So yeah, the wedding ...

... it was a good wedding.

Apart from the incident with the hair stylist.

And the fact that it rained.

Which didn't do a whole pile for my hair either.

We got up at 5.45am and got our shit together and Himself went to get Dukie our Yugoslavian friend and pig roaster, and I tore the house apart and put it back together again so it would accommodate forty people.

My nearly husband and I bumped into each other again about 8.45am as I was going to the hairdressers with the Queen Mother and Tina my MOH and he was drilling holes in the timber frame we had built to cover the pig roast because the forecast was for rain and it had already started and he needed to get the tarp. up.

So he was wet at that stage. But I was still in bride mode and had a jacket on.

Status to date: no food.

At the beauty salon, the door of which I will never darken again in my life even though it is the nearest Aveda spa to me (Pure Energy, Cole Harbour, if you're interested), I got my nails done by a girl who talked about her immigrant boyfriend who couldn't get a visa and what did I think.

Well, I thought it was my wedding day so could we talk about that please, but I didn't say it of course because I am Canadian now, so I did the spiel. Yadda yadda do this don't do that call your MP don't call too often I think you missed a finger there love....

Then I got my hair done.

I should've gotten Gabriel to do my hair. But I just couldn't afford to. Either the time or the money. So I went the cheap/ fast route.


Stupid wench that I am.

Anyways two hours later, Tina my MOH's hair had been immaculately curled and then put in a ballerina bun, the QM had had a blow dry she could've done herself, and I looked like EmmyLou on a bad day in 1976.

Finally we got out of the place and got back in the car (in the rain) and I undid my hair.

I cannot begin to describe how FUCKED OFF I was. I'm a girl who likes a good hairdo.

Suffice it to say that I described the incident in work a few days later, and when I mimed the bit where I tore my hair out of the ridiculous clip she had it in, I actually tore a handful of my hair out.

I could have spent two hours in bed. I could have spent the money on starving children in Africa.

That kind of pissed off.

Status. Still no food and no coffee for two hours.

Back at the house, it was pouring, just pouring, and the pig was being turned on the spit by the first of a number of volunteers who are the real heroes of our wedding day. But it was looking a little pale for 11.20am.

I mentioned the paleness.

Ready at 5.

Supposed to be ready at 3.

Hyperventilation ensued.

The MOH gave me the second of many lectures on how it was my day and I wasn't to worry.

It's not my day. It's never the bride's day. It's everyone else's day. When are we going to just say it like it is.

Did I mention the pig was turned by hand?

The squeaking sounded like a mediaeval instrument of torture.

It was relentless. For six hours. Christ, I could've spent the hairdressing money on an automatic spit!

Although, in hindsight, I really like the fact that the entire day had a sound track reminiscent of a 60s B-movie about Torquemanda.

I bumped into my nearly husband again. He was soaked to the skin.

Have you eaten? no. Eat. I haven't got time. EAT!!!!!!!!!!!!

When I got back into organizational mode I realised the liquor was in the shed and had to be moved to the house and the pig needed all the men in the house to focus on it (of course), so Kathlene who is my guardian angel forever and I moved the booze and that was the absolute end of my hair.

Time to eat. I did. Not Himself.

Then upstairs to dress.

I was wearing a backless dress.

Could I find the expensive boob things I bought to give me a bit of a lift?

CIF!

Could I find the pashmina I spent a fortune on because it matched the underlying gold in the dress so perfectly?

CIF!

It's 1.30, the house is full of people, thirty minutes before I plighted my troth to my beloved forever I'm wandering around upstairs in my knickers looking for my lifters and someone to iron my dress.

The QM was downstairs being the hostess.

The MOH was downstairs writing the best man's speech.

Kathlene was on the phone to her fiancee trying to organize a lift for Dukie's wife who was home baking bread for the wedding party.

It's not about the bride, it's about everyone else.

I screeched for help!

My beloved happened along, soaked to the skin and still fasting from the night before, trying to find somewhere to have a shower and change, grasped the seriousness of the situation and proceeded to try to iron my dress for me.

With his eyes closed so he couldn't see it.

This is why I married him, readers.

A few minutes later, Kathlene and the QM made it upstairs and did it properly.

My mother looked so beautiful it made me want to cry.

She popped the dress over my head and I slapped on a bit of make-up and I was ready to go.

