The Wedding - Part 3 - The Church

The car pulled up to the church and there were a gaggle of girls eager to help my sister out of the car and sort out her dress etc. A very irate vicar was standing outside looking at his watch and I knew we were in trouble...

Papa ran inside to tell everyone to get ready, As he ran I grabbed him and hissed, 'Buttonhole - I need your buttonhole!" He is such a sweetie, he unpinned his flower (which had been practically stapled to him by my cousin) and pinned it to my jacket just as my sister arrived at my side - the page boys and flowers girl stood in front of us - as planned my two were at the very front where they could do the least harm - although to be honest, once they had seen how many people were in the church they were suddenly very quiet, "Just remember to walk slowly," I advised quietly before we left, 'You'll be fine."

I went to take my sister's arm as we had practised and she whispered, "I'll have to hold onto you, I'm terrified I'll fall over my dress but if I hang onto you then you can catch me if I topple over."I hooked my arm through hers as she held the dress up slightly with her left hand and we took our place at the church door.

My nephew and the flower girl were ready, my sister took a deep breath as the wedding march played and we began our walk towards the aisle. We walked towards the main aisle across from the church door and the children took the turning to the right to walk through the congregation. Unfortunately my nephew and flower girl turned left (they obviously thought they were on an aeroplane) and my sister and I rushed forwards to grab them and put them back on the right track - it was a lovely way to enter the church, the congregation laughed, my sister laughed, everyone just seemed to relax - I guess the 20minute wait for the bride had been quite stressful and this was a fantastic way to bring fun and laughter back into the church.

The walk itself was lovely, so many smiling faces, people congratulating my sister as she walked, the words 'beautiful' and 'stunning' were heard many times across the church (I was grateful for their comments but felt they should really have been looking at my sister) - she was positively beaming - It was then that I noticed that she hadn't pulled her veil over her face, but I don't think it really mattered, it was only when we stopped and I moved in next to Mum that it was noticed - mainly because the bridesmaid whose job it was to straight my sister's veil stepped forward and then realising she had nothing to do tried to make it look as though it was perfectly normal to step in front of the bride and re-adjusted her hair... which looked perfectly natural, so was a good save.

The children sat behind us and were joined by Papa - they were so pleased with themselves. We stood for the first hymn. I say stood I was kind of standing at a strange angle as my Mum's hat was so huge (I think she could have received signals from outer space using it) that it kept hitting me in the face every time she moved her head. I looked at my sister and felt yet another tear coming on - I can honestly say I have never seen her look so happy.

We sang the first hymn, I think it was 'Lord of all Hopefulness', I say think because (and I hope I wont get into trouble here), but the bridesmaid on my left really couldn't sing. She told me later that she didn't really know the tune either but (please don't hate me) it was so bad and so off key that I started to giggle and then I couldn't sing. I tried to turn it into a cough but it just got worse, so I opted for tears instead, which was ok as I was actually wiping tears from my eyes, just tears of laughter. She is such a lovely lady and what she lacked in talent she certainly made up for in enthusiasm and in the end I recomposed myself and the two of us belted out the tunes as loudly and as coherently as we could.

I don't know if it was just me but the rest of the wedding seemed to go by in a blur - it wasn't helped by the fact that the vicar (who is a family friend) was now rushing slightly and even skipped his sermon - which may have been a blessing, who knows.

The service over we went to the back of the church to witness the signing of the register and all lined up ready to process back. That was no mean feat as there were about 20 of us in this tiny space trying to arrange ourselves into some sort of order, all I could remember was that I was bringing up the rear and accompanying the groom's mother. We walked through the church to a huge round of applause - again, I was pleased to be there, they really didn't need to clap but if I could bring just a little sunshine to their day I was happy to do so. We went outside, I looked to see if I could see the vicar to thank him but I think he had nipped out the back and was speeding away in his Ford Mondeo to his next wedding.

The children and I met up again outside the church. "Can we get messy now?" TJ asked. "No, you cannot," I snapped, "We have all the photos to do - loads of photos." "Photo's are boring!" exclaimed TJ. "Well, get used to it," I replied, "Because from now on the whole rest of the day will be about photos!" The man behind me laughed and TJ looked glum. But then all the children were given confetti and soon cheered up. Although we did have to point out that they were only supposed to throw confetti over the bride and groom - not over each other and anyone else who happened to be standing near!

