I’m not 100% on whether I can or should post other people’s pictures from the day, so for the sake of simplicity, I won’t. And, fair warning, this is going to be a bit rambly and disjointed.
Didn’t sleep badly, but didn’t sleep a lot, so I was awake before my alarm & had all the time in the world for hotel breakfast.
My wedding ensemble was a collection of stuff from multiple years;
- Shirt was from my job interview for Esri UK, bought because it doesn’t need ironing, and I can report that it still doesn’t. I’m not sure how many times it’s been worn, but … Not many. Fortunately I also had the tin with the cuff knots & collar points in it.
- Trousers also from the interview, though they’ve been worn for a bunch of company events, parties, & at least one other wedding.
- Shoes bought last week, because my trainers are not wedding appropriate.
- Socks from the Esri UK conference in 2023, when someone jokingly tried to bribe his way into a full to capacity seminar room with a pair of branded Ordnance Survey socks. I couldn’t let him in, but did say that the socks were awesome, and he gave them to me anyway.
- Sweater bought last week, because my only other warm options are the full-on Big Coat, or my green warm thing which is a bit too “tramping hut” for the occasion.
I’m not honestly a huge fan of the look on this occasion, and so have elected to leave out any photos of it; I’m visible in a reflection in one shot, and I’ll be in other folks pictures, but it’s my blog, so I’m leaving it out.
Got a taxi into Tipp a bit earlier than planned, because that’s when they had a gap in the schedule, and chilled at the guest house where everyone else was staying until we all piled into a minibus & went to the venue, which was up in the hills/mountains a bit, and was pretty damn nice.
They got really lucky with the weather; The sunshine lasted long enough for the ceremony, then the clouds came, but it never rained. Also never got that warm.
It was a great wedding. People had a good time, there was a band & a DJ, and folks got right into dancing until the wee small hours. We left at 1am, I think, but I met some folks at breakfast the next morning who’d stayed later than that. According to the taxi driver who dropped me off, there were 18 people attending the wedding staying at the golf hotel, but between me & the three I met at breakfast, we’d only seen each other. It’s possible they were sleeping off the night before, but … That didn’t happen for me.
My alleged strategy for the dance floor & music bit was to have my little loop earplugs¹ to take the edge off the noise, and limit myself, essentially, to what I could do. The combo of loud + crowd + light + movement, especially with my good personal friend jetlag tagging along, meant that I’d get disoriented pretty quickly, so … I picked my moments, picked my songs, took breaks in the quieter areas when I could, and generally enjoyed the evening as much as I could in a way that’d work for me & not disturb anyone else’s fun.
¹ I’d go elsewhere to put them in, or at least try to be a bit circumspect, because putting in earplugs right in front of the band seems like a bit of a dick move
I tried Black Pudding (might have tried it before, but I don’t remember), because the other starter was a mushroom thing & I didn’t think to ask about vegetarian options. Not sure I know what it tastes like, other than “that’s a strong taste”; Not bad, just … strong.
Katie & Adrian did a good job of at least chatting with everyone, which can’t have been easy in an environment as chaotic as that. And I got a shout-out in Adrian’s speech as the person who’d travelled the furthest to get there. (looking at an antipode map, I think you’d have to be travelling from the Auckland Islands to have an unassailable “furthest travel” claim, but Auckland itself is a pretty good contender most of the time)
There were flip-flops in the women’s bathroom for the inevitable “my feet are killing me” phase of the evening, though I did notice a few people who’d brought trainers or Converse or similar, which made an appearance as the evening progressed.
Avoided the classic wedding hangover by drinking sparingly, getting pints of water between the alcoholic ones, and by spotting that moment when you think “I’ll have a pint because I’m not sure what to do right now”, and ordering something else instead.
Despite the earplugs, by the time midnight rolled around I couldn’t really understand what anyone was saying in the main room anymore. Not a volume thing or a muffling thing, because it didn’t matter whether the loops were in or not; There gets to be so much background noise for so long that I just can’t pick out the words anymore.
I enjoyed it, & I think everyone else enjoyed it.
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