The Wedding Singer

As I mentioned in my previous post, wedding bells have been ringing for my friend Duncan's sister, Sarah and her fiance, Graham. I was lucky enough to be invited to the wedding on the 28th of June, and I was incredibly excited (and somewhat nervous) about it - excited because I absolutely love weddings (it's a girl thing) and nervous because of the prospect of finding a suitable dress and wearing heels for a couple of hours!

The big day arrived, and I set off for Duncan's house, dressed to the nines in my gorgeous red dress and black satin heels. I was greeted by Duncan - who looked dashing in his kilt, despite his uncertainty as to whether or not his knees were supposed to be visible - and ushered into the house, where assorted family members were gathered. I was duly introduced by his dad, and chatted to the bridesmaids, who I knew from my high school days. After a few more minutes of milling around, we set off in Duncan's car with his mom and the makeup artist, with me holding the buttonhole flowers and spare bouquet. I have noticed something about weddings - despite the facade of calm and serenity which the photos show when you glance at them a couple of months down the line, the behind-the-scenes preparation always involved panic, a late bride, forgotten garters and general stress for the family of the betrothed! And this chaos is capable of permeating innocent guests as well, as I discovered travelling in the car to the wedding, with Duncan's mom brushing his hair as he drove and telling him that getting speeding fines was okay, provided we got there on time (we were already 20 minutes late), worrying about whether we had lost family members who were supposed to be following our car, and wondering whether Sarah would be on time!

We did get to the church though, and by the time Sarah walked down the aisle, to the sound of bagpipes, all the panic of the afternoon (and probably of the prevailing 8 months) was forgotten. The ceremony was beautiful, the bride looked amazing and yes, I cried (and amazingly not because my feet were aching in those heels)!

Having made it through the most important part of the wedding, we drove to the reception venue, where I found myself among an assortment of Duncan's family again. This was initially somewhat terrifying, but I recovered after a cup of tea (caffeine and sugar being the surest way to regain sanity) and actually managed to remember most people's names. I was seated at my table - along with 6 people I had never met - and told that we were playing a game in which we had to identify the movie that the song which was currently playing was from. This proved to have great entertainment value, and we were undoubtedly the most jovial table - although this may have been because we were the closest to the bar! Dinner was lovely - even in my humble, vegetarian opinion - but the highlight of my evening was undoubtedly Duncan's singing. Yes, in case you were wondering who the said wedding singer was, it was Duncan, who has been doing opera for the last few years. He and Sarah's friend Xena sang "All I ask of you" from "Phantom of the Opera". And yes, I cried again, because it was beautiful! And I'm pretty sure that I wasn't the only one crying!

The rest of the evening was filled with dessert (lemon meringue pie!) and dancing with Luke and Duncan, garter-throwing and bouquet-catching (I failed miserably, but maintain that I'd had enough of the bouquet, since I'd held it for Sarah for most of the afternoon). And, in case you were wondering, my photographic skills did improve enough to take some decent pictures of the wedding! All in all, it was a fantastic evening, and my feet did eventually recover from those heels, which I actually managed to dance in (although I did take them off during dinner and the speeches), and which almost became comfortable at a point!

So, here's to weddings, kilts, handsome young men singing in kilts, heels, and good times with friends!