You never can tell

Well, Tony and Kelly got married on Saturday. I cried, laughed, danced, sang and now can barely walk. I have decided to give Kelly the benefit of the doubt for the last few weeks/months/whatever because, well, I know how stressful wedding planning can be and Tony is our friend and I don’t want to cut them out of my life because of recent events.

Anyway, Saturday dawned a cloudy day, which is a shame as it had been utterly gorgeous in Newcastle for the last week or so. Duncan was up early (there’s a surprise) and he called Tony at 9 to see what time he was supposed to go round. Tony offered to pick him up at 9:45 so neither of us were surprised when he turned up at 10:20. Had he been left on his own he would have undoubtedly been late to the wedding. I was left alone to get ready and then got a taxi to the venue which was at the racecourse. It was a beautiful place, the rooms looked out across the finish line of the course and in the evening you could see Newcastle all lit up. I have to be honest and say I felt a little left out of things to begin with. Everyone I knew was either in the wedding party or not invited to the ceremony and Duncan had been told he had to sit at the front with Tony, Rory (Tony’s brother and the best man) and Mike (the other usher). But I managed to spot Steve and Barbara who I knew from watching Tony’s football team when I first came to Newcastle so I sat and chatted to them until the ceremony started.

Kelly looked beuatiful. Her dress was ivory and red and when she walked down the aisle you could tell she was as nervous as anything, she was taking huge breaths as she walked. Everything was fine until they came to exchanging their own vows and Kelly started crying, which started just about everyone in the room off. Then the ceremony was over and it was picture time which, for the guests, was mercifully short. We got to have drinks whilst waiting for the photos to be finished and find out who we were sitting with. Me and Duncan and Mike were sat with one of Kelly’s uncle and his family.

The meal was very nice and before the speeches there was the traditional “bet on how long the best man will talk for” sweepstake. The actual speech (which was very funny) was 10:13 and guess who won with a guess of 10:16? Yep, me. It meant me and Duncan didn’t have to worry about drinks for the evening as the venue was quite expensive. I ended up spending all the winnings (£36) plus a fiver of my own money and that included buying a very large round in the pub next door between the day and evening reception.

The evening reception was very good. They had a band (Kelly’s uncle’s band, the guy we’d sat with for the meal) and then a disco and I danced far too much considering I was wearing stilleto heels for the first time. Needless to say I could barely walk on Sunday (not that I got out of bed for very long) We got home around 1.30am and I slept for a lot of Sunday. Being back at work today feels like I’ve hardly had a weekend.

It was an emotional day and I have to say I now can’t wait until May when it’s our turn.

Until there is a next time…

xx