Soooo...
How could this happen, you ask? Are the carefree bachelor days really over? What will happen to the enormous queues of eager young ladies who have been so patient, so kind?
Back in November we decide to tie the knot. It's been about three and a half years and life is still surprisingly good. We've pretty much built a house, certainly fully redecorated inside and... well, what more commitment do you need? The only real problem is that neither of us want to go through the whole big wedding joining of two families thing. We don't want to upset anybody, it's just that they always seem to be so much trouble and they're NEVER just about you.
We get to go to a few weddings in the last year or so. One is cringingly painful - by six o'clock all the oldies are snoozing happily at their tables while an inebriated young bridesmaid dances alone and lecherous uncles leer and cross their legs. We all sit round a table in the room next door, not talking, just wondering when all the evening crowd will arrive. But they are already there. Eventually someone is brave enough to feign illness and we offer them a lift home.
Another one involves a nice happy clappy service and a nice reception in a nice garden where the nice bride and groom are pulled around the grounds by the photographer and nobody really knows anybody. There is someone who I didn't really like from my school there though, which is strange. Certainly the happy couple only get about 2 minutes to chat to anybody, let alone us - who they hardly know anyway so we wonder why we've been invited in the first place.
Okay, so I'm not saying that ALL weddings are terrible, it's just that this is not what we want, so we decide to keep the whole thing secret. There will be no unwelcome-but-you-have-to-invite-them-or-we'll-never-hear-the-end-of-it distant relatives. No well-meant but intensely upsetting interferences and a day that is all about what WE want. Yes it is hard, especially as we see everyone over Christmas. There are many times where people ask us what we've been up to today and we have to say oh, nothing, you know the usual. while inside we are screaming Out buying gold rings!!! And a new suit!!! And making fancy invitations!!! Yes it is difficult, but it's also very exciting and we manage to keep it quite by repeating the mantra It'll be worth it, this is what WE want.
Just to keep things traditional, there is a minor fire scare in the operating theatre where the GF works the previous morning. The night before, she has a haircut booked - I am there due to an offer of dinner and am happily playing Crash Bandicoot on my phone when the manager starts running around anxiously and there is a general smell of burning. We had been warned that the water had stopped working before we arrived, it seems that they have left the heating on regardless. So there we are, out on the street, with half a haircut and firemen everywhere. On the way to the restaurant we admit that although we are not superstitious, if there is a fire in the restaurant as well, then we are telling EVERYONE!
We survive.
And it is a fantastic day, we meet outside the registry office at the allotted time, she is beautiful - I am gorgeous - having managed to avoid hard liquor all morning and half an hour later it is all done. The Wife's sister makes the bouquet out of white roses and thistles and a buttonhole white rose for me. I can barely get the words out - I can't imagine how hard it would have been if the room had been full of people. The lady in the Registry office is suitably impressed by how dressed up we are - the little group of 'ordinary-looking' people we pass on the stairs were also there to get married - and it feels like everything in my life has been leading up to this moment. Which is a stupid thing to say, if you really think about it.
We retire to the nearby Hotel Du Vin (where we have a room booked!) and have lots of Champagne and dinner. There are an unexpected number of people we know there, but the cat is out of the bag now - we just have to beg them not to tell anyone else until after the weekend. The food is great (pigs cheeks and black pudding, amazing steak), but I am still a bit full of nervous energy and can't manage to empty everyone's plates as is my habit. They write Congratulations in chocolate sauce on our desert plates and we beam accordingly.
On the Sunday we tell the parents, post the fancy home-made invites to our lavish party (organised for March so that everyone has time to forgive us) and perhaps a little disappointingly, everyone seems to be very pleased.
Shortly afterwards, we are both ill.
