pink weddings magazine » 73
NOel AND STepHAN
wanted to be more involved in the world of performance art;
he is a highly qualified musician and had spent his early career
travelling in bands and open mic nights trying to carve his path
in this industry before eventually growing tired of being rich in
life but poor in pocket. So he joined the corporate world and
became a very sought after web developer.
My ridiculous lifestyle seemed
to cap vate him and so, within
a couple of months, he came
to the UK to see how I lived.
He had a baptism of fire. Within hours of landing he was
standing backstage at one of my gigs, blown away by my
performance and passing me such compliments as ‘I love
your Dallas Housewife hair!’ Mixing in a world of outrageous
bar owners, strippers and drag queens seemed to suit him
well and he flew back home telling me, for the first time
since we’d met, that he loved me.
We continued this ridiculously long distance relationship
right through the summer months, crossing the Atlantic every
three weeks for a chance to meet and occasionally using trips
to the Bahamas as a meeting point for joint holidays. By the
end of July he’d decided that it would be crazy to drag me
away from the world that I’d created in the UK, but also mad
to continue living so far apart. So he took it upon himself to
prepare his house for sale and put plans in place to move to
the UK and start a new life with me, which was a pretty epic
gesture. It was during this time that his proposal came.
He was busy spraying frosting onto a glass door to his en-
suite in a bid to make his house more appealing to a
prospective buyer. While high on paint fumes, midway
through a regular Skype session, he removed his painter’s face
mask and said: ‘If this house sells, we’d better get married fast
otherwise I’ll have nowhere to live!’ And there you have it
ladies and gentlemen: the moment he proposed. We’d always
known that the easiest way to have him living with me with
the right to work in the UK would be for me to marry him –
but I have to admit, the stylish delivery did make me laugh!
Our first attempt to tie the knot was a very shotgun style
wedding, where we booked the first registry office
appointment we could get, and then the next available
wedding date. I emailed friends and family with a note that
ended: ‘By the way, I’m getting married on Tuesday
afternoon, it’s a registry office do, with room for 30 should
any of you wish to join us. We’ll pop over the road for a pub
lunch afterwards, but you’ll have to buy your own ’cos we’re
poor!’ Obviously, international marriages are a tad more
complex than two Brits getting hitched, so we had a little
research to do. I turned to trusty Google, while Stephan
hired an immigration lawyer at great expense. He felt it was
too important to leave it to the internet.
The day came around very quickly for him to fly out to
the UK to start the wedding proceedings. It required him to
