Our wedding ceremony was simple, meaningful and private – very much like our relationship…up to this point! Though celebrated by friends and family around the world, because it was in South Africa, it was attended only by Cobus’ children. We had to scramble to prepare and collect the appropriate paperwork, secure appointments for our interviews with immigration and line up a marriage officer. It was a mad dash that included a day trip to the US Consulate in Cape Town (10 hours round trip), but we managed to marry on 24 December 2015!

It seems a simple enough proposition. You meet, date, get engaged and marry. Simple, right?!? Well….not so much when the relationship spans three continents, requires thousands of frequent flyer miles, hundreds of hours on Skype (and DDO!) and includes two different countries of origin! Turns out that keeping a long-term, long-distance relationship together is the easy part when compared to getting the paperwork together for a civil ceremony and mention immigration!

Day 1, I spent in George getting our car registration up to date. Day 2, I went to Home Affairs to confirm what paperwork was needed for an American to marry a South African. They weren’t as helpful as one might imagine…then again, I was able to get in to see the marriage department. They informed me that I would need a letter from my country stating that there was no impediment to marry. Then, once Cobus arrived, he could schedule an interview with Immigration; after which, we could schedule a civil ceremony with them.

The form that I downloaded from the

My first call was to the US Consulate in Cape Town, they informed me that they could not provide the letter. In lieu of the letter, they were happy to charge me $50 to notarize my personal statement that I was eligible to marry. The catch was that I’d have to book an appointment online…the next available appt. was 29 December, five days after our planned marriage date! Turned out that the US Embassy in Johannesburg had an appointment on the 23rd. We scrambled to find flights, but could only find a flight to Jo’burg with a return to Cape Town…a 5-hr trip away! Just as we were preparing to book the flights, I got an email from the embassy, seems I double booked. I called immediately and was put through to a kind soul who took pity us and opened up an appointment in Cape Town for us.

In the meantime, Cobus arrived and we visited the ImmigThe trip to Cape Town was to have my statement of non-impediment to marry notarized by the US Consulate. It wsaved me a flight to Jo’burg and a return flight to Cape Town (a 5-hour trip that Cobus would have to make to pick me up). I’d managed to secure an appointment in a fully-booked schedule after discovering that the South African Home Affairs office required a Statement of Non-impediment to Marry. This is normally provided by ones country of residence, but seeing as how the US does not have a Federal marriage, they cannot provide it. However, it seem that Home Affairs would accept my sworn statement – if, and only if, it was notarized at the US Consulate – it seems their local commissioner of oaths would not suffice!

~ By Margery Williams ~

“What is REAL?” asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?”

“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but Really loves you, then you become Real.”

“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.

“Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.”

“Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?”

“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get all loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

CAPTAIN CORELLI’S MANOLIN
~ By Louis De Bernieres ~

Love is a temporary madness, it erupts like volcanoes and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have so entwined that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of eternal passion. That is just being “in love” which any fool can do. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Those that truly love, have roots that grow towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossom have fallen from their branches, they find that they are one tree and not two.