The Big Day (part 2)
When planning the day one thing we had to decide on was the wording of the ceremony and what readings we would have. As it was a civil ceremony there couldn’t be any religious references, which suited us fine as neither of us are religious. We chose two pieces, “Blessing for a Marriage” which was read by my sister and also a short poem by Ogden Nash called “A Word to Husbands”.
The ceremony passed with neither of us messing up our words, Phil remembered to bring the rings, and the music was played in the right order. The only thing that didn’t go to plan was that we’d put quite a bit of thought into the last piece of music (played as we walked out) and unfortunately the registrar got everyone to clap and so it was drowned out and no-one got to hear it!
Afterwards canapes and drinks were served as everyone came to congratulate us before the photographer started on the formal group shots that we had requested, including the traditional confetti-throwing one.
After even more mingling everyone else was taken round to where the wedding breakfast would take place (the inappropriately named Hussey Hall) as the two of us had a chance to relax a little before we too were escorted there and we made our grand entrance into the room.
For the next couple of hours the food was scoffed, the wine was quaffed and we mingled some more with our guests between courses. The food was superb, even better than when we’d had it on our taster day.
Next up came the speeches which were started off by Julia’s sister, the chief bridesmaid, who was doing a “father of the bride” speech. I followed her and made only one mistake, although no-one would have known it! And finally came Phil with his Best Man’s speech. Each of them was witty but warm with just the right amount of sentiment as well and they went down extremely well.
The final bit of the day’s formalities before the evening entertainment was the cutting of the cake and it came about just in time! Not wanting to have a traditional wedding cake (we can’t stand the rolled icing you normally get on them) we’d had her Auntie make us a tiered cake based on Konditor & Cook’s Curly Wurly and Lemon Chiffon cakes.
The only problem with this was that it had soft icing all around it and so wasn’t as sturdy as a normal cake. Just as we were about to start the cutting the top tiers started to slide! A quick patch job allowed us to get the photos taken with a (nearly) straight cake and just after we cut into it it started to go again and so the tiers were taken away to be cut up so they could be brought out with the evening meal.
As the room had to be turned around to allow for dancing everyone dispersed and most people made their way into the connecting stable room where we had a sweety table set up. A huge selection of retro sweets including pink shrimps, flying saucers choc dips and about 10 other different sweets from our childhoods.
