Saturday 20 August 2011

Anniversary Reflections

It’s our 17th wedding anniversary today so I’ve gone all sentimental and started thinking over my memories of the day.

I decided that there were too many unique ones not to share them with you.  I know we all believe that our day was the best but I can only talk about my day.  So here goes …

I bought two wedding dresses!  I thought I’d found the perfect dress and then I saw the one I really wanted!  The first dress was a classic 1920’s chiffon and lace flapper style, the second full length bias cut 30’s lace, beaded and gorgeous.  I sold the first one.

I had to post one satin shoe only to my Scottish best friend (Maid of Honour) for her to try on her ‘bunioned’ foot.  She couldn’t be trusted with both as we knew she would have decided to wear them hiking across a field of cow dung, just for a laugh.  Trust me, I know what she’s capable of and she would have done it.  This shoe-posting became known as ‘my left foot’ and I was terrified that she’d forget  to bring it to London to join its partner for my wedding.

Our video company turned up too late to film any of our preparations at the house because they said they ‘didn’t realise that the traffic would be so bad on a Saturday’!  Hello?  What day do most weddings take place on?  Their sound system was also so bad that, during our vows, all that can be heard is ‘blah, de , blurb, obey, blah, ring.’

My brother-in-law gave me away and was more nervous than I was.  As we got into our stunning cream Roller to head off to the church, I took his hand and said, “Isn’t this the moment you’re meant to be telling me about sex?”  He felt better after that.

We were married by a gay vicar - so appropriate for a fag hag like me.  The funniest moment on our video is when I alight from the car and my lovely Maid of Honour lied to me that my dress was tucked in my knickers.  All you can see and hear is the panic on my face and the vicar cacking himself with laughter.

I walked down the aisle to the love theme from ‘Saint Elmo’s Fire’.  My tiny nephew went first with the rings, then my two nieces and then my Matron of Honour (with both shoes).  Also an ex-actress, she decided to milk her moment for all it was worth and shimmied and sashayed her way to the altar, despite the fact that we’d rehearsed the half-step / feet together routine.  She also decided to have a little boogie to one of our hymns - “Mine eyes have seen the glory”.  There she was singing to her heart’s content, bouquet in hand, bopping away.

The Japanese organist hit a particularly bum note in one of the hymns and hubbie and I got a fit of the giggles.  It was one of those moments when as soon as one stops laughing, the other one starts.

As most of my hubbie’s friends and family are in Australia, his mum was his only attendee.  He didn’t have a best man but had her as his ‘Best Girl’.  When we arrived at the hotel for the reception she slipped on the marble stairs and ended up flat on her bum.  She doesn’t even drink!

My best gay friend (also an actor) did our reading and had people close to tears.  Sadly he’s no longer with us but he did us proud on the day.

My Maid of Honour’s hubbie came in full kilt and when he got talking to some Dutch people in the bar they asked my Dutch mother-in-law to translate their questions to him.  Hubbie overheard and noticed that when they asked “What happens when you get an erection?”, she was too shy to repeat it so she changed it to “Do you get a lot of infections?”!

My ‘something old’ was my watch, ‘something new’ my dress, ‘something borrowed’ was a tiny picture of my dad which I put inside my shoe so that he could be with me on my day and my ‘blue’ was a barely visible blue bead sown into the side of my dress.

Our reception was wonderful.  We had drinks in the gardens (it was sunny) and then a sit down meal.  We then danced the night away and I even got on the floor and did ‘Oops Upside Your Head’.  I didn’t get a mark on my dress either!

I presented my hubbie with a book that I’d put together with photos and memories I’d gathered from his family and friends in Oz in the weeks leading up to the wedding.  It kind of felt like bringing a tiny piece of them there for him.

Our honeymoon consisted of one night in the Bridal Suite of the hotel.  The next night we were back to our teeny-tiny flat with my mother in law in our bed, best friend and husband in the double sofa-bed and hubbie and I on the floor practically underneath them.  All very cosy!

So there are my wedding memories.  It was the most perfect day and I married my soul-mate, so how lucky am I?

Diary of a Mummy Misfit is available at Amazon for Kindle.  Now also in paperback at Lulu.

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