I'm just about to reply to a wedding invite. We're going. Not that we wouldn't. I can only think of one wedding invite I've ever turned down, and that was because it clashed with one I'd already to replied to.
This wedding will probably be about the 10,000 I've been to. I mean, I've literally been to dozense of weddings over the past 20 years, and have at least one a year, every year.
My first wedding was my dad's cousin Wendy's in Christchurch, 1973. I was eight. I don't remember much about it save for my dad getting me one blackcurrant cordial after another, meeting his other cousin Jeff for the first time, and there being a mynah bird behind the bar. Looking at the pictures now it's another world.
Then there was a 15-year-gap in which no relatives married and only my parents went to weddings. The next one for me involved a very lengthy trip up to the Isle of Man for a schoolfriend's wedding. She married young, to someone who was in the SAS.
It was great fun in the run-up, and the groom has a stag night on the eve of the wedding. Needless to say it was a bad idea, which involved variously, doing the Timewarp with a load of his squaddie mates, nightclub hopping and getting horribly plastered.
I don't know why we thought it was a good idea to push the groom down a riverbank without noticing the low chainlink fence halfway down, but it was brought home to us the next day that it wasn't when he went down the aisle on crutches. And it pissed down. Every time I hear Jane Weidlin's Rush Hour I think of the Isle of Man. I borrowed a tenner of the schoolfriend I went with and I've not seen him since.
So nothing for a year, then they started in earnest and we've never looked back. Since then I've been to so many weddings I've seriously lost count. Sometimes even two in one weekend. I remember borrowing a friend's car and going to Devon, then back early doors to London for another one. Never again.
We've done them all: young marriages, late marriages, cathedral, register office, Jewish, Greek, second marriages, high church, low church, stately home, old school, gay, shotgun weddings and ones that have taken years of military planning; marriages in Scotland, Ireland, USA, France, Canada; white dresses, black dresses, red dresses shorts and t-shirts, transsexuals causing a commotion, no one laughing at the best man's speech, family bust ups, one where everyone was convinced the bride wouldn't show (she escaped from his terrible clutches six months later), large crowds, family only, Las Vegas (they never last), the list is endless. I've never been to a fancy dress wedding. I hope I never have to.
It's a bit of a blur. I'd have to have a really good think to remember some of those weddings. Some of those people would be even more hard to recall.
Oh well, it's all good fun. I'm looking to this wedding. I like a nice wedding, don't you?
12 comments:
My friend went to a 'Wild West' themed wedding the other week. Everyone was dressed appropriately and forced to partake in line dancing.
She said it wasn't as bad as it sounds. Ha!
I'm all for line dancing and Scottish country dancing. I'm first with my hand up. Mrs F-C, on the other hand, would rather die.
I'm always a bit nonplussed when people start complaining about the number of weddings they have to attend, because I hardly go to any. The last one was in 2008 and the one before that was in about 2003! I suppose it's a combination of not knowing many people, most of the people I DO know either being not likely to get married or married already, and not knowing my extended family well enough to get invited to family weddings.
Although I don't miss grim buffets or having to spend time in the John Lewis gift list department, it is a bit sad. I wouldn't mind a bit of Scottish country dancing now and again...
The first wedding I can remember, I must have been about five, was combo of joy and tears . Joy: had some new blue socks I was really proud of. Tears: wore shorts to show them off and fell waist-deep into a bushful of stingers.Ouch!
Dreadful when you go to a wedding that clearly isn't going to last. A friend of Mrs M's married a complete weasel, everyone knew it was doomed (apart from her).
That said, Mondo, I have always dreamed of going to a wedding where the bride or groom don't show, just like in the soaps.
And Redscharlach, when we next meet, let's do the Hamilton House. It'll be reely good!
I seem to have made the transition from weddings to funerals....2 since December. Shame, I do like a good 'do'.
Plenty of those too, Hels.
I fear I'm approaching the stage where the 'second time arounds' are just about to begin. So far, mainly blokes in their forties who suddenly decide they're now mature enough to contemplate fatherhood, but have to jettison their first wives in favour of a set of younger ovaries. Hmm.
No, I don't like them. Can't think of a worse waste of my time, spectating on the whole ghastly, formulaic, overpriced business.
Mrs O-P on the other hand loves them. I've got to go to one on the 3rd July, so that's 11 hours of my life I'll never get back.
I hope it rains, then at least I won't have wasted any 'outside' time. Be a pity for the photos though, I suppose.
Oh cheer up OP, they're never as bad as you think. On the whole.
I shall face it with a phlegmatic and polite stoicism, knowing that it is a period of discomfort it is necessary to get through.
I'm always polite, never miserable, just b-o-r-e-d
Can't stand weddings. It's a day out of your life, most of which is spent hanging around and making small talk with people you'll never see again. I'd rather be at home reading a book or listening to prog rock.
And I've been a best man twice, neither of the grooms speak to me now. Probably because I refuse to marry.
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