There won’t be many pictures in this post, because it’s not really my place to be publicly sharing wedding photos, especially not before the married couple get to do so.
When I was first asked to be a part of the thing, sometime in the middle of last year, I was asked to be an Usher. Then that got upgraded to Groomsman. Then it became Co-Best Man with one of The Groom’s friends from back home. Wasn’t previously aware that wedding parties had a promotion track, so I definitely learned something.
A suit was purchased for the occasion; I cheated by taking The Bride with me, so that I could be sure to get something blue enough & generally suitable for the job.
Because I was around, I got to help out with various things, like finding a metal bucket or those plastic storage crate things or just by going for a stupid walk for our stupid mental health, followed by a stupid Pumpkin Spice Latte for our stupid mental health.
Things kicked more into gear on the week of the wedding, which came as a relief because I sorely needed a distraction from Job Things, or more accurately Applying For Job Things.
Various family members arrived, and one afternoon there was a grand and ever expanding production line of little plants as wedding favours. By the end of it there were two people on cutting paper to fit, one on trimming down the bag the plants were in, I was on string cutting & tying, The Bride was on plant wrapping, and someone else was on attaching a little thank you card with a tiny little peg.
The day before the wedding was scheduled for the Gathering Of Stuff and a convoy out to the venue, so that everything could be set up & made ready. Of course, nothing would go wrong.
Other than the f***ing cake supplier cancelling the order an hour before pickup, that is.
As a friend commented, it’s like they want to be burned to the ground, though I suspect all it’s earned them is some very negative reviews & a specific “Not You” call-out in the ‘thanks’ section of speeches. Thankfully, it did not ruin everything; The Groom’s mother is a trained chef, so they got a couple of general celebration cakes, removed the bits of decorating they didn’t like, and re-iced to make one of those ‘low flat disc with cylinder coming up out of it’ cakes, and it looked awesome.
I’ve made it sound simple, but this involved making buttercream icing from scratch in a holiday cottage kitchen, using whatever could be found, so butter melted using a saucepan of water as a double boiler, mixing in plastic bowl with wooden spoon, & applied with the back of a knife to avoid leaving little grooves. All done after a day of travel & setup.
I had one of the onsite cottages ( venue was a farm with a big hall, plus some cottages around a courtyard, so a fair amount of onsite accommodation ), which became the Grooms Party Staging Area as the wedding day progressed. Got to actually meet the co-best man ( he’d not been able to make the stag party ) and do some last minute “whos giving which toast?” organisation.
Somewhere around here I started to realise that everyone else I’d spoken to was nervous about speechifying, and I … wasn’t. Concerned that I’d be too boring, or go too long, or that the jokes wouldn’t work, but not about the actual process of standing up & speaking.
They had a couple of little radios for communicating between Groom & Bridal parties, which came in handy for “can you clear the courtyard so the Bride can cross” or “can you get some umbrellas” tasks; I figured my job was gophering on the day, and I was not wrong.
Though we did have fun with callsigns; Dixie Duck was one, I got confused & used Disco Duck at one point, Venomous Moth made an appearance, as did Dark Knight. We didn’t get to the ‘Hot Shots’ level of Milli Vanilli Chilli Willy or Victor Charlie Milkshake.
There’s not too much I can say about the wedding, to be honest. The photos tell the story better than I can, and at some point I’ll be allowed to share them, but for now;
- The venue looked great. It was a barn originally, I think, so one half was the Wedding Ceremony Bit & the other was the Dinner Bit.
- Ceremony Bit had a big arch with draped fabric as a frame or backdrop. Dinner Bit had flowers (done by a variety of family the day before), plus the wedding favour plants assembled earlier in the week.
- It was a really nice ceremony.
Drinks happened, and photographs. Lots of photographs.
The suit jacket did not make it to the dinner; Despite the cold weather outside, it was very warm inside, so it became a chair decoration as a survival measure.
I got worried with the speeches when The Bride’s Mother, first speech of the event, started to tear up & lose her place on the second line of her speech. Somehow she managed to drag it back under control, though I understand there was a designated backup for the circumstance where she didn’t recover.
My speech went fine, I thought ( I was after the Father of the Groom¹ & the other Co-Best Man² ). Unlike everyone else, I didn’t write the whole thing else, and just worked off notecards with the rough outline & any specific phrases to use on them.
¹ who had a joke in there you could see coming, but not quite what it was going to be
² one of The Grooms childhood friends
After the event, and in the subsequent week, I had multiple people tell me that my speech was very good, which makes me wish I could remember what I did. I suspect that an amount of it was surprise that the introverted tech guy can do public speaking at all, and some would be a relaxed delivery?
The Groom finished the speechifying off in a fine & funny way, including the “Not You” shout-out to the cake supplier, and ending with a lyric from a song by a cricket themed band. Because of course he did.
Post speeches, when the evening guests were let in ( they’d been in the now-cleared Ceremony Bit, which had become the Dance Floor Bit, waiting because the speeches ran over time ), it basically became a party. With a pizza van later in the evening, because pizza is great wedding late-night food. I’d planned to have a couple of beers, then switch to something else, but … That didn’t happen? Somehow I’d just end up with another beer instead.
Don’t think I got drunk; Too much adrenaline running through the system for that. I only saw one person who’d had too much, and his friends were taking care of him.
The event ended at midnight, though it was around 1:30am before I got to bed. Taxis were taking a while to arrive, and having noticed a group of the Brides friends waiting in a “is the booked taxi actually going to turn up?” way, I waited with them. Thankfully, it did, because option B was to try to find a non-creepy way to say “you can stay in my cottage for the night” to a group of young woman at 1am.
( in case anyone is interested, here are the speech notes )
Introducing myself
K & A’s description of me to their neighbours.
“Our friend Craig will be house-sitting for us. He’s fine, but he’s a bit scary looking and he won’t talk to you.”
Which does raise the question of why you’d ask that person to give a speech at your wedding.
Starting out as an usher, then getting promoted to groomsman, and then to co-best man, which I’d not previously realised was a possible career trajectory.
…and presumably if I do a bad job of this speech, I’ll be back to usher before long.
The sort of person you want giving a speech
Sincere, hopefully amusing, ideally not long-winded, and above all someone you have enough leverage over that they won’t go too far off-script
Which makes the choice of a man who can run away to Guernsey & and another with no job & two passports a pretty bold choice.
Talking about A & K
Kindness & Hospitality
Lockdown gatherings on the footpath
Being kidnapped for Christmas Day
Folks have come in from Ireland
Someone’s come in from the other side of the world
The international contingent being seated all in one place, so that our malign foreign influence can be contained.
Don’t think we haven’t noticed.
Embarrassing funny stories, & how I’m not telling them
Please think about your own funny & embarrassing stories for a moment; now look around you at the people who are smiling; there’s your after dinner entertainment .
You’re welcome.
THOUGH THAT SAID, we did have some suggestions;
A & sport
A lap of Kingsbury Square after England beat NZ at cricket
shall we discuss K’s driving an e-scooter and A’s injuries as a result?
( Hand a card to A+K – Card to be torn up for comedy purposes )
How about this one?
( Another card, to be carefully considered & not to be torn up, about how we met )
Or more accurately, how none of us have any idea how we became friends, because none of us can remember.
Which suggests that a pub was involved.
And while we’re on the subject of alcohol, …
Toast to The Happy Couple & that’s it
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