More photos were taken and then everyone got into their cars to follow the bride and groom to the venue for the afternoon reception....

And it was then that the fun started....

The Wedding - Part 2

So the morning came for the big day itself - Prince William and Kate had nothing on the level of organisation...

We got up in the hotel and went down for breakfast - the wedding wasn't until 1pm and the photographer was coming to the hotel to take pictures of the groom, groomsmen, page boys etc at around midday - so my theory was that the longer we kept TJ out of his formal suits the better -  I would have preferred to change them in the car on the way to the church, but they were required for the pre-wedding photos so that wasn't going to happen.

After breakfast Papa and I went to get changed. The suits were all rental, as most wedding suits are, and we had tried ours on back in February and I knew that I had lost quite a bit of weight since then, so I was a bit worried that my suit would no longer fit - I had even bought a new belt, just in case. I needn't have worried, I got the suit out of the bag marked with my name and put it on. The waist was so tight, I could barely sit down and the waistcoat fitted like a corset - I couldn't even breathe, to say I was gutted was an understatement - 6 weeks of low carbs and no alcohol to actually put weight on. Papa was also having problems, he had to tighten his trousers and his waistcoat needed pinning at the back. 'They've given us the wrong suits!' I shouted, now getting angry. I called the groom, "Have you got our suits with you?" I asked, "No, I gave them to you last night," he replied, 'How drunk were you?" Admittedly I had drunk quite a bit the day before but was pretty sure I had collected the right suits. I checked again, yes the bags definitely had our names on them. I looked at Papa, "I'll have to go to Manchester and change them," I said, "I can't walk my sister down the aisle wearing this." Papa went online to see if there was a branch of the store nearby as I got the children dressed. As I did up TJ's waistcoat it suddenly hit me... "Papa," I said, "try my waistcoat on." He grumpily got off the computer and did so, "It fits perfectly," he said. I took my trousers off and handed them to him, "Lets swap suits." The upshot was that the suits had been labeled the wrong way round, which looking back seems obvious, but when you are juggling your own dress requirements with your kids then you tend to lose all grip on reality....

Properly dressed we went downstairs to get our buttonholes. But there was no buttonhole for me - I was walking my sister down the aisle without a buttonhole. "It's at the house," the Groom's father informed me, "It must have been put with the bridal party." It really wasn't a big issue except the photographer kept asking me to stand behind other members of the party to hide the fact that my buttonhole was missing. So I have a horrible feeling that when the photos come out you will only see my left ear in all the shots.. we shall see... but the TJ met up again with his cousin and the two of them were having a whale of a time. The atmosphere was light and relaxed - and, to cap it all, it was a beautiful sunny day!

After the photographer had finished I rounded up the page boys and headed off to Granny's house to join the bridal party leaving Papa and the grooms party to head off to the church....

I arrived at Granny's house with the very excited boys, suddenly there was a commotion in the back, "Uncle," came a small voice, "I think I need help."I looked in the mirror to see my nephew with the largest amount of snot I have ever seen in a child pouring out of his nose, I didn't have a tissue to hand and it was about to fall onto his new suit. I did what any parent would do, I put my hand out and caught the snot as it fell. Great, now I had to get out of the car making sure that the boys kept clean and that I didn't get my nephew's snot on my own suit. I raced into the house and into the downstairs toilet, and, be sure to take note, here begins the problems - I put my car keys down on the window sill in the toilet as I grabbed for tissues for my nephew and washed my own hands - my own children thought this vision of me juggling snot, keys and tissues was hysterical. I had just finished washing my hands when my nephew turned to me, 'It's happened again,' he said. And sure enough there was another massive globule of snot hanging from his nose - luckily one of the bridesmaids was on hand with a box of kleenex to help us both out...

I washed up again and went into the living room which was abuzz with make up girls, bridesmaids and photographers. I saw my Mum, "Where's your buttonhole?" she cried, "You should be wearing a buttonhole - you can't walk your sister down the aisle like that!" I felt as though I had forgotten my trousers... "Right, let's not panic," I said calmly (calm was to be my word for the day), "I can always take Papa's at the church if needs be - his ushering duties will be over by the time we get there." Problem solved - then I went into the study which my sister was using to get dressed. I opened the door and there she stood in her wedding dress - it was beautiful, she was beautiful - everything was beautiful and, I'm not ashamed to say, I actually welled up. I always wondered why people cried at weddings - now I knew. To say she was stunning is an understatement, her gown was pure silk with a lace overlay and her veil was under a pearl and diamond tiara. I even think she had had a wash...

