Rare public entry
So here's a thing... I got married.
It was a small ceremony in Wales, and was mostly family. This is what's known as a compromise - extended family insisted on a UK wedding, our ideal was to elope far, far away with just a couple of witnesses. So the clear and obvious solution - get married 5 hours drive away and get the combined wondrous joys of the faff of the wedding organisation AND the long journeying and mortal offence associated with eloping ;-)! Win-win OR WHAT!
Our wedding claim to fame was that we inadvertently booted Griff Rhys-Jones out of the hotel. Sorry about that!
We had wonderful sunny weather, though with very gusty wind. These provided golden comedy moments, such as the game of hunt the veil that flew away AGAIN", and Capes: why did I not learn from Watchmen and the Incredibles that capes are lethal? I think I nearly took out half the people present with the cape as it throttled me and dragged me across the terrace.
Things I did not do: fall flat on my face when going up the aisle; get a panic attack at all the people looking at me; muck up my words
Things I did do: get the giggles as I walked up the aisle. Oooops. Still, it's not like anyone noticed, I'm sure. I mean, I'm sure they were all busy getting on with stuff and weren't all staring at me at the time.
Team Bride: I had two amazing bridesmaids, who as well as their more traditional roles (of bride-wranglers, Handbag/flower/cape/Stuff holders, person-finders, suppliers of hairpins, alcohol etc) also did a sterling job of looking wonderful during the ceremony, thus deflecting some attention from me, THANK GOODNESS! I also had two fabulous ladies-in-waiting to sort out my dress's frankly rather ridiculous corset, which my dressmaker convinced me was a must-have. And I had indispensable help from The Reader Who Makes Things Happen (sonicdrift), supplier of elastoplasts (for my even more ridiculous shoes), not to mention groom-calmer-downer, supplier of safety pins, herder of confused people, distributor of wedding paraphernalia etc. And my Mum and Dad also joined the room party. Nearly my whole immediate family! What a shame my brother was in Australia, eh? *Innocent Look*
Team Groom: Meanwhile, elsewhere in the venue, The Groom had a splendid team of ushers, readers, and Best Man to help him not lose his cool and generally Sort Stuff Out, since the wedding organiser inexplicably wasn't there. I gather from all reports that they all did a sterling job, though I did not get to see a large part of it, since I was busy being glammed up with an inch of makeup and fed cava elsewhere (it's a hard life).
I was impressed at the skills of the people wrangling their children. The children were all impeccably behaved, which is just as well really, because if they'd made inappropriate comments during the ceremony, I almost certainly would not have been able to control my laughter, and then my makeup would have run ;-).
Kudos also to the puzzle solvers, some of whom completed rune-doku (harder than it looks) and others who managed to decode the tortured riddle that I'd put in the border of the order of service (cunningly hidden as Angerthas runes).
We had one wedding-crasher, my brother, who had told me he couldn't come and then sekritly flown back from Australia. My family were all conspirators in this. As far as my family was concerned, I was completely unaware of this and suspected nothing.
Unbeknownst to my family, I had spent six months subtly keeping an eye out for any signs of such a conspiracy, and closely inspected my brother's online activity in the week before the wedding.
I found Absolutely Nothing. I'd pretty much decided that in the complete absence of evidence, this was wishful thinking, with a bit of conspiracy paranoia thrown in for good measure.
That is to say I found nothing, right up until the time I rang my Dad's home the day before the wedding, and my brother answered the phone. From then on, the tables were turned on the conspirators. I swore my brother to silence that I knew (and yes, I did actually utter the line "Ah, but they don't know that I know!"), and spent the rest of the time pranking the conspirators to make them crack. I started out subtly, and then gradually ramped it up. By the time that I started videoing people and telling them to leave messages for my brother, I think my sister had a pretty good idea that a)I knew, and b)I was messing with them.
It was a small ceremony in Wales, and was mostly family. This is what's known as a compromise - extended family insisted on a UK wedding, our ideal was to elope far, far away with just a couple of witnesses. So the clear and obvious solution - get married 5 hours drive away and get the combined wondrous joys of the faff of the wedding organisation AND the long journeying and mortal offence associated with eloping ;-)! Win-win OR WHAT!
Our wedding claim to fame was that we inadvertently booted Griff Rhys-Jones out of the hotel. Sorry about that!
We had wonderful sunny weather, though with very gusty wind. These provided golden comedy moments, such as the game of hunt the veil that flew away AGAIN", and Capes: why did I not learn from Watchmen and the Incredibles that capes are lethal? I think I nearly took out half the people present with the cape as it throttled me and dragged me across the terrace.
Things I did not do: fall flat on my face when going up the aisle; get a panic attack at all the people looking at me; muck up my words
Things I did do: get the giggles as I walked up the aisle. Oooops. Still, it's not like anyone noticed, I'm sure. I mean, I'm sure they were all busy getting on with stuff and weren't all staring at me at the time.
Team Bride: I had two amazing bridesmaids, who as well as their more traditional roles (of bride-wranglers, Handbag/flower/cape/Stuff holders, person-finders, suppliers of hairpins, alcohol etc) also did a sterling job of looking wonderful during the ceremony, thus deflecting some attention from me, THANK GOODNESS! I also had two fabulous ladies-in-waiting to sort out my dress's frankly rather ridiculous corset, which my dressmaker convinced me was a must-have. And I had indispensable help from The Reader Who Makes Things Happen (sonicdrift), supplier of elastoplasts (for my even more ridiculous shoes), not to mention groom-calmer-downer, supplier of safety pins, herder of confused people, distributor of wedding paraphernalia etc. And my Mum and Dad also joined the room party. Nearly my whole immediate family! What a shame my brother was in Australia, eh? *Innocent Look*
Team Groom: Meanwhile, elsewhere in the venue, The Groom had a splendid team of ushers, readers, and Best Man to help him not lose his cool and generally Sort Stuff Out, since the wedding organiser inexplicably wasn't there. I gather from all reports that they all did a sterling job, though I did not get to see a large part of it, since I was busy being glammed up with an inch of makeup and fed cava elsewhere (it's a hard life).
I was impressed at the skills of the people wrangling their children. The children were all impeccably behaved, which is just as well really, because if they'd made inappropriate comments during the ceremony, I almost certainly would not have been able to control my laughter, and then my makeup would have run ;-).
Kudos also to the puzzle solvers, some of whom completed rune-doku (harder than it looks) and others who managed to decode the tortured riddle that I'd put in the border of the order of service (cunningly hidden as Angerthas runes).
We had one wedding-crasher, my brother, who had told me he couldn't come and then sekritly flown back from Australia. My family were all conspirators in this. As far as my family was concerned, I was completely unaware of this and suspected nothing.
Unbeknownst to my family, I had spent six months subtly keeping an eye out for any signs of such a conspiracy, and closely inspected my brother's online activity in the week before the wedding.
I found Absolutely Nothing. I'd pretty much decided that in the complete absence of evidence, this was wishful thinking, with a bit of conspiracy paranoia thrown in for good measure.
That is to say I found nothing, right up until the time I rang my Dad's home the day before the wedding, and my brother answered the phone. From then on, the tables were turned on the conspirators. I swore my brother to silence that I knew (and yes, I did actually utter the line "Ah, but they don't know that I know!"), and spent the rest of the time pranking the conspirators to make them crack. I started out subtly, and then gradually ramped it up. By the time that I started videoing people and telling them to leave messages for my brother, I think my sister had a pretty good idea that a)I knew, and b)I was messing with them.