THE WEDDING DAY

How did the day go?? Well sticking to tradition, I didn't see Lesley until she walked down the isle, so here's how the day went for me.

The day started off with rain.  What a depressing thing to see when you first wake up on your wedding day. Amazingly within a few hours it was clear skies and high temperatures. Things were looking up.

After a quick shower and breakfast, it was off to do those last minute tasks. First on the agenda was to pick up the roses for my lapels and those of my Best Man and Groomsman. Then a quick trip home to put them in the fridge so they wouldn't wilt.

Then it was time for a bit of relaxing in front of the TV whilst thinking if the girls (Lesley and her sisters) were as relaxed as I was. Next it was time to ring my Groomsman and ask him to pick me up from the Madison Motel where Lesley and I were planning to spend our wedding night. Into the car went the suit and an overnight suitcase Lesley and I had packed earlier and off to the Madison I went. I checked in, put the suitcase in the room, left the car at the Madison and Darren took me back to his place.

When Paul, the Best Man, and Darren's parents, Tom and Vicki, turned up it was time for some important stuff. That's right folks. Whilst Vicki kept herself amused reading, us guys settled down for a few good scotch's and more than a few hands of poker. Darren was getting married to Tina in 6 months time and he remarked that he hoped he was as calm and relaxed as I was.

3:00pm rolled around and since we needed to be at the church at 3:40pm, we decided it was time to finish off the hand we were playing and get dressed. That's when it hit me - I left the rings at home.

I think we broke some Olympic records in getting dressed for a wedding. We quickly headed off back to my home to grab the rings and then head off for the church. Did we make it?? Not by 3:40pm we didn't. We came roaring around the corner at the church at 3:55pm to find the priest, Father Catt, standing at the back of the church, tapping his foot. I'm sure I saw him look to heaven and mutter something, but I wasn't going to ask him what he said. We were so late that Lesley had arrived at 3:45pm and here we were 5 minutes before showtime and we still didn't have the roses in the lapel.

We were hussled into the back of the church by Father Catt, where he helped pin on the roses whilst giving us some final instructions as to what he wanted us to do.

From then on, the day went without a hitch, other than the fact that the battery in my sister's video camera decided to stop working. It appears that it had that problem that all rechargable batteries have where it starts to think it only has a small charge when in fact it is fully charged. So we didn't end up with a tape of our wedding, but it doesn't change how special the day was.   Even though we didn't get a video taken, we do have photos. You can look at our wedding photos here...