An Expat Wedding

On Saturday afternoon, March 29^th, my Brazilian friend Christiane married her Frenchie in a civil ceremony in Paris. They got married at the Mairie (Town Hall) in the 2^nd arrondissement of Paris which was absolutely lovely (the rule is you have to get married in the Town Hall of your district and apparently some of them are pretty sh*tty) so they lucked out. They have the wildest love story: they met on a beach in Rio about 2 years ago when he was on vacation with his friends. A year later she went to Paris for vacation and decided to give him a call (they hadn’t spoken much throughout the past year). They spent 2 weeks together last March which was enough to convince her to move to Paris in September to give it a shot. By December they were engaged. Technically they got married now so she could live in France legally, but obviously it’s much deeper than that. If I didn’t see them with my own eyes I would give them about 6 months, tops. But they have this relationship that you can’t help but believe in the commitment and sincerity of. You can really see how happy and in love they are and even thinking of an “appropriate length of time” seems silly.

So around 9pm that night B and I went out to Enghiens Les Bains, a wealthy suburb about 15 mins outside of Paris, to the groom’s parents’ house for the wedding party. We spent the next 3 hours eating sushi, chatting with the other guests, dancing to the music on their iTunes playlist and getting drunk on champagne, then left around midnight to catch the last train back to the city. And with the weather finally deciding to cooperate, it was a fantastic day.

This Wednesday is me & B's 6 month anniversary… every month I’m shocked that we’ve arrived at this point. I mean, me? In a serious relationship?! Absurd. We go to sleep together and wake up together nearly every day now, and I still feel as though I can’t get enough of him—I miss seeing his face when he’s not around and it feels weird sleeping alone. It’s so strange because I’m the type who ALWAYS gets tired of people if they’re around too often, even if it’s my best friend… I think it’s only child syndrome. But with B, oddly, it’s different. On the one hand, we have our separate lives and I go out with my friends and have a good time without him and I love that. But on the other hand, if he’s away for a weekend, sometimes I prefer to just stay home watching Rob & Big reruns than go out and party—and yall know me, that’s just unheard of! I don’t know what will happen at the end of my Parisian run, we don’t like to talk about it, rather just enjoy the moment. But if at the end of the summer I only get to package the memories into a nice little box to take home with me, I’ll still be happy that it happened.