Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Our church is very green...

Some of the reasons why our recent family wedding was a bit complicated.

1. The bride lives in London while the wedding is in Edinburgh. The bridesmaids live in 1) London 2) Cambridge 3) Edinburgh.

2. The bride didn’t like any dress available in Edinburgh or London so one was made by a dressmaker in Edinburgh. (Let me remind you that the bride lives in London.) It’s not that she’s difficult, but she wanted a non-strapless, non-plunging dress, which doesn’t seem to exist in shops.

3. One of the bridesmaids, Daughter 1, was pregnant for most of the lead-up to the wedding so her dress had to be made, shortly before the wedding, in material to match, as far as possible, the other bridesmaids’ dresses.

4. The groom, an actor, was in Edinburgh for much of the previous month, busy doing improvised musicals, so therefore nowhere near the bride.

5. The bride works in a 3-person architecture practice, one of whom (the boss) is hardly ever in the office. She therefore single-handedly designed a restaurant which opened the week of the wedding and also a shoe museum. Thus she was in the office till 9 o’clock most evenings.

6. She was nonetheless a perfectionist regarding to the artistic details of the wedding stationery.

7. She therefore designed the invitations, drawing (on the computer, using a special architect’s program for drawing things) a leaf pattern to be used (with elegant variations) on every single related piece of paper: thank-you letters, place cards, menus, table plan… all of which had to be printed out. In aqua ink. On our computers. On special paper. Mainly in the day or two before the wedding. With the assistance of cats.

8. This included having badges with fun facts about everyone pinned to the back of the place cards (which each, of course, had the person’s photo on them, culled from various sources.) This, for 100+ people, requires a lot of organisation.

9. As for Daughter 1’s wedding, I arranged the flowers in the church and for the reception. This had to be done on the evening before. The church is a fourteen-mile round trip from our house. I just had to pray that they didn’t collapse overnight. (They didn’t. Above, flowers in the font. Below, flowers on a stand.)

10. As for Daughter 1’s wedding, Daughter 2 and best-friend-bridesmaid made the bouquets on the morning of the wedding. This was all quite fun but really quite messy.

11. They also decorated the cake on the morning of the wedding. I think some girls visit the beautician on such an occasion. Ours dealt with rose thorns and discussed the exact shades of ribbons for the cake.

12. There were quite a few people around the place, all needing to be fed. Which was nice. But also quite time-consuming. Which is why I couldn’t go to the church to arrange the flowers till the customers had all dispersed. Flower arranging started at 9.30 pm.

13. I’m sure I could think of some other little facts – the time that Mr Life and I spent picking some of the pink bits out of the table confetti because the proportion of pink and aqua wasn’t quite right comes to mind, for example – but I expect you’ve heard enough about the wedding for now. I’ll show more pictures once you’ve recovered from this post. If you're very lucky.


(Photos by my big brother. Thank you, bro. I didn't actually take any pictures of the flowers.)


















12 comments:

  1. This is sort of making me think that I really didn't pay enough attention to my own wedding!

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  2. I think if one is to have a wedding, one might as well do it right. It sounds complicated, but your daughter did it the way she wanted. Congrats to the bride and groom.

    Thanks for your comment on my blog. I'm still on vacation, so I'm not posting or reading blogs until next week. I came across your post and had to read it. Can't wait to read more.

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  3. Ah, yes, those artists and their attention to detail :)

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  4. More, More Ms. Life -- we want more! It all sounds like a wonderful time -- with much fun had by all. Especially those multi-talented helping catlets!

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  5. But all that organisation adds to the memories of the wedding.....those details will be remembered for years to come, and become part of your family lore.

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  6. think of all the good stories you will be able to tell your grandchildren about the wedding. Some of them will sure become family stories handed down thru the generations.

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  7. Picking bits of pink confetti out of the pile! That's above and beyond the call of duty.

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  8. What immensely impressive endeavours. Your daughter is sure to be running the world in a few years. Not merely talented, but super-efficient too. The flowers are gorgeous.
    She has obviously inherited lots of absolutely splendid genes, so congratulation to you and Mr Life for your contribution to an amazing concatenation of atoms.
    I'd still like to see a photo of the mother of the bride -and of the new and doting grandmother.

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  9. How absolutely beautiful the Bride looks! Love the dress. I also love the flowers, so well done you!

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  10. This reinforces my contentedness that my son and daughter-in-law 'eloped'. (But there was a great party a couple of months later, when many of the factors mentioned came into play!)
    Memories are made of all of this.

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  11. Lordy, that IS a green church! Lovely flowers, and look at all that you accomplished! Yay you!!! That's going to make for great "remember when" stories that you can tell the grandkids!

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  12. Isabelle I have just been re-reading your wedding blogs in the company of my sister, who has two children and my black cat. So I wanted to tell you how much we enjoyed your writings! The recent pictures of your grandson are seriously heart-melting.

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