Fay, one of the servers the PFW hired to save me from a meltdown came up with a glass of wine and made me neck it.

The Queen Dad came upstairs and gave me a hug that said goodbye and good luck and all that stuff, and that was it.

I cried, readers.

I cried in the bedroom.

I cried going downstairs.

I cried during the opening ceremony.

I cried when Swampy read his piece. And added in his own comments about vehement independence.

I cried when Elizabeth the JP told us to look at each other and Himself was staring in the distance worrying about the pig and I had to poke him with my elbow and say 'focus, dude' and everyone fell around laughing.

I cried during the vows.

I cried during the exchange of rings.

I cried while I signed the papers.

I cried when Noel read He wishes for the heaven's embroidered cloths

My voice wobbled the whole way through and Himself's was clear as a bell. And I'm the professional communicator. Which was vaguely irritating.

And all the while in the background was the 'eeetch, eeeetch, eeetch' of the pig spit.

And then Elizabeth said it was done and we were married to each other.

But not forever. Because it's Canada and they don't make outrageous commitments.

But as everyone there said, it is of course forever.

Lucky I do love a good cry. It was great. I loved getting married.

Then it was over and time to mingle and make sure everyone got fed.

It was a blur.

An hour into it, there was two bottles of red wine left and the Queen Dad had to reassure me that it was all going to be okay and there was enough white and beer left.

The servers started getting anxious to me about the food.

It's not the bride's day. It's everyone else's day.

It was 3.15, the appetisers were well gone and everyone was getting a little peckish, so I went out to Dukie on the off-chance that 5pm was the outside forecast.

Nope.

5pm.

Maybe.

Luckily, we had bought a turkey boiler so we did a turkey in twenty minutes.

It involves twelve litres of burning peanut oil, so a turkey boil is a guy thing.

After fifteen minutes Fay started hopping up and down, so I trundled out to the shed in the rain in my velvet Simon Chang ball gown.

We figured it was ready.

The guys brought it in and proudly presented it to Fay and the Queen Mother.

It's not done.

Yes it is.

No it's not.

The guys looked at me.

It's my mother and Fay, dudes, put it back in the boiler.

Fifteen minutes later they pronounced it done and we had food.

Twenty five minutes later we had no food left.

Apart from the pig.

The pig became the main focus of the day.

It's not about the bride, it's about the pig.

The wedding separated into two groups - the pig-roasters, and the people watching the pig-roasters.

It was generally felt that the pig-roasters deserved their own tv show.

During a lull in the tv show, we decided to cut the cake.

Mostly because I was sick of wandering around in the rain in a velvet ball gown and I wanted to be like my husband who had already put his jeans back on.

The Queen Dad made me cry again, with his beautiful speech.

Himself gave all kinds of hostages to fortune with his adamant promises that he would look after me forever.

I was sitting there thinking... .mostly I look after myself dudes, but whatever...

Then I went upstairs and put my jeans on and suddenly I felt like it was my party and I could relax.

Time passed.

The pig was roasted, Gordie who had a previous career in the meat industry took out the sharpest knife I've ever seen in a domestic situation, butchered a 55lb pig in fifteen minutes and everyone dug in.

Shannon the husky positioned herself under the deck and looked extraordinarily hungry and did very well I thought.

There was one small plate of pig left for the day after.

Thankfully we don't have 'afters' here.

We lit a bonfire and sat in its glow and enjoyed the conversation.

The neighbours came round, better late than never and some late guests turned up and replaced the early leavers.

It was a great wedding.

I think next time I do a pig roast for forty, I'll do it in August.

Postscript.

I forgot the absolute best part of the day. The music, which we'd argued over for months, it being the most important part of the day for us, didn't work during the ceremony, because I had forgotten to tune in the speakers.

This was something that Littl'Un knew that we missed. Him being thirteen and knowing all about how important music is to an event.

Also, he'd been around for most of the arguing.

So when everyone was gone, and it was just family again and everything and everyone that matters to me was together in the one place for one beautiful moment in my life, he lit some candles and arranged them around the sitting room and turned off all the lights, and set up the playlist, and the three of us slow danced to our wedding music.

Snowpatrol: Crashing Cars
Kathleen Edwards: Sure as Shit
The Waterboys: Fisherman's Blues

Thanks Little'Un. Guess now you're thirteen I'll have to negotiate a new name for you.