Colleen and Richie's wedding
Mar. 20th, 2012 08:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ravenIn wedding #1 of the year (of six possibly seven!) Colleen and Richie are married. I am so pleased.
All in all, it was a perfect weekend. We went up on the Caledonian Sleeper on Thursday night, and despite the drunken stag party four doors down (why, why would you get the sleeper as a stag party, what is even the point) I enjoyed it very much - I fell asleep when the train left the outskirts of London and woke up when they brought coffee at 6.45 am, and then you have that moment of stepping out of the train and suddenly - you're in Scotland. We went up to St Andrews in the afternoon through miserable murk and rain and made it in time for the wedding rehearsal. I don't think that before then it had actually sunk in what we were all gathering together for - Colleen announced her engagement, and asked me to be a bridesmaid, fourteen months ago, which is long enough to know something but not to internalise it - but then we were all standing there in jeans under the enormous panels of stained glass listening to the chaplain go through the order of service, and discuss the readings, and there was a great sense of descending imminence. The chaplain was very nice and helpful - and about seven feet tall and towering over most of his congregation - and took great effort to learn everyone's names, including what he called the hired congregation (Shim). After that the party retired for dinner and very necessary frozen margaritas.
The day of the wedding dawned washed-clean and sunlit and the entire party had gone to bed early with books the night before and were improbably calm (Colleen) and happy (me and Katie). I associate being woken up early in hotels because Colleen wants me to be somewhere with a different type of event entirely, but I went down for breakfast cheerfully and ordered a Scottish fried breakfast, and Colleen and Katie and Shim filled me in while I was eating it on the lifespan of the haggis, a little creature with one leg shorter than the other who runs around mountains until it gets speared in the Great Haggis Hunt, and that was about eight thirty in the morning; and I'm sure things happened between then and two o'clock (well, I know they did: among others, Colleen getting her hair done, Richie sending over champagne and glasses for the ladies to start the afternoon sloshed, several people reporting odd pre-wedding hallucinations of men in lederhosen and its subsequently coming to light that St Andrews celebrates Oktoberfest in March) but they either all happened at once or in about a ten-minute period, because it was very shortly after that they poured the two other bridesemaids and yours truly into a cab and said we'll meet you at the church.
The guests started appearing. Katie and I were freezing to death in our little green dresses in the wind off the North Sea. The photographer, who turned out to have distinctly dictatorial tendencies, rearranged us all bodily. And still Colleen didn't turn up. Shim said, thoughtfully, "Well, we know St Andrews doesn't have a train station." The organist struck up.
And then Colleen appeared, walking, holding up her dress, and wailed, "Oktoberfest stole my taxi!"
And after that, it went off perfectly. It was a beautiful, very human ceremony: the chapel is small and the guests only took up one half of it, and while I had a perfect view, standing off to one side holding Colleen's flowers, so did everyone else. Months ago, Colleen had been casting about for possible readings - she wanted the biblical one not to have too much hellfire - and I said, flip, "Why don't you have the bit from Corinthians, the tongues of men and angels." I was really touched to discover that was exactly what they read. After that,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ann_pan read from Shakespeare, and the chaplain spoke about love as part idealism, part pragmatism, and held up the Doctor as a role model for those seeking idealism and good in the universe. (He spoke admiringly of the TARDIS and Dalek tattoos on Katie's arms, too. The congregation were delighted.)
Richie and Colleen looked just lovely, of course, but also entirely themselves. And nothing was polished nor perfect: I wobbled on my heels, the youngest bridesmaid confided that she was sure she was going to fall on her face on the flagstones, the groom was dead pale and the bride had to hand me over the flowers at the last moment, but that was the warmth and collective humanity of it, wasn't it. No one had to try to be anyone else. Colleen punched the air and said, "Yes!" as they were pronounced husband and wife, and we filed out into the sunshine in the quad and that was my best friend's wedding.
Photography outside was very, very chilly - more of the wind off the North Sea, but the sun was out, and I'm sure the pictures will come out beautifully. At one point the photographer looked at the bridesmaids, the ushers, the bride and groom, and said, "Now you're all young, maybe we can try for something cool and hip." It was less cool and hip and more incredibly awkward - Katie and I were muttering to each other about being a lawyer and a civil servant at a Doctor-Who-themed wedding - but she persisted and persisted and finally let us go inside for dinner and champagne toasts.
