do you believe in love?

So in France they have this thing about official documents expiring. Every time I submit a document it has to be dated less than x number of months. And birth certificates are no exceptions.

I too was surprised when I presented my actual birth certificate to town hall and they politely turned it away asking instead for an official copy dated less than 6 months.

Me: How am I supposed to get that?
Lady: From the place that issued it in the first place [said in a matter of fact kind of way]
Me: You mean, in Vietnam.
Lady: Yes
Me: [bright idea to play the war card]. But I escaped when I was 5 due to the WAR.
Lady: [confused look on her face]
BF: She means war

I had apparently reduced the impact of the word war by mispronouncing it and saying instead train station. But not like it made a difference as the woman remained stonefaced.

So I called my parents to see if they could in fact procure this copy for me. I then spent 45 minutes explaining to my father why I needed this, which is in fact very hard since I myself did not understand why I needed it. The only thing I managed to convince my dad was that I should get married in the States.

The next day I called the Vietnamese embassy in Paris to see if they could do something for me since this must happen to a lot of Vietnamese people who want to get married in France. After convincing the lady that I was not, in fact, interested in a holiday Vietnam visa, I explained my situation and asked if she could help me. Sorry she said, they could only issue copies of birth certificates for French citizens but if I wanted a Vietnam holiday visa she would be more than happy to help me.

Then I got a call from my mom that went something like this:

Mom: I heard you need a copy of your birth certificate to get married in France. Why can’t you use the original?
[10 minutes of explaining]
Me. Yeah but don’t worry I think I’m just going to call the Vietnam embassy in the States.
Mom: No don’t do that, they’re shady.
Me: What do you mean… shady?
Mom: I’ve heard bad things about them.
Me: Uh, I’m sure it’s fine.
Mom: No, don’t worry I have contacts in Vietnam. They know people who say they could get it.
Me: What… people?
Mom: Don’t worry I’ll take care of it.

About 4 months go by without word from these “people” when I realized that all the other papers I got from the U.S. embassy were going to expire like bad milk. Desperate I went to the US embassy to explain my problem hoping they could do something. I even had a speech prepared that begin with “Do you believe in love” and ended with “which means I’ve been doing this for 5 months”. I was also prepared to cry.

They were understanding and printed out a form titled “Birth certificate affidavit” that I myself filled out, got it stamped, paid my 50 bucks and left happy with at least something.

That night 50 dollar poorer yet happy and full of joy, I put together our dossier with all the papers we needed when I realized that I could not in fact submit the dossier because of a small problem.

All of bf’s papers had expired!

I then took a very, very long nap.

When bf finally got around to getting his documents (again) we submitted our dossier only to be told that the 50 dollar affidavit did not in fact cut it, and that they would have to launch an international inquiry.

Us: How long would this take?
Guy: Maybe a year.
Us: But we already booked and paid for the venue and people have already booked and paid for their tickets to come to France.
Guy: [audible shrug]
Us: Do you believe in love…?

That night I called my sister for sympathy.

Sister: You mean I’m shleping my husband, 3 kids and a baby to France for a symbolic ceremony?
Me: …um. Do you believe in love?

One month before the date of our pretend wedding bf calls me to tell me our dossier had been accepted.   Nobody knows what happed to the international inquiry.