 |
|||||||||
|
Sunday, July 30, 2006
8:34 PM Let Me See That Thong What is a wedding? Webster's Dictionary defines a wedding as "The process of removing weeds from one's garden." Well, at last, the date finally arrived. This weekend was the time of the Waddy Wedding. I've made no secret about my excitement over the past few months, in fact I've practically been paraphrasing Little Casey Poe from Con Air ("Waddy is getting married on July 29! My trip to Kent is July 29! I will see Mrs Natalie Wadsworth for the first time on July 29!"). So yeah, the date had finally arrived. My suit cleaned, shirts iron, shoes polished and tea tree oil applied to a great huffing spot that appeared on my face that bloody morning (grrrr!) I set off for the romance capital of the day; Gravesend (or more specifically, the fabulously named town of Thong). I checked in at the hotel, got into my wedding gear and set off for the Church to meet the rest of the gang. It wasn't a traditional church exactly, more of what the hip kids call a 'praise centre'. And how hip it was! After everyone arrived we were treated to a little song and dance routine from a funky trio who sang and danced to some songs I hadn't heard before (none of the songs consisted of She Bangs The Drums or Shine by Aswad). The male singer (Eric Hitchmo; you may remember him from Coventry Conference) was well into the swing of things, and his partner, Lady in Green was even more upbeat- at one point I thought she was going to 'fall out' of her dress! Unfortunately this didn't happen, and by the time the songs finished we were left spiritually fufilled yet slightly frustrated. Onto the ceremony! So Wads was joined by Nat, and the proceedings went underway.The man in charge (Pastor T) wasn't the regular old fogey who usually administors this sort of thing. No, the T-man was a hip young fella who wore a flashy suit and a mini microphone, who's hold over the crowd was a little similar to Tappy Tibbons ("Be excited, be, be excited!"), the gameshow host from Requiem For A Dream. If there's one thing I know, it's don't trust any charasmatic religious types; you'll only end up being brainwashed and forced to join a cult. That'll leave two options: either pick lima beans and serve the Leader, or die in a Waco style shoot-out. Suddenly it all made sense; the dancing woman wasn't religious entertainment, she was in fact carefully positioned to grab my attention and hypnotise me, turning my mind into mush (easilly done), ready to be programmed! We listened to the service, and Pastor T explained how to make a marriage work. He told us a story of how the wife was upset about something, and the husband, thinking he did something wrong, tentatively approached her. Wife says she's just tired. Cool de la.The next day, she pulls the same face again, and thinking she's tired, he runs a bath for her. She wasn't tired, she was angry he hadn't put the garbage out. The next day, the sour-faced cow pulls the same face yet AGAIN. So he runs a bath and takes the garbage out. But the reason she was upset was because she received bad news from a friend. The moral? You can't tell what your partner is thinking just by looking at the expression on her face- you need COMMUNICATION, people! It also reminded me of the Simpsons episode where, on a plane, Marge is cleary perturbed because of her fear of flying. "Marge, what's wrong? Are you hungry? Sleepy? Gassy? Gassy? Is it gas? It's gas, isn't it?". Ah well, made me chuckle. Onto more stories of wisdom, and we finished the service with a Whitney Houston number and filed out. What? No brainwashing? It turns out, yet again, that I made cruel and crass judgements against people who were genuinely nice. They didn't try and change my views, they just wanted to spread a little love. I would have felt pretty bad if it wasn't for G who decided to blaspheme so much that Reagan from The Exorcist wouuld have blushed. Outdoors for photos, snap snap snap, and then off back to the hotel (via newsagents for ice cream) where we were able to reflect on what happened, and also spray on a bit of deoderant (man was it hot in there!). The Wadster was now married! He had a gold band on his hand and everything. Then it was time for the meal and speeches. We were treated to a hearty rustic soup for starters (a little too rustic, Sophie pulled a couple of hairs out of hers) and then chicken supreme. Yours truly obviously had to get the Awkward Option, where I got some sort of breadcrumbed thing served with loads of veg. And damned tasty it was too! Time for speeches, and after Nat's dad and Wads said their pieces it was the turn of the best man Adam. What was he going to spill? Luckily for Wads he got off pretty lightly (no mention of the Juta/Hooter door weeing incident whatsoever!). Instead he retold the story of how we all went out for a meal for Wad's 21st in Leamington, and he fell asleep at the table and ate on 'auto-pilot', almost stabbing himself in the eye in the process. At least he tried to tell the story, Julie interrupted and gave away the ending! Bless. He finished off by saying what a great friend Wads had been, and had to take a little break because he was getting choked up. Adam! The guy who would have probably emerged victorious if the whole place got into a giant fight! It was quite moving, and made me feel slightly less embarassed about getting a little teary-eyed during the film I Am Sam. Woops, shouldn't have mentioned that.... Moving on...! So then it was time for the reception, where Ben, Tom, Boss, Zoe and Shelly joined us. Drinks all round! Well, not for me; the drinking sanctions are still firmly in place and I was sticking to Ribena the whole night. Sophie looked at me like she was trying to divide 232 by 13 when she saw my glass was filled with squash, and Jiggles tried to beer-pressure me into having Fosters, but it wasn't gonna happen! In fact when it came to having brandy and cigars by the lake, I was swilling a shot of Britvic concentrate in a brandy glass. We had a good chat with Wads' sister Lucy, and by the end of the night the lads were all tanked up and singing/dancing to that Tropicana song (about eggs in the morning) on the jetty. It was beautiful. By the time me and Rache re-enacted our 'breakdancing in front of the kebab van to Run DMC' routine it was about time to head back in. As the music died down and people left, we were left in an empty room, still pumped up. Cue Harps bringing out a Feeder CD and playing it on the abandoned DJ station. Me and G rocked out to 'Come Back Around' on full volume for exactly 2.8 seconds, at which point an angry man stormed in, cut the power and pointed to the clearly marked sign above us:  No Feeder? Denied! The only option left was to go outside by the lake and pass the time doing gymnastics (Rache), ruing lost opportunities (Jiggles), doing flying rugby tackles into thin air (G) or doing cartwheeling-in-your-pants (Biggy). This probably signalled time for bed, and several good hours sleep (interrupted by Garry banging on the patio door at 6am) later it was time for everyone to have breakfast and be shocked at the photos that had been taken the night before. Check-out, Harvester for lunch and drinks , and before we knew it we had reached early evening, and it was time to return to our homes. It was definitely a day to remember. The expectations of a Waddy wedding were HUGE, but they were met in style. So congratulations John and Nat, we love you both and hope you have a wonderful life together! "There is nothing nobler or more admirable than when two people who see eye to eye keep house as man and wife, confounding their enemies and delighting their friends." Here are some pictures I took with the old cameraphone. Not brilliant, but I'll add all the proper pictures that were taken as and when: 
Leave
a comment
::
|
|
||||||||
| a r c h i v e s
|
|||||||||
|
Other contact me
|
|||||||||
| Blogs
somej.net - sparky malarky - iPandah - the world as i see it - strega nona solves it - dinah says nothing - Growing Up Twisted - inexplicable device - |
|||||||||