When love runs from Southbank to Chile

It was early on a mid-March morning when Paula Rossi jumped on to the Southhbank Community Hub on Facebook, asking her fellow Southbankers for some last-minute wedding help.

She and her wife Macarena Cuevas, who both hail from Chile, were due to be married at Albert Park in just over a week but they were short of a few decorations.

Another Southbank local came with the goods, with some white tablecloths for the grazing table, rainbow bunting to help give the ceremony an LGBTQI+ touch, and some shot glasses.

But what really surprised Paula was the congratulations she received on the post from total strangers, which perhaps held more significance for the couple than the well-wishers realised.

“People were saying, like, “Congratulations!” Like, wow! And it’s also good, you know, because in Chile – and this is important for us – we are not allowed to get married. So, we have to be overseas to get these legal rights,” she said.

Ms Rossi has lived in Melbourne for around three years and though she has worked in Southbank for a couple of years now, it wasn’t until after COVID that she moved into the suburb.

She said she loved the amenities, the shops, the library, and the extensive coffee options, as well as the people who lived in the area.

But what she loves most is the easy connectivity to the suburbs.

“I have some clients in Cheltenham or Bentleigh, so it’s easy to get there, and I do some sports in Brunswick … every drive is like 15 minutes to everywhere,” she said.

Sport is how she met Ms Cuevas, with the pair playing futsal at Albert Park.

They both smile when they talk about this: the distance between their hometowns in Chile can be travelled in just an hour and a half, but they met on the other side of the world.

The newlyweds both now work at the same wellness centre on Clarendon St.

Their wedding, which took place at Albert Park in late March, was an all-in affair, with friends – their family away from home – diving in and participating in all aspects of the day.

With the legal side of the marriage taken care of quickly and privately in the morning, they had a big event in the afternoon, with a holistic therapist running proceedings.

Ms Cuevas said it was the afternoon event, with the love, connection and spirituality, that was most important to them.

Congratulations and support from the locals online before the event was a welcome surprise.

But it was the congratulations from an unexpected quarter back home that really took the couple by surprise.

Ms Rossi said when she posted about the wedding on social media after the big day, she received hundreds of comments from her former school mates, many of whom came from a conservative background.

She said, “Why were these people, from school 20 years ago, writing to me like, ‘Congratulations! I’m so happy for you’? And then like, one, then another then another … it was great!”

Ms Rossi said she was shocked, but ultimately found it encouraging, as it signalled to her that perhaps the legalisation of same-sex marriage in Chile might not be so far away.

For the couple, it hammered home the fact that getting married here and being public about it was important not just for themselves, but for the community back home.

“You have to face your fears to your social people back in your country,” Ms Rossi said •