Oh Brother

Or,
The Wedding Of The Century

I couldn't do this series of posts on my trip to Oz without giving the wedding itself a bit of press.  My sister and (new) brother-in-law had their hands full this year.  They spent a month here last Christmas and returned to Brisbane in the middle of the huge floods that devastated so much of the area.  They were fortunate to be on higher ground and only adversely affected second-hand by things like a lack of groceries in the stores.

On the silver lining side, my brother-in-law is a builder.  Guess what?  Lots of people needed their homes repaired, renovated and rebuilt.  His phone began ringing as soon as he turned it on after landing and he's been extremely busy since.  Meanwhile, they also bought a house and began to renovate it for themselves.  Then my sister had the baby early due to complications.

On our side of the ocean, over Christmas, we had concluded that since my middle sister and her husband would be in NZ for the World Cup in October, it made sense for everyone to converge in Oz for a wedding around that time.  My parents were intending to visit about then anyway and I was just planning to get my hands on that baby soon as he was born, but I did as I was told and waited to get on a plane until late September.

My baby sister really didn't need to be planning a wedding and a family reunion in the middle of the rest of her Very Big Year, but she did.  And it was beautiful.  Thunder rolled in overnight, waking all of us and making us groan that the outdoor wedding would have to be moved inside, but when we got up in the morning, the skies had cleared.  The sun came out, the birds sang, and no one fought over the shower.  The biggest drama was that baby didn't really enjoy his tuxedo as much as the rest of us did, but what man does?  We stripped him down pretty quick and when he fell asleep took hilarious photos of him looking like a best man who'd passed out after an all-nighter with his bowtie askew, his jacket as a blanket and his Sophie Giraffe tucked in beside him.  (Look it up - best gift for baby showers ever.)

I don't have permission to post their photos to the internet, but you can't see their faces in this one.  Check out the view where they got married.  Stunning, isn't it?

Note that you don't really dress up in lace, tulle, hoop skirt and veil when it's already thirty degrees and humid at ten in the morning.  You keep it simple and--this note applies for prospective brides worldwide--when the photographer asks the groom to pick you up and spin you, give some thought first to your tolerance for being dizzy.  Baby sister was already having problems walking in those Cinderella shoes on the wet grass.  After this performance, she might as well have been knee-walking drunk.  Definitely a good laugh for the rest of us, but not always the look a bride is going for.

I'll close with the biggest, warmest Welcome To The Family hug for my brother-in-law.  I was a tiny bit mad at him for charming my sister into abandoning Canada for the opposite side of the globe, but what girl has a chance against that accent?  And he's remarkably tolerant of her need for sister time--a stellar quality in any man as far as I'm concerned.  He's even gone to the trouble of raising up the new house so he can put a relo-suite in the lower floor!  (To be fair, his family visits from out of town too so I suppose it's not just for me, but it's a very generous thing to do regardless.)

And lets not forget, he's helped bring into the world a handsome new boy who is not only The Cutest Baby In The Southern Hemisphere, but my nephew.  I love him right there for that one!

Now if he could only teach me to say, "G'day Mate" so I don't sound like such a Stupid Tourist....