My Wedding: Part Three Of Three

Previously in John’s life: John has married Jules, but within a number of hours, the bride is holding aloft a knife, with a meaningful look in her eye…

After the Wedding Breakfast, we cut the cake (which is not some childish fart euphemism. Honest), and posed for more photos. Actually, I should talk about the cake – it was designed and made by Claire Lewis, and instead of being made of fruit like many cakes it was a chocolate sponge, because, well, neither of us are big fans of fruit cakes (except as a slightly offhand description of our family and friends), and it was our day, so nyer. Anyway, it was a yummy cake (hopefully I’ll have some pictures to share soon).

The tables and crockery were cleared away, and after a while it was time for the First Dance. I’ve capitalised those two words for a reason. As Jules and I stepped out onto the dance floor, and our DJ filled the air with the strains of Nat King Cole singing The Very Thought Of You, something which no-one in the room knew was this: for the last couple of months, Jules and I had been having ballroom dancing lessons (at the place they rehearse for Strictly Come Dancing, no less). I don’t have any innate sense of rhythm or anything like that, but with the help of our dance teacher , we’d got a few moves choreographed. The lessons aren’t cheap (though nor are they particularly expensive), and practising at home had been quite hard work and sometimes frustrating as my feet and brain had refused to co-ordinate, but I have to be honest and say that as we started to move to the music, as planned, I thought that it had been worth every single penny.

“They’ve been practicing!” at least one onlooker said, and as we reached the middle section of the song and Jules and I circled each other – with an ease that was born more of muscle-memory than mental-memory, at least for me – I felt a great, big, stupid grin spread across my face. Shortly after that, of course, the DJ invited other people to join us on the dance floor, and we were swiftly surrounded by stumbling clods who got in the way of our finely-honed performance, but I decided to be indulgent of the amateurs. Ahem.

The final timetabled event of the wedding was one which the weather literally threatened to put a damper on, as at 10pm last Saturday it was raining heavily, but most of us stumbled outside (some folks stayed indoors and pressed their noses against the glass) to watch a Firework display. It was soggy, yes, but the Fireworks chaps went ahead anyway, and I’m very pleased that they did, because the display was great – lots of sparkly explosions to sate my wife’s desire for shiny things, and noisy booms and bangs and bright lights for … well, the likes of me. The display went on and on, and was frankly fab value for the money. At the end of it, in spite of all my English reserve, I cheered and applauded.

And after that it was drinking and dancing until people could take no more (but they didn’t seem to resent this treatment). And that, m’loves, was my wedding day, and as well as meaning everything to me on an emotional level, it also went really well on a practical level (the only thing I would have changed would be the weather, but that’s not something which is exactly controllable). A lot of people say that their wedding day’s the happiest day of their life, but rather than condemn the rest of my life to run a second-best to last Saturday, I’d have to say it was the happiest day of my life so far.

So, with the exception of the inevitable posting of a few choice pictures from the wedding as soon as I get hold of them, that’s about it for blog posts about the wedding. Well, maybe. I’m sure I’ll have some blistering insights on married life to share… ahem. Coming up, a return to the usual parade of cheap shots at people and things in the public eye, and self-indulgent posts about writing and life in London.

…I bet you can’t wait.