IMPLANTACIÓN DEL PLAN DE INTERNACIONALIZACIÓN

Wilt thou have this Woman to thy wedded Wife, to live together after God’s ordinance in the holy estate of Matrimony? Wilt thou love her, comfort her, honour her, and keep her in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all other, keep thee only unto her, so long as ye both shall live?

The Man shall answer, I will.

Then shall the Priest say unto the Woman,

Wilt thou have this Man to thy wedded Husband, to live together after God’s ordinance in the holy estate of Matrimony?

Wilt thou obey him, and serve him, love, honour, and keep him in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all other, keep thee only unto him, so long as ye both shall live?

The Woman shall answer, I will.

—The Book of Common Prayer, 1622

It’s the opening day of the Sydney Bridal Show, held, more appropri-ately than perhaps intended, next door to the Fox movie studios.

Bursting through the doors are thousands of keen-eyed brides, trailed in order by their almost-as-enthused bridesmaids and slightly less eager grooms, and bringing up the rear are mothers with check-lists and resigned, wallet-tapping fathers. All are set on the same mission: to create the perfect wedding.

Not that I’ve been here before. When it came to our wedding I wasn’t nearly so organised—or so stereotypical. Sure, one friend tried to terrify me with copies of Martha Stewart Weddings (the dessert has to coordinate with the bridesmaids’ outfits?) but I preferred the advice of another friend who said, ‘Just look at the magazines—then do the opposite’. I was an individual, damn it!

No cookie-cutter wedding for me. So apart from the ceremony, the wedding cake, the speeches and the invitations I was radically different. I didn’t wear white and I wasn’t given away. Okay, so it’s hard to really buck the system but I tried.

Which is to say, I’m here today feeling a bit like a fish out of water. What I’m hoping to see is whether behind the rampant wed-ding industry—and make no mistake, wedwed-dings are very big busi-ness—there might be a hint of what the actual marriage might be like after the big day.

As I watch these eager groups plunge into bridal paradise, all I can see is that virginal white weddings are still in vogue—even if the flower girls are the couple’s own kids. And it is still all about the bride, for, with the exception of some flash suits, flasher cars and a popular-with-the-boys chocolate fountain, the pink, white and crimson wares on display whisper repeatedly, ‘it’s her day’.

Solemnly consulting lists, bridal parties to-be promenade up and down the dress-strewn aisles, tasting cake samples here, pausing to read a poem sampler there. Choice reigns supreme. Is it to be roses or tulips? A formal table or simply cocktail? Harpist or a motorcycle escort? In one corner a bridal waltz is drowned out by the bridal rap being spun by a wedding DJ just across the way while Depilation Alley demonstrates that the amount of unsightly, unbridal hair to be

removed is in direct proportion to the layers of wedding make-up to be piled on, ready for the photographers to create their studio-production magic. It’s as if the movie Murial’s Wedding never happened—there isn’t a hint of irony in the whole place. The closest anyone comes to acknowledging that all might not be bliss after the big day is the purveyor of the Compatibility Blanket, which is split vertically down the middle so that one half is warm and the other cool.

It would be so easy to be cynical, watching these determined brides and attendants sally forth in tight wedge formation, if it weren’t for something else. Rising above all the fat is a pure tears-in-your-eyes, choke-in-your-voice hope they all carry that takes my breath away.

Around six in ten couples in this auditorium will make it to their tenth anniversary. So already I know this room is filled with opti-mists. I get the feeling that everyone here believes that somehow the event they will conjure from the brochures, samples and giveaway bags will weave a special magic. That a perfect wedding day will help invoke a perfect marriage.

As the human tide turns towards the bridal fashion parade in the next pavilion, I see John and Sue Carroll handing out brochures from their Life Explored stall in the last aisle. Marriage counsellors, they’re here touting premarriage counselling sessions.

‘We’re probably the only stall here offering something for life, not just [for] the day,’ observes John. They’ve had a mixed reception.

‘Some say “we don’t need it because we’ve been living together for five years”,’ says Sue. ‘Or parents say “I wish we had something like that”.’

‘Today’s generation knows the divorce rate,’ says John, ‘they’re looking for something more.’

This is why there is such an air of frantic, fingers-crossed hope pervading the place. With one in four of these marriages destined for divorce, who wouldn’t want a little magic to see them on their way?

While I can pretend Rob and I weren’t like this we really weren’t so different. We might not have gone to the bridal expos, but just like most of our friends, when it came to our wedding we knew what we wanted—a party with our friends, nothing too fancy, and to dress up in a nice frock. Our wedding would be the perfect statement about who we were. And that would make it stick.

What a difference a day makes

Another bride, another June another sunny honeymoon another season, another reason for makin’ whoopee.

A lot of shoes, a lot of rice

the groom is nervous, he answers twice it’s really killin’, that he’s so willin’

to make whoopee!

—Gus Kahn, Makin’ Whoopee, 1928

Who were we kidding? Within a week or so of announcing the wedding date, we were presented with a handwritten list of ‘must invites’ by one set of parents and a typed list of reasons why our chosen venue was a bad idea by the other. While you might think your wedding is your day—and your first chance as a couple to make a public statement—it’s really an event everyone wants a piece of. So at the very moment you’re doing the most adult thing possible, your family is trying to impose their will on you more than ever.

