On getting married and other items of note...
Having just come back from a week in a remote corner of Corfu, it seems like a hundred years ago that I got married, even though it was only about a week and a half in reality.
I'd better write this up now before it flies out of my brain entirely...early on the morning of Saturday 23rd June, I booted Rhandolph out to his best man's house nearby, and welcomed in my sister who was acting the role of 'Best Woman', consisting mainly of keeping me in a state of slightly drunken calm rather than hysterical sobriety. She did a good job :-)
It took me about 3 hours to put all the scaffolding up that was required for my entire outfit. All the pictures I have seen so far of myself look absolutely minging, but I am hoping that this is because I am incredibly unphotogenic, rather than because I'm significantly less hot in reality than I am in what little remains of my mind...I have yet to see the photos from Andrew, our 'official' photographer, who is usually the only person who is able to take a not-entirely-minging shot of me, so hopefully that will rectify the situation.
Close to the time we were due to leave, my dear friend Alex arrived to lace me into my corset. We were then driven to the reception by Yola, who was looking absolutely spectacular herself in a dirtytastic version of a chauffer's outfit, in Matty's gorgeous open topped car. The weather was like a gift itself - sunny for all the important bits and with a apocalyptic rain shower later in the evening when we were all under cover.
The plan was to arrive when everyone was inside and then make my Grand Entrance - but the previous wedding had overrun so when we pulled up, everyone was still hanging around outside. Even this worked out fine though, because it was quite good to get all possible benefit out of driving up in a fantastic car, with a bunch of hot looking babes :-)
I was getting just a little nervous by this time and had to hold Lyle (best man's) hand as he towed me inside to meet the Registrar. Rhandolph had already arrived and been installed somewhere where he couldn't see me come in. I had my most anxious moment during the conversation with the Registrar but suddenly before I knew it, everything was GO and the pirates of the caribbean music came on for my ENTRANCE, which I can't remember anything about because I was too terrified!
The ceremony was so wonderful, more so than I could ever have imagined. Rhandolph looked all things good; dashing, gorgeous, heroic, and a million times the man I want to spend the rest of my life with. There was such a wonderful warm feeling of goodwill from everyone who was kind enough to come - in fact the whole day couldn't have been more perfect. I couldn't stop looking at my soulmate and my heart felt so full of joy and love I was only surprised that the rest of the world still existed afterwards.
Once we had signed the register we had the highlight of exiting the ceremony room through a sword arch. We pottered about doing the obligatory 'family' photo shots with some random children I am apparently now related to. I was glad to clutch onto my darling Simon, my little nephew who is Karen's young lad. He held Rhandolph's sword and got very exited! (please read that with all innocence, you filthy lot!)
I was so pleased to see my old muckers there, some of whom never made it to the reception (Hazeii - you were very much missed!) but then it was time to sweep off to the pub, to begin celebrating our newly wed state.
Some absolutely amazing friends of mine, Terry, Julia and Ro, had decorated the function room with glee and inspiration. It looked totally awesome and I couldn't believe what a fantastic job they'd done. All my wonderful other friends from work soon arrived - Linda, Bernie, Anne, Clari, Imogen, Liz, Nicolette, Helen - can't imagine any other place in the world where I could work and want everyone to be at my wedding - I am very lucky indeed to work with such a fantastic bunch of mates!
My mum soon made her way from the registry office; she and my sister were taking it in turns to look after Simon during the day, which unfortunately meant they couldn't all be there at once, as Simon wasn't allowed inside the pub. Mum also kept an eye on the random relatives who began turning up - my Hartfield Halfwits which includes my incontinent, senile old grandmother who started on the cakes as soon as she came in, and had to be taken home soon after the speeches as she'd eaten herself sick!
There were so many people that I didn't get the chance to talk to everyone for as long as I would have liked; especially people I don't see very often like Andrew and Fi. I was chatting to Aims and Chrissie for a while at the beginning, then schmoozing with the rapier society clan, then welcoming random relatives. It was a while until I discovered the bubble of fun outside containing Mog and Eris, Lee and Laura, Suzi and Aden, and Miss Mel and her plus-one. I really enjoyed reliving the old Carry On Wasp Factory days with them.
At some point we ate some food; then we had 'clean' speeches, as I really wanted my relatives to leave, but knew they wouldn't until they'd been fed some cake. During my poignant, touching speech, I mentioned out mutual desire not to have children, and my bloody grandmother piped up 'aahhh waily waily, I want some more grandchildren!'
As I rolled my eyes to heaven, Lyle interjected with 'I'll give you some' by which of course he meant 'I will encourage Lucy and Rhandolph to have children' but was heard by everyone as 'I want to shag your grandmother'. The comic timing couldn't have been more perfect if we'd fed them their lines earlier...
After the speeches I remember a brief chat with lovely Pippa and co, and blithering away to Liz and Andrew for quite a time. I also had a short chat to Ruthy, kisses and hugs with Paul (Jero), not long enough with my darling girls Liz, Aims and Elaine who admired my wedding pants in the toilet, and schnuggles with my Mel, reliving the filthy old days. ALthough no lezzing up - not on my wedding day! This despite EXTREME provocation from Ms Kjersti later in the evening ;-) Must say, it was fab to see her and Matthias who'd travelled all the way down just to say hi.
Much good stuff on the DJ front from Matty, Andrew and Liz. It all seemed to go so quickly - at some point Karen came back and we started the 'post-watershed' speeches. Karen's was the sweetest, Liz's the most drunken and rambling and enjoyable, Mel's the filthiest, Eris' the most shocking and possibly funniest, Anne's the most spontaneous, Andrew (rapier society)'s the most respectable (even if he did make Rhandolph sound Special), and Cameron's the most when-is-he-going-tosay-something-filthy-oh-it-would-seem-he-is-not.
I shared a drink with the chaps in the garden while the rain poured down overhead, and Rhandolph and I both spontaneously decided it was time to head for home. And I'm not regaling what happened next on livejournal or any other public forum!
It really was the archetypal Perfect Day. One reason was Rhandolph. The other reason was all of you, giving your support and well wishes. Thankyou so much everyone who came and participated in our day, and particular thanks to those of you who contributed your time et al; in alphabetical order I would like to single out for special attention (naming only those who read or whose partners read LJ for obvious reasons):
Alex
interior_lulu, Andrew
moonmudge,
hazeii, Karen
pocket_saviour,
kjersti, Liz
liz_lowlife, Mark
markeris, Matty
mattydesade, Matthias
latexiron, Mel
allezbleu, and Yola.
I shall report back on the honeymoon forthwith, but now I'm off to eat greek yoghurt drizzled with honey and almonds. Yum.