And now...the Big Day. It started off bright and early with a household of 12 family members and 6 guests to feed and dress. David's sister Daniella came over to help Carolyn get ready and so we got to entertain her sweet little Miriam.
And then Carolyn got all dressed in her beautiful white dress, lovingly made by her mom. Her baby sister Charis was so proud of her own dress and looked darling as well. Jason's family enjoyed a last few, sentimental minutes together singing and praying and then we headed to the church.
Is is customary in David's culture for the wedding party to be escorted into the church with singing. They chose not to have a bridal party and their families were their special people for the day so we all met in a side building until our cue to enter the church, whereupon the violinist came and led us into the church with beautiful, happy violin music. The service was beautiful, with Scripture readings by different friends and family of David and Carolyn. Carolyn's grandfather Frederick had a very nice devotional and Jason then had stimulating and fatherly things to say in his message. He and a Hungarian pastor officiated the vows and then Carolyn and David said their hand-written vows to each other. And so they were married! We snapped a few pictures before heading off to the reception.
Melanie and I quite unknowingly matched David's family that day. We felt bad after we discovered it but they were pleased as pie and kept commenting on how glad they were that we matched them, cause they were so outnumbered :)
His family is wonderful! They pitched right in and helped with everything and were so respectful and nice.
We then headed to the reception and I regret that I have no nice pictures of that. I took a few but most ended up blurry.
The meal was delicious: grilled chicken and kufta (a Lebanese meatball), rice pilaf, potato salad, a salad bar, homemade rolls made by Carolyn's grandma, and then a dessert table with different cakes, pavlovas, etc. The children from church did such a good job of keeping everybody's cups filled and the tables cleared. During the program part of it, Heidi and Matthew, (David's brother) gave nice speeches about their older siblings, and then both parent sets got up and talked. There was lots of music: Heidi, Janae, BethAnn and Charity sang a beautiful song to the couple, Lolita and Hadassah sang a song with Hadassah accompanying on the piano, Carolyn sprung a surprise on David by singing "the servant song" to him, and David returned the surprise by playing a cello piece along with Matthew and a husband and wife team. Another special feature was playing video messages from the grandparents who couldn't be there.
David and Carolyn gave a speech and then soon afterward, it was over and the happy couple drove off into the almost sunset to take their pictures and then head off to their honeymoon in a beautiful rain-forest town.
Coming up next:
our adventures to the beach
a visit to the honeymooners (don't worry, we were invited!)
