THE WEDDING - A good speech is like a mini skirt. Short enough to keep people's attention, but long enough to cover the essentials.

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DAY 8/240 - Saturday, July 21, 2007

The wedding day was finally upon us - and what a great day it was. For as long as i have known Chris (my cousin), he succeeds with flying colours at everything he does. The wedding was no exception, and i'm sure that the marriage will be the same. They are both fantastic people, a very good couple and they are very lucky to have found each other.

We woke up at 10, just in time for the 10:30 close of breakfast (or actually dad woke us up). It was great to finally get to sleep in a little. After breakfast i spent an hour or so deciding what i was going to wear. Well actually saying that is deskirting my behaviour considerably, as i already knew what pants, shoes and jacket i was going to wear. What i was actually did was spent an hour deciding whether to wear the blue shirt i bought the other day, open collar; or a plain white shirt with a tie (oh and making some last minute modifications to the official frodo photo competition spreadsheet). Just in case you were wondering i decided to go with the brad pitt esque open collar look. So once that was all done i had 45 mins before we had to leave - to me, plenty of time to get back into casual clothes, down to the bar for a beer and some food, and then back to the room for the shower and the suit. Well the beer and burger took a lot longer than i thought it would - so i had about 10 mins to get ready, but anyone who knows me would expect nothing more. Luckily my parents do know me, and i think they told me a time that was actually about 15 mins before the time that we actually had to leave. Turned out that i needed 5-10 of the reserve minutes.

So we made the 45 min drive down to Tillsonburg for the 2:00pm wedding, which was a fantastic service. Not too long and drawn out, not too short and informal - just right. And the rev. added a little light hearted ness to the situation which made the nervous wedding party a little more at ease. I was somewhat disheartened by the lack of single canadian's there was there - i asked Chris how he expected any of us to follow in his footsteps if he's not going to provide any girls for us.

So after all the "I dos" and rings and about 5 million photos, of which i think i look good in about 1 or 2, we headed back to Woodstock for the reception.

We used the time we had spare for the judging of the Frodo Photo competition. Under the voting system applied, everyone voted once, 2 points for first place, one point for second. Now i had recently discovered that whilst i was spending all of my afternoon creating the damn spreadsheet, Chris had spent the same time in photoshop cutting around the outline of his photos of Frodo, and inserting them next to pictures of Gandalf. A quick modification of the spreadsheet imploring that the lack of photoshop editing be considered was to no avail, and 'Chris and Michelle 4' was adjudged the winner with 9 points, ahead of 'Steve 1', with 5.

I quickly retired to the bar to drown my sorrows, and pass the time before the reception began at 6pm. The reception was very good. Dinner was nice, the bar was full (and constantly being replenished) and the formal part of the evening, much like the wedding itself, was not too short to be informal, not too long to be considered drawn out. My uncle Ted (chris's dad) gave the best speech, closely followed by the best man, dan - both very good speakers. The girls were a little nervous and teary, as to be expected, especially Jen (the bride) and the matron of honour (Tammy), who was emotional at the impending departure of her best friend to Washington and then Australia.

The post dinner dancing was a specticle, highlighted by the video taped competition between Chris and his mum (Ann). That would have been the highlight had me and my mum not stolen the limelight.

Michelle and Chris, Mum and Heather, and Dad and meathead paired off into their own conversations so i became lost in my thoughts, and then reflective, which you probably all know, combined with alcohol is a pretty bad combination. So i decided to get up and go over to the night club accross the road that the lady behind the hotel bar had reccommended. It was ok, but most of the poeple there were a little stand offish towards me, which was the first time that Canadians had been anything other than completely nice to me. I guess the presence of me in a night club wearing a suit may have been a little bit weird to them. By the time i got back the reception had wrapped up and most poeple were going to bed. I felt pretty bad about that, i was intending on making it back for one last beer, (i was told the reception was finishing at 2, and i was back by 1:30), but when i got there was all pretty quiet. Chris (cousin) and Jenn did pretty well to make it that late - they must have had an exhausting day.

All in all, it was a very beautiful wedding and a successful day.

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