The Wedding of the Year

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"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife"

Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

Ahhh tis a few weeks now since I was last in correspondence with you all regarding my tales of travel and adventure. I have actually traversed five countries and stayed in nine cities but that is all to be spoken about later (and the way I´ve been going it will more likely be later than sooner...). Our attentions at the minute must be directed to the union of Ms Erica Donner and Mr James Posnett on the afternoon of the 28th of July 2006.

But lets start at the beginning...well at the beginning of the week anyway. A few days after arriving back in London from Iceland, I took a train a coupla hours north to meet a bunch of friends from Uni at a train station in the midlands of England. From here we drove through rolling green farmlands and small old villages on our way to a picnic date with Erica, the bride to be.

But the picnic wasn´t just at any old park in the English countryside. No, it was at an old English manor named Chatsworth House that is now inextricably linked with the names 'Pemberley' and 'Mr Darcy'. If these don't ring any bells for you then you might as well just skip to the next paragraph, and if you are a rabid fan of everything Austen and would love the opportunity to swoon at the site of the haughty, handsome, honourable and charming Mr Darcy stepping out of his private lake in a clinging wet cotton shirt and breeches, then to avoid dissapointment you should probably move on to the next section as well; as although there is a definite Austen connection at Chatsworth House, there was no real lake to take a refreshing dip in and there was very little wet and manly striding about. There was however a very large and elegant house filled with old art and a varied selection of historical decors, beautiful and very large 'grounds' including a maze, woods, a cascade, greenhouses, a fountain and a....weeing willow. The connection with Jane Austen at Chatsworth House is through the recent Keira Knightly film version of Pride n Prejudice. If anyone is a fan of the movie and remembers her walking through the sculpture room and admiring Mr Darcy's taste in art and his handsome marble sculpture then ha ha because I've been there!

After inspecting the rooms and grounds of Chatsworth House and trying to comprehend the wealth involved in owning and running such a place, we rambled into the sedate little town of Wing in the county of Leicestershire in England. Personally I couldn´t get over all the original grey stone buildings 100's of years old that made up most of the town. They were just too damn old and 'authentic', as if the place had been built as a movie set. Of course it didn't stop me going to the pub and enjoying some local 'cellar temperature' (ie warm) beer and hospitality. Although, I wasn't really expecting to be served up blood pudding as part of what I thought was a vego meal of stuffed mushroom, but hey the benefit of being a travelling flexitarian is that you can justify eating strange animal products in the name of cultural exchange...and it was one of the cheaper items on the menu...very important when paying in pounds ;)

After having travelled by myself for a while it was initially a bit strange for me to be spending time with my friends (ie people I actually knew) and doing things in a group and making group decisions, but over the rest of the week we had a ball travelling around in our own little private cars (ok they were hired but still it was pretty cool). We spent a day riding bikes around Rutland Water, one of Europe's largest lakes, we wandered around an old town called Stamford which again was a bit surreal as it was so old and mostly made of the same type of grey limestone, and visited Melton Mowbray, home of Stilton (blue vein) cheese, the Melton Mowbray pork pie (again served at room temperature, not to mention also being fatty and kinda tasteless; but apparently it was the preferred snack of English gentry as the pie stayed solid in a jacket pocket when fox hunting...see www.porkpie.co.uk for more fascinating pork pie trivia) and Melton 'Hunt Cake'.

One of the nights that week we somehow managed to have a bit of an adventure with a stray cat that Dallas somehow managed to bring home (Warning: Dallas Baird might try and persuade you that I had some part in seeing how far the cat would come into the house, and Dallas might also say that I'm responsible for the cat meowing outside our windows all night and breaking into our bedroom windows and walking on peoples heads...but that would be...well it wouldn't be a complete lie, but I can't be responsible for the choices a cat makes can I!!! Anyhow after breaking in one too many times, I decided to deal with 'the problem' and the cat was never seen again...