The reception was glorious: geek music, geek dancing, people in kilts tossing around inflatable Daleks, a lot of wine, a lot of sheer and incredible joy. The DJ played the William Shatner cover of "Common People" and the entire party hit the dancefloor; then he played "Star Trekkin'" and the entire party knew the words; then the Orbital remix of the Doctor Who theme; then the groom's family started looking a little alarmed. Halfway through Richie asked me to come and witness a deed, which I have done many times before but never barefoot with glass of wine in hand, and he walked back into the room with a different name. I went back with my glass of wine and danced with lots of old friends -tau_sigma in a lovely hat, vacillating ditto, moralrelativist with no hat but v. pretty dress - and Colleen's sister noted that she'd never seen me let my hair down like that. (c.f. one of colleagues, also last week: "I don't think I've ever seen you happy before.") Like I said then, I no longer worry about cows for a living and my oldest friend got married. What more do you ever need out of life.
At midnight, the party broke up to fading strains of the Proclaimers. Shim and I wandered home under an absolutely clear sky. It was all, not glassy perfect, but real and wonderful. I gave the lovely couple a recycled paper wastepaper basket to start their lives together - they asked for it! - and have lost my voice from laughing and singing so much. I hope that's a promise of things to come.
All in all, it was a perfect weekend. We went up on the Caledonian Sleeper on Thursday night, and despite the drunken stag party four doors down (why, why would you get the sleeper as a stag party, what is even the point) I enjoyed it very much - I fell asleep when the train left the outskirts of London and woke up when they brought coffee at 6.45 am, and then you have that moment of stepping out of the train and suddenly - you're in Scotland. We went up to St Andrews in the afternoon through miserable murk and rain and made it in time for the wedding rehearsal. I don't think that before then it had actually sunk in what we were all gathering together for - Colleen announced her engagement, and asked me to be a bridesmaid, fourteen months ago, which is long enough to know something but not to internalise it - but then we were all standing there in jeans under the enormous panels of stained glass listening to the chaplain go through the order of service, and discuss the readings, and there was a great sense of descending imminence. The chaplain was very nice and helpful - and about seven feet tall and towering over most of his congregation - and took great effort to learn everyone's names, including what he called the hired congregation (Shim). After that the party retired for dinner and very necessary frozen margaritas.
The day of the wedding dawned washed-clean and sunlit and the entire party had gone to bed early with books the night before and were improbably calm (Colleen) and happy (me and Katie). I associate being woken up early in hotels because Colleen wants me to be somewhere with a different type of event entirely, but I went down for breakfast cheerfully and ordered a Scottish fried breakfast, and Colleen and Katie and Shim filled me in while I was eating it on the lifespan of the haggis, a little creature with one leg shorter than the other who runs around mountains until it gets speared in the Great Haggis Hunt, and that was about eight thirty in the morning; and I'm sure things happened between then and two o'clock (well, I know they did: among others, Colleen getting her hair done, Richie sending over champagne and glasses for the ladies to start the afternoon sloshed, several people reporting odd pre-wedding hallucinations of men in lederhosen and its subsequently coming to light that St Andrews celebrates Oktoberfest in March) but they either all happened at once or in about a ten-minute period, because it was very shortly after that they poured the two other bridesemaids and yours truly into a cab and said we'll meet you at the church.
The guests started appearing. Katie and I were freezing to death in our little green dresses in the wind off the North Sea. The photographer, who turned out to have distinctly dictatorial tendencies, rearranged us all bodily. And still Colleen didn't turn up. Shim said, thoughtfully, "Well, we know St Andrews doesn't have a train station." The organist struck up.
And then Colleen appeared, walking, holding up her dress, and wailed, "Oktoberfest stole my taxi!"
And after that, it went off perfectly. It was a beautiful, very human ceremony: the chapel is small and the guests only took up one half of it, and while I had a perfect view, standing off to one side holding Colleen's flowers, so did everyone else. Months ago, Colleen had been casting about for possible readings - she wanted the biblical one not to have too much hellfire - and I said, flip, "Why don't you have the bit from Corinthians, the tongues of men and angels." I was really touched to discover that was exactly what they read. After that,
ann_pan read from Shakespeare, and the chaplain spoke about love as part idealism, part pragmatism, and held up the Doctor as a role model for those seeking idealism and good in the universe. (He spoke admiringly of the TARDIS and Dalek tattoos on Katie's arms, too. The congregation were delighted.) Richie and Colleen looked just lovely, of course, but also entirely themselves. And nothing was polished nor perfect: I wobbled on my heels, the youngest bridesmaid confided that she was sure she was going to fall on her face on the flagstones, the groom was dead pale and the bride had to hand me over the flowers at the last moment, but that was the warmth and collective humanity of it, wasn't it. No one had to try to be anyone else. Colleen punched the air and said, "Yes!" as they were pronounced husband and wife, and we filed out into the sunshine in the quad and that was my best friend's wedding.