Forget that you moved out of home years before, that you’ve been living together forever or that you already own a house or have a child. The lead-up can easily feel like being trapped in a bad reality TV show.

In short, a wedding is one big load of expectations covered in meringue and white frosting. The stage is set for a classic showdown,

featuring the dream themes of every soap-opera: family politics, fantasies, passions, values and huge expenses. If you’re looking for a perfect wedding to be the good omen for a perfect marriage, you’re on a road to nowhere.

Julia and Vikram’s marriage almost didn’t survive their wedding.

Three years ago, Julia, a 29-year-old university administrator, met Vikram, 30, a barrister, while on holiday in India. After a whirlwind romance ignited during a Bollywood film, Julia convinced Vikram to come to Australia to study for his MBA. Here they lived together with her mother, but largely because Vikram’s family was uncomfortable with this they decided to get married. Then they decided they’d do it in Bangalore, India, Vikram’s home town.

It was to be an extravagant affair, with three full days of cere-monies. Julia was determined to get everything right, so she studied Hindu custom and prepared a rituals booklet for the thirty friends and family who travelled to India from Australia for the wedding. She and Vikram even attended cross-cultural counselling before they left Australia to iron out some misunderstandings. Of course she couldn’t have been less prepared. Despite the giant arch picking out their names in marigolds, Julia had very little to do with her own wedding.

Julia spent the day before her wedding in typical Indian bridal fashion with her girlfriends, getting their hands and feet decorated in henna. Fun for the first hour, less so after the fifth, but being hand fed sweets was some compensation. On her wedding day Julia rose at 3.30 a.m. to begin preparations. Despite her protests she found herself wearing a heavy and uncomfortable headdress which soon added to the strain of wearing an unfamiliar-feeling red sari. Things were already out of her control.

‘There were lots of people dressing me and putting on make-up, who didn’t speak English,’ Julia remembers. She was confused and didn’t know what was going to happen next. ‘I was kind of shoved out into the ceremony before I knew what was going on, and then basically had to just sit there for hours.’

With the ceremony almost entirely in Sanskrit, no one—not even her Indian family—really understood each part. Adding insult to injury, even though everyone had to participate, the guests could come and go while Julia had to sit still under the full glare of lights and video cameras on an already warm February day. All the while desperately needing to go to the toilet.

‘I experienced extreme culture shock,’ she says. ‘Western brides are used to being in control on their wedding days. It’s the exact opposite in India.’

Vikram, for his part, had been kept busy with family and prepa-rations of his own.

‘He didn’t mediate on my behalf,’ Julia says of the wedding plan-ning and adds, still incredulously, ‘On the eveplan-ning of our wedding day he left to pick up his boss from the airport!’

‘It was simply expected,’ shrugs Vikram.

‘The whole thing nearly ended there,’ says Julia. ‘It wasn’t the happiest day of my life. I’m still angry about it,’ she admits. ‘Indian weddings aren’t about the couple. It’s really for the two families.

I expected it to be my day, but there was no idea of that at all. It just felt like hundreds of people poking at me.’

While a wedding is a true rite of passage, it is not necessarily so in the way you are expecting. It can be a hothouse that germinates all the tensions lying dormant in your relationship, so at the very time when you think you’ll be coming together, your differences are being floodlit. While Julia and Vikram are an extreme example, what they experienced is what most couples go through. Your wedding is only the start of a delicate negotiation cycle with family expectations that can last your entire marriage. In many ways the wedding is when you first start laying down the boundaries between your marriage and your family, which is the real rite of passage.

While losing control of your wedding doesn’t have to spell doom for your marriage, it certainly gives you pause for thought about

what the family boundaries are to be in your relationship. Julia and Vikram both know they haven’t chosen an easy road trying to blend two cultures. And the jury is still out on where they will raise their children—Australia or India. Julia still fears that despite Vikram’s family being liberal, she won’t really have her freedom if they move to India. Vikram still misses the warm family clan he grew up with.

Both acknowledge that finding a common communication style can be difficult; the happy medium sitting somewhere between Julia’s western-style forthright immediacy and Vikram’s philosophical eastern-style far-sightedness. They also know they’ll have to keep negotiating that space in between. Their wedding brought up tensions that were going to surface anyway.

While she hasn’t quite put it behind her, Julia was able to get some perspective after speaking to other Indian women. ‘The older ones said, “we didn’t even know our husbands”,’ she recounts. And back in Melbourne the pair had another ceremony, western and casual, for their friends. This time it was Vikram’s turn to feel like a fish out of water.

‘I’d never attended a western wedding,’ says Vikram. ‘Julia kept saying “what have you done for the wedding?” and I’d be

“I don’t know. What am I meant to do?”’

Now, they’re looking past the wedding experiences and learning to turn their cultural differences into a strength, going back to the first principle of their relationship.

‘The glue to our relationship is the Indian tradition that love is forever,’ says Julia. ‘It’s very sincere and very refreshing. Vikram is a pillar. His mother said to me, “Don’t even think it won’t work out.