The boys sat down to watch TV and eat crisps.

We were about to leave when the bridesmaids realised they had to pack all their stuff for the evening, so the taxi driver and I loaded the bridesmaid's mini bus (don't worry the bride had a limo) with all of their luggage - one bridesmaid had just had her baby and the amount of paraphernalia that goes with a new born is phenomenal - but we got it all in - at least we thought we did (again note that for later).

My phone then started to ring, we were now 15 minutes late and the ushers (and I guess the groom) were beginning to panic - the vicar had told us not to be late and it was now 1.15.... we got everyone into the mini bus and Granny, Lea and my nephew headed off in the limo, except TJ who was now best buddies with the photographer and went with her. I helped my sister into the car and got in beside her..

I gave her hand a squeeze, "Happy?" I asked her, 'Really happy," she replied simply, "really happy"... we pulled out of the drive and headed to the church...

The Wedding - Part 1

As blog posts are supposed to be short and easy to read I have decided to split my sister's wedding into a couple (maybe three) shorter posts - rather than one long marathon... a lot happened!

We went up to Cheshire - after the cake dropping incident - on Thursday. Luckily, my friend managed to re-ice the top two layers of the cake before we left that evening, the only problem was they had to be laid flat to dry and would have to be stacked at the venue itself. This meant that my entire boot space of the car was taken up by cake and I had to load all of our luggage, presents etc into the front of the car with the boys - luckily, Papa was coming up on the train on Friday night, otherwise there would have been no space! As it was the kids sat with their feet on their cases and no room to move.

We tootled up the motorway network and actually got to my Mum's by 10pm - but she was out with my sister for a 'bridesmaids' get together type thing and I had to get the keys from my Nan. Nan was asleep when I popped in - I was banging on the door for about 10minutes when I thought I would try the handle, sure enough the door was unlocked and I strolled in. Nan woke from the sofa, 'Oh, its you dear,' she said, 'I've been sitting up waiting, I was watching Poirot - I haven't seen this one before.' I looked at the TV screen - I knew it was an old Poirot as David Suchet looked thin, and it was still in the old square TV format. "I think it's been on before Nan,' I said. 'Well, I don't know who did it,' she replied. I wanted to say 'that's because you sleep through every episode' - but I didn't. At least she will always enjoy each show when it comes on - for the first few minutes anyway.

Papa is exactly the same, within five minutes of any crime thriller coming on he is fast asleep - he usually wakes up just as the detective has everyone assembled and is going to share his knowledge. It's at this point that Papa will ask what has happened and then I have to give a run down of each character, their motives and their possible reasons for murdering the 4 people he didn't see die anyway - thank goodness for the pause mode - afterwards Papa always says how much he enjoyed the show - which I know is a big lie!!!!!! He just enjoyed his sleep!

Anyway, we got the keys and let ourselves into Mum's house - we had been allowed access on the proviso that we kept the place tidy and didn't eat or drink anything, we were allowed the little packets of Kelloggs variety packs for breakfast but were not allowed the croissants etc that had been purchased for the morning of the big day itself. ASBO dog had been placed into kennels for the duration and was by now terrorising some other poor hounds at the local pet hotel.

Friday was the day of the rehearsal. We got to the church and sat there with the bridesmaids and ushers, a worried groom and my sister who was happily joking and messing around. The children met their cousin, my brother's son, for the first time and luckily they got on famously. My two then taught their little cousin how to walk rock star style down the aisle (apparently that was how you walked in front of your fans) - Mum chastised them at which point TJ folded his arms and strutted down the aisle with his arms crossed. 'Walk properly,' I said. 'Granny told me to keep my arms down,' he replied sulkily, 'so I am going to walk like this.' Previously, my two had decided that when they walked behind their aunt they would lift up her skirt to 'show everyone her knickers' - lucky for us all my sister had chosen to let the children walk in front of her so as to minimise any temptation. Good choice!

Anyway, we left a relaxed rehearsal with the jolly vicars' cry of 'Don't be late - I have another wedding at 2pm' ringing in our ears and we all headed off to the pub and the hotel where myself, Papa and the kids would be staying with the other groomsmen etc.

I went to get Papa from the station and we met everyone back at the hotel for the pre-wedding dinner.

So far.... so good... but the next day was the big day itself...