🎩👰🏻💍❤️ JUST MARRIED | TibzLetter #27
TL;DR: Shana and I just got married last month! 🥰 Want to know more? Read on!
Soaking in the sun
Hi everybody!
It’s been just over two months since my last update, and life has continued at a very fast pace over here!
Since my last email, Shana and I have moved away from Dublin in January and we spent a month or so in the south of France at my parents house. During that time, Shana continued interviewing for jobs in Paris, I finished my freelance missions; and most importantly, we used those 5-6 weeks between January and February to plan our wedding.
This included many trips over to City Hall in my local village, and many different documents from our respective government institutions.
The Wedding
After weeks of paperwork, we finally welcomed Shana’s family to the south of France, and introduced them to my parents. We had planned to get married in my little hometown of Biot.
The ceremony was held in the presence of the mayor, her assistant, and a translator. We were very grateful to host Shana’s parents, brother, sister-in-law, and grandmother. On my end, my parents, my brother, and my grandparents were there too.
Prior to the ceremony, the mayor asked me if I could share some anecdotes about the relationship that Shana and I had developed over the past two years. She made a speech during the ceremony, in which she described us as symbols of a new and connected generation thinking globally and being able to travel and connect beyond borders. We felt that she fully grasped what Shana and I were about, and it was amazing to live this moment surrounded by our families. My dad also used the opportunity to make an emotional speech about us, describing our relationship.
Finally, as we said “I do”, the mayor had a final touch for us: we received a love diploma — first drawn by an artist called Peynet who used to live in Biot years ago. His art is now being used for marriage certificates in the city!
After the ceremony, we went over to a local, delicious Michelin-starred restaurant around the corner. We figured that with only 13 people, we could easily book a very nice place and enjoy a lovely meal all together.
We enjoyed the rest of the week between our two united families, re-discovering what the sunny French Riviera had to offer at this time of year. It included lots of walks in small villages (Old Antibes, Gourdon, Valbonne, and more…), and generally trying to make the most of the February sun.
A week in Washington
Following our wedding celebration, Shana’s family headed back to Washington, and we followed them two days later. We needed to go to the French Embassy in Washington in order to get Shana’s spouse Visa.
It was also another opportunity to spend some time with Shana’s family and friends, and enjoy downtown Washington DC before more “big life changes”…
New job, New life
This takes us all the way to the first of March, when I landed in Paris.
Shana and I moved to Paris in March, and we were able to find a cute little apartment located in the romantic Montmartre neighborhood.
I started a new job at a B2B startup called Spendesk. My role as Customer Success Manager is to manage the relationship with customers after they have signed with our sales team, helping them maximise their use of our tools and platform. It’s a mixture between my previous experiences across Marketing and Support, as well as handling a little of the Relationship and Sales aspect that I’m (re-)discovering.
It’s been a little daunting to jump from a remote lifestyle, working from home, on my own, to being in an office surrounded by 90 people, with more joining every couple of weeks. A year ago, there were only 30 people at Spendesk, and by the end of the year, we’re planning to reach 150 employees.
On Shana’s end, she’s been interviewing with several very exciting companies and we’re expecting a positive response to come in the next couple of weeks. While the move to Paris was a little scary, I believe that she’s really excited to be here and to continue learning French too! Parisian life fits her really well!
So here we are, at a new chapter in our lives together, married, and living in Paris.
There’s been lots of changes and this was a very long email, so I’m going to keep it at that for now. However, I hope to be able to write more updates, without a two-months gap in between my emails!
If you’ve enjoyed it, or if you want to catch-up, just hit reply and I’ll do my best to respond quickly! 😉