In Which There is a Wedding

Proud Dad!

My sister, K, got married on Friday! The weather was atrocious, but everything else was fantastic.

K and C met through sailing, and decided on a nautical theme for their wedding, so the hall was decorated with signal flags, the tables were each named for a different type of yacht, the names for the places setting were boats (crewed by jelly babies) and the theme was blue and white.

And of  course, the cake was in keeping as well. (My mum, C's mum and I each made one tier of the cake, and my mum then made all of the blue icing sails (with strict instructions from the Groom to ensure that they are on the correct tack and sailing in the right direction!)

Almost everything was done by family, or by K and C themselves, so it felt really personal to them.

K was, of course, absolutely beautiful. The ceremony itself was in the village church - one of our aunts played the organ, C's daughter (12), my other sister, E, and I were bridesmaids and my brother R, and C's nephew J were the ushers. My parent's house is very close to the church, and, wearing anything other than a full length dress with a train, it is a 5 minutes walk. However, on this specific occasion it had been decided that a car would be more sensible, so we put some ribbon on my dad's car and he drove us down to the church, where we dodged the drizzle,  and then rearranged shoes and skirts in the church porch before heading up the aisle with suitable solemnity.

All went smoothly, and at the end of the service there was a very brief family ring (all of us learned how to ring, as children, and K decided it would be nice to have a short ring herself so 6 of us (K, me, my parents, C's daughter SmallC, and our cousin M) headed to the back of the church and rang the bells for about 5 minutes before handing over to the local ringers (several of whom have learnt to ring in the last 18 months or so, taught by my parents) rang while we had lots of photos taken.

We had to take the pictures inside the church as it was pouring with rain, but fortunately the plan was to have a fairly small number of pictures anyway. Equally fortunately, the village hall, where the reception was held, is next door to the church, so it wasn't difficult to get everyone there under relays of umbrellas, without too much trouble, and then, with the formal business of the day over, we were able to party!

All of the toasts/speeches were commendably brief - (I may have had a tear in my eye when my Dad gave his!, and the Best Man managed to be entertaining without embarrassing C too much) and after my Dad, C and the best man had all given their toasts, C's daughter, SmallC, also got up to speak, to say, basically, that not all step-mothers are evil, and that either K isn't a wicked step mother, or else she must be the best actress in the world, and hiding he wicked step-motherliness extremely well!) It was a lovely thing for her to do.

The reception ended with a live ceilidh band, so there was lots of dancing for all, (and of course, conversation and wedding cake) then about 2 hour after the reception finished, a group of us went (by invitation!)  to the hotel where K and C (and quite a lot of the guests) were staying, and spent the evening in the bar.

In a surreal finale to the day, it turned out that the owner / barman is something of an entertainer, who has taught himself to play a 'drum' accompaniment to George Formby's 'when I'm cleaning windows' using the bottles behind the bar as a drum kit... (there is a youtube video of him,  here..)

All in all, it was a wonderful day. K & C are a great couple, and the wedding was lovely. I'm really happy I was able to be a part of it.

Brand New Mr and Mrs