Happily Ever After

I love a good wedding. When else, apart from at Ascot, can you wear ridiculous creations on your head and still be taken seriously? When else can you get so dressed up in the middle of the day? When else can you start drinking at midday and not stop until midnight (other than Christmas when it is law that you must start drinking at breakfast)? When else do you become best friends with someone you’ve never met before (but have completely forgotten their name in the fog of your hangover the next morning)? I love how different weddings can be, how personal to the couple getting married in everything from the venue to the outfits. Most of all, I love that moment when the couple officially become legally entwined - the sense of joy, of celebration, of knowing that you’re witnessing something monumental, not in the grand scheme of things in the world but in that couple’s life. Yes, I’m an old romantic at heart and can’t help but well up during the vows. At the first wedding we went to this summer, the bride choked up and could barely utter her vows through sobs. Only a hard heart would find it difficult to tear up at that. The Husband did not shed a single tear but perhaps he was just trying to be manly.


What can often be the best part of a wedding is bumping into people you haven’t seen in years, especially when you had no idea they were going to be there. Of course, if you purposefully haven’t seen them in years (bitter exes, the guy you still owe a tenner to, people you just can’t stand), at least there is always a steady supply of alcohol to get you through it. Ditto for bad speeches, the interminably dull second cousin you’ve been sat next to, and that time of night when the music starts and you’re pulled onto the dance floor by the pervy uncle who you know will feel your arse throughout the entire duration of the song. Of course, alcohol can also be a bad thing, especially when you have been drinking since midday. When it causes you to trip over in front of the grandparents, dance like a stripper (even though at the time you are certain that you are the best dancer in the world), chat-up the cousin with the bad breath and lazy eye, and wake up the next morning with make-up smeared over your face and on your pillow, a head that feels like it might just implode and a tongue that feels too big for your mouth, that is when it is bad. All you can hope for in those situations is that everyone else was just as drunk as you and therefore a) didn’t notice you embarrassing yourself and b) caused themselves just as much embarrassment.

Luckily, at the first wedding I was dancing the ceilidh so much I didn’t have time to drink (and was so thirsty each time I came off the floor that all I craved was water – those Scottish barn dances are brutal!) and as Maid of Honour at the second wedding I didn’t start drinking until later in the evening so by the time I was slurring my words, so was everyone else! Being Maid of Honour was a real, well, honour, and I performed my duties with gusto. The best weddings, really, are those in which you care deeply about both bride and groom and get to watch them make a lifelong commitment to each other. You get to be there on the best day of their lives and share in their happiness. That’s what really makes a good wedding – the constant smiles on the faces of the newlyweds. For, in the immortal words of Ewan McGregor’s Christian in Moulin Rouge, “Love is a many splendored thing, love lifts us up where we belong, all you need is love!”