Photography outside was very, very chilly - more of the wind off the North Sea, but the sun was out, and I'm sure the pictures will come out beautifully. At one point the photographer looked at the bridesmaids, the ushers, the bride and groom, and said, "Now you're all young, maybe we can try for something cool and hip." It was less cool and hip and more incredibly awkward - Katie and I were muttering to each other about being a lawyer and a civil servant at a Doctor-Who-themed wedding - but she persisted and persisted and finally let us go inside for dinner and champagne toasts.
The reception was glorious: geek music, geek dancing, people in kilts tossing around inflatable Daleks, a lot of wine, a lot of sheer and incredible joy. The DJ played the William Shatner cover of "Common People" and the entire party hit the dancefloor; then he played "Star Trekkin'" and the entire party knew the words; then the Orbital remix of the Doctor Who theme; then the groom's family started looking a little alarmed. Halfway through Richie asked me to come and witness a deed, which I have done many times before but never barefoot with glass of wine in hand, and he walked back into the room with a different name. I went back with my glass of wine and danced with lots of old friends -
tau_sigma in a lovely hat, vacillating ditto, moralrelativist with no hat but v. pretty dress - and Colleen's sister noted that she'd never seen me let my hair down like that. (c.f. one of colleagues, also last week: "I don't think I've ever seen you happy before.") Like I said then, I no longer worry about cows for a living and my oldest friend got married. What more do you ever need out of life.At midnight, the party broke up to fading strains of the Proclaimers. Shim and I wandered home under an absolutely clear sky. It was all, not glassy perfect, but real and wonderful. I gave the lovely couple a recycled paper wastepaper basket to start their lives together - they asked for it! - and have lost my voice from laughing and singing so much. I hope that's a promise of things to come.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
on 2012-03-20 08:45 pm (UTC)"Well, we know St Andrews doesn't have a train station."
Hee! INDEED IT DOES NOT. And I remember the walk to the bus station vividly (I spent a semester there back in 1999).
no subject
on 2012-03-22 11:24 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2012-03-21 02:51 am (UTC)Also... funny! And then Colleen appeared, walking, holding up her dress, and wailed, "Oktoberfest stole my taxi!"
By the way, I vividly remember reading your wonderful HP fic about James and Lily's wedding--a great story of friendship (and booze). It sounds like your RL friends are equally charming!
no subject
on 2012-03-22 11:25 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2012-03-21 03:06 pm (UTC)(The last time I was a participant in a wedding, I was a flower girl, and no more than three years old -- possibly only two. There was a period some years back when my sister was making wedding plans, which would have been the first time I've ever been a bridesmaid. For various reasons, the wedding was put off, and postponed again, and now seems unlikely to ever occur, which is something of a personal relief since I belatedly realized that being a bridesmaid might require me to do more than show up a few minutes before the wedding in a dress I probably wouldn't have chosen for myself. The sole area in which I was of use in the aborted wedding plans was in backing my sister up during the ongoing arguments as Mom tried to take over the planning and armtwist my sister into having the wedding Mom wished she'd had.)
no subject
on 2012-03-29 06:49 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2012-03-21 04:33 pm (UTC)apparently replying to comments is something I can no longer do on time
on 2012-03-29 07:03 pm (UTC)Re: apparently replying to comments is something I can no longer do on time
on 2012-03-29 10:11 pm (UTC)Enjoy the rest of the weddings!
no subject
on 2012-03-25 09:29 am (UTC)This post is lovely, and you were lovely, and, well, the whole thing was lovely.Thank you as well for signing Richie's deed! It's in the post not and everything. :-)*hugs*
no subject
on 2012-03-29 07:02 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2012-03-29 08:25 am (UTC)no subject
on 2012-03-29 07:01 pm (UTC)