wedding

Now for something completely different - a little synopsis of my wedding:

 

The morning started at an unearthly 6.45am start! I’m not used to wearing dresses or make up and had no idea it took this long to get ready! Still, the hair and makeup team worked their magic and I was transformed from tomboy to bride. There was a bit of mild drama when I received a call from the groom to say the road in front of the registry office was closed and there was no-way to drive to the wedding. After 30 mins of frantic activity we managed to call all the guests, hurriedly get ready (I ended up going down the aisle with only half the buttons on my dress done up) and rally drive down the back streets of Guildford to make it to the church (OK registry office) on time.

The actual wedding service was short and sweet. I nearly cried when my friend Tessa read our reading ‘Scientific Romance Redux’. I hadn’t expected a poem about giant spider priests and sandwiches to be so moving, but Tessa did wonders with the material we gave her. Fortunately the makeup artist appeared to have used something akin to road paint on my face so my tears did not ruin the work of art.

 

 

The traditional pictures were then taken and importantly bubbles consumed before heading to the surprise (for our guests) wedding service part two: on a horse drawn canal boat dressed as pirates, naturally! The second service was a Pastafarian blessing, which was cheerfully conducted by two of our friends and then we got down to the serious business of cream teas and rum.

 

 

After an enjoyable hour or two our trusty steed Buddy took us safely back to the boat house. From here we disembarked to the hotel to drop off bags. The hotel we were staying at was hosting another wedding that day. We tried not to upstage them, but failed miserably as we made our entrance by crashing the bus into the hotel and then spent 20 mins trying to make a U-turn. It is really hard to be inconspicuous in a big sparkly white dress next to a loud beeping buss with disco lights flashing.

Once we had sheepishly extracted ourselves from the hotel we then made our way to the reception. Here we were greeted by a crowed of our dearest friends who gave us their blessing via the traditional method of violently throwing confetti at us. Confetti gauntlet successfully run, we then squeezed ourselves into the overcrowded Mead Hall and enjoyed yet more bubbles and a hog roast. Several speeches were made – including my father telling everyone about the time I lost the engagement ring, which I had until this point managed to keep a secret from Nick.

 

Awkward first dance was danced awkwardly and the cake was cut. More bubbles were consumed courteously of the ‘Wogan’ bar. Nick and I serenaded our guests and we nearly set fire to the venue with sparklers. We finally staggered back to the hotel around 2am, with big smiles and sore feet.