Weekly Photo Challenge - Nostalgia

Eilleen, Richard, Me

Before our marriage that afternoon in Bali, the four of us in the wedding party (my sister, brother-in-law, Richard and myself) had a lovely lunch at the restaurant, Indus in Ubud, which enjoys one of the most beautiful views in the world. 

The wedding ceremony was a Christian one (we had to pick a religion—any religion, but there had to be one) after which the civil formalities were conducted. A uniformed woman roared up to our jungle villa on a motorcycle with a gavel and stand, sat them in front of us and pronounced us married. Bam!!! went the gavel. After we signed the official documents and all were stamped with appropriate bureaucratic flourish she roared away. 

There we were, married, and it was about 6:30 p.m. I wasn't kidding about the jungle—there wasn't exactly a place to eat nearby. There were so many details involved with getting married in Indonesia that we'd forgotten altogether that we'd have to eat! My brother-in-law scrounged around in the kitchen and came up with a loaf of bread and a onion. This photo above was taken when he told us he was going to make a wedding feast of onion sandwiches. 

First of all, he's not a cook—in fact, onion sandwiches, were at that time, the single item in his culinary repertoire. Second, the silliness of having to resort to scrounging food after your wedding struck us as hilarious.

The Wedding party. 

Sadly, my sister has since died, but this is one of the many, very happy moments we had together. Laughing our heads off—we were relaxed, carefree and completely goofy. Next year she will have been gone for a decade. I miss her.