Don’t even entertain the idea.” His conviction about us being meant to be is really incredible.’

Clashing wedding expectations don’t necessarily come from out-siders such as your family. There are also your own expectations to deal with. Natalie and Mike (of the reluctant proposal in chapter 1)

thought that with his family in England and hers in Australia their best bet to avoid family politics was simply to elope. But checking through the tropical Asia–Pacific region Natalie soon found that if it wasn’t monsoon season, the country was burdened with an impos-sible bureaucracy, a different religion or they had already been there before. Fate finally intervened. With Mike’s IT contract about to run out, meaning they’d have to go back overseas for work, the couple finally settled on the perfect Pacific Ocean destination where there were no hassles—Sydney.

Now, however, they were back to square one on the family invite politics and had just seven weeks to organise the whole event. It was only then that Natalie realised that a big element in Mike’s reluc-tance to get married wasn’t his family’s assumptions about the wedding, but his own.

‘He was saying things like, “I’ll have to get up and do a bridal waltz”, “I’ll have to wear a tux”, and “I’ll have to give this long speech”,’ she recounts. He also expected that the ceremony had to be in a church, they’d have a day-do and night-do, 200 guests and a buffet, just like at home in the United Kingdom.

‘No, no, no,’ said Natalie, who had something rather more casual in mind. ‘Once we got going and he understood where we were heading, it was fine,’ she says. ‘It wasn’t difficult for him, it was just different.’

The cost of love

The average cost of an Australian wedding is now $36 234, compared with $27 642 in 2000 and $22 751 in 1998.

The average cost of an engagement ring is $2500.

54 per cent of brides will spend from $1000 to $3000 on their wedding dress.

57 per cent of brides expect to receive gifts in the $50 to $100 price range.¹

Natalie and Mike threw away the rule book and the result was a barefoot wedding on the beach with twenty-five guests—four came out from England—and dinner at a long Godfather-style table in their favourite restaurant afterwards. Natalie wore a purple dress and car-ried long-stemmed oriental stargazer lilies. Mike wore a white shirt with a purple tie. They wrote their own vows—another thing Mike couldn’t imagine—and the cake was a non-traditional chocolate mud.

‘Halfway through the day Mike turned to me and said “this is so much fun, I should have done this sooner”,’ says Natalie. ‘My girl-friends were queuing up to hit him.’

It wasn’t entirely painless, though. Family politics reared its head when some relatives who had been invited by Mike’s mother had to be uninvited by Natalie, but she maintains that it was worth it because they had the wedding they wanted.

‘We’ve only had one fight since we got married, because [previ-ously] we only ever thought about one thing, and that was when we were going to get married,’ says Natalie. ‘Isn’t that strange? It’s only one day but it made an enormous difference. We’re happier than when we first met, and that is true love.’

Speaking from the heart

Back at the bridal expo, something else struck me. While there were hundreds of bridal variations when it came to the dress, the flowers, the cake, indeed all the frippery that surrounds a wedding, there was

A wedding survival guide from our celebrant Manage your family relations.

Know that making up the guest list is always fraught with tension, especially when there are big families involved.

Keep a lid on the costs and plan well ahead.

Have attendants who will be helpful rather than theatrical.

almost nothing there that catered to the actual ‘getting married’

bit—your vows—which, after all the intricate negotiation, colour coordinating and rehearsals, can easily become an afterthought.

Rob and I found this was the case with us. When we decided to get married we quickly picked the venue (an island in the harbour), the attendants (our two oldest friends) and the catering (cocktails and finger food with an Asian twist). No fights, no stress. But when it came to the ceremony, the actual heart of the wedding, we drew a blank. We weren’t religious so a minister didn’t make sense, but we didn’t want something too quick and casual either. And knowing the law didn’t help much either: all that’s legally required for a wedding is for an exchange of vows to have taken place in front of a celebrant, as well as observing the requirements of the Marriage Act. In short, we hadn’t a clue.

We started to realise that there’s a reason tradition is popular.

It provides a secure framework, a script that everyone understands and meanings that can be repeated by heart—‘as long as you both shall live’, ‘you may now kiss the bride’, ‘I now present Mr and Mrs Married’—so everyone’s comfortable and knows what’s coming next.

But we didn’t quite want that, and we didn’t know where to start.

Fortunately, our celebrant did. Meeting in the lunch canteen where she works her day job, the Bacall-voiced and elegant Kay Linton-Mann, handed over a folder with examples of different vows and ceremonies for us to take away and look through before our next meeting. Finally, we had something to think about. In the end we kept it simple—a few words from Kay, vows we’d adapted from some of the examples she’d given us, and the all-important signing.

Kay has been a celebrant for nearly twenty years. ‘The first wedding I did, I was three days away from having my son, so I was huge,’ she recalls with a soft, deep-throated laugh. ‘I don’t know who

Kay has been a celebrant for nearly twenty years. ‘The first wedding I did, I was three days away from having my son, so I was huge,’ she recalls with a soft, deep-throated laugh. ‘I don’t know who