OK, don't worry, I just took it up the street in my boxer shorts (me, not the cat) and put it behind a fence and then bolted back down the street so it couldn't follow me...hmmm but on second thoughts I didn't check what was behind the fence...)

Of course the reason we were all together in the one place consuming pork pie, warm beer and traipsing around the English countryside was to be at Erica and James' wedding. I wasn't really sure what the day would be like as I'd heard it was going to be a fairly relaxed garden wedding, but I'd also heard talk of top hats and tails and with Erica's love of Jane Austen I wouldn't have been surprised to see horses, carriages and bonnets at some point during the day.

The day ended up being fantastic with the wedding happening over four separate stages in two different places. The first stage was of course the official ceremony, which happened in a small room in an elegant, old and cosy hotel with only close friends, family (and international travellers) in attendance. It was a fairly quick civil ceremony and before long our good friend from uni, Erica Donner, lover of daggy dancing, digger of soil, beautiful bride, and one of the sweetest and most charming nerds you could ever meet ;), had changed her name and become the wife of some pommy bloke ;) Nah, it was really great to be there for the ceremony. It was beautiful to see them together (even the wedding celebrant cried during the ceremony it was that beautiful) and it was very special to be there, even if I was wearing hiking boots.

After the ceremony we adjourned to the garden for Pimms and charming little canapes. The garden was gorgeous (see photos) and we spent a while chatting, taking photos of the bridal party, practicing our best poshe accents and probably drinking far too much Pimms (it was very bloody hot though). Pretty soon though we were invited back into the hotel for tea, sandwiches, cakes and coffee.

At my table was a ragtag mix of Germans (ooops sorry, Bavarians), Aussies and English. We chatted and did our best to be elegant, but it didn't take long before ties were coming off, jokes were being made and people were vying for the last bit of chocolate cake. I must say at this point though that its not that Erica and James are a posh couple that would expected any sort of upper-crust superficial civility from their friends and family (particularly daggy friends like us) but as the surroundings were rather elegant and dare I say expensive, then for a bunch of relatively poor middle class PhD students/backpackers, it seemed somewhat natural for us to approach relative opulence with a friendly mocking air while always being completely respectful of the occasion...in other words we gently took the piss out of ourselves and the situation.

Anyhoo, when afternoon tea was finished and the Pimms in everybodies system had been successfully soaked up by scones and cucumber sandwiches, it was time for everyone to leave the hotel and move onto stage 4, The Reception. This was not too far away, at a nice old country pub called the Fox and Hounds. The reception was the part of the day where the those friends and family that weren't at the ceremony could come along and be part of the celebrations (usually the other way around in Australia). There of course we found more free booze and we got to know some of the others there a bit better (hmmm maybe those two things are connected). But beer wasn't the only social lubricant available that evening, there was also lots of olde british folk dancing to be done! We stripped the willow and did the heel and toe polka til the neighbours complained. But I'm getting ahead of myself....

Before all this revelry there was of course an important part of the day...the speeches. Thankfully there weren't too many speeches and all of them had a mixture of humour and heartfelt sentiments that went down well with the everybody there. Mr Donner (Erica's Dad) welcomed James into the family, Rich (the best man) was discrete with his stories of James' bucks weekend and James spoke of his love for Erica. Erica thanked the many people that helped to make the day happen and a friend of Erica's family welcomed James as an honorary Australian by giving him an Australian football jersey. Erica then had to get up and speak again because she had forgotten to thank James :)

After this, all the crazy folk dancing, drinking of beers and eating of party food off platters began. Everyone seemed to have a great night and everything simply seemed to go off without a hitch. For us the party continued til about midnight when we caught our taxi back to Wing and got out of our fancy pants and went to bed. Most of us were in Wing a couple more days with some of us strapping on the backpack for more travel and others heading home.

I think I can speak for all of our group and say that we had a fantastic day at the wedding and we give a huge thanks to Erica, James and all involved for having us there that day.

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