The Wedding Season
This year is my first ‘wedding season’. I have had friends get married in previous summers, but this is the first year of close friends tying the knot.
My friends that are getting married today met because they had me in common. This was back when we were still just about teenagers. The bride is my oldest friend (i.e. the first little person I met after I was born) and I first met the groom when we were about ten.
Then in September I’ll be off down to Oxford for the wedding of my friend Anita. We bonded with in my previous job over a love of shoes, but soon became very good friends too.
Navigating the wedding guest etiquette is an interesting thing…
Invitations: When it’s your oldest friend getting married and you’ve chatted about the wedding on multiple occasions it’s a given that you will be attending. Yet in future I will make the effort to actually send the R.S.V.P. rather than just ringing up/texting and accepting not only my own invitation, but passing on the message for my sisters and their families. As the bride replied “Bloody Thornbers!”
Accomodation: Step two is finding accommodation. Easy enough for the first wedding, the parents are putting us all up (or rather putting up with all of us). The second though I needed to find a hotel near the village of the wedding. After a bit of research I phoned up to see if the hotel I’d found could facilitate early check in and was told that I “wouldn’t find a hotel in the world that guaranteed early check in”. I told him he was wrong and found another cheaper hotel less than a mile away that did. I’m sure in the years to come I will learn more about hotels as a wedding guest than I ever did travelling with business!
Outfit: Of course then there is the whole ‘what do I wear?’ dilemma. Cleverly avoided by my forward thinking. I found my dress when I was shopping in New York last year. Unfortunately having the dress in hand meant I became a bit complacent, and earlier this week realised I’d completely forgotten about accessories! Thank god for eBay and the Accessorize sale! Whilst I’m at it, what is with the cost of fascinators? Not impressed!
Present: The fun bit. Getting to have a nosey at what the couple would like. I refuse to buy anything boring so I was pleased to be able to get Rapidough Deluxe for the happy couple today. And for the next wedding, their wine list is with a local wine cellar, now that is something I definitely approve of!
Anyway I better be off… the wedding is in just under 4 hours and I need to make myself look beautiful!
I never knew those things were called fascinators… Quite an awesome word really, but it makes them sound a lot more eccentric and mechanical than they actually are
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