#44 heading for a wedding: part two // you! me! dancing!
We had woken in the deep, velvety darkness that is the exclusive preserve of fancy hotels, rolled straight from bed to bath into which I’d giddily emptied all miniatures (bar the alcoholic) within reach; A showers while I soak and we joke that, now we’re legally married, we should never be apart. He’s first out to meet the room service; eggs on toast and croissants and orange juice and coffee that we hoover up while wrapped in white robes. I am Pretty Woman. We briefly eye the unopened champagne from the night before, bottle still beaded with condensation but decide no, we’ll behave ourselves — we’ve a long day ahead. We are, at the very least, not hungover. A little sluggish, sure but the fine mist of rain that falls through the taxi’s open window as we speed towards Dartford Tunnel keeps us sharp. Before long, the landscape that slides by the windows is less grey and more green though, admittedly, no less wet. We had enacted the quote unquote rain plan first thing, shelved our vision of a ceremony held on the garden lawn in blazing sunshine and instead thought thank god for the marquee. Our fears of sunstroke are, at least, thoroughly rebuffed.
Our families are there to meet us when the house eventually comes into view, all of them wearing the epitome of brave faces given the rain that continues to pour. The house itself is a thrumming hive of activity, abuzz with people that we steadfastly avoid; A and I are bundled upstairs to shower and change. S starts on my make-up while my mum starts her running commentary of arriving guests, describing outfits and speculating on names. Once ready, we process downstairs to meet J, an old friend who is leading the blessing; I catch sight of the gap between his shirt and the knot of his tie and am choked.
The walk down to the marquee during a break in the rain is nonetheless white-knuckled; I’m hissing at my dad — one arm gripping mine, the other full of organza — through gritted teeth not to let me slip. The slugs underfoot — good weather for slugs! — are truly enormous. We crest the hill, marquee below and a thousand eyes swivel; Max Richter’s Spring 1 is cued on the PA, a song A and I had listened to so many times trying to lessen its gut punch, apparently to no avail. The overwhelm is real as we mount the stage (the stage!) for the ceremony itself — J’s invitation for the guests to consider what love means to them; S opening with Jack Underwood’s ‘The Good Morrow’; my little brother H solemnly reciting UA Fanthorpe’s ‘Atlas’; E contributing a quote on marriage from Tina Modotti. J rounds things out with a booming rendition of Sonnet 18 that is my true undoing, followed by God Only Knows.
The rain holds off for more confetti before resuming with a vengeance but no one cares and no one cares and no one cares okay except for maybe my sister who teeters on someone’s arm down the slope with a face of fury, sometimes with parts of my dress — its frothing skirt or trailing veil — to deposit back in the house. On more than one occasion she is heroically heaved onto her boyfriend’s back to cross the muddiest portion of path which has already claimed many a trailing hem. A and I are drunk on the adrenaline of having gotten through the ceremony — and, latterly, much champagne slurped from saucers — and we’re gabbing with anyone within reach. Soon they’re all sat down to eat and we’re making our (re)entrance to the marquee to the frankly ridiculous Champions League theme, hands joined and arms pumping, victorious.
The procession of plates is seemingly never-ending — globes of burrata, peaches and pomegranate seeds; quartered cauliflower with the brightest green salsa drizzle; charred cabbage wedges; tenderstem broccoli on a bed of impossibly smooth bean puree, showered in fresh red chilli; craggly cannelloni filled with tomato and aubergine. We are full but the cake needs cutting and soon after the first dance beckons — something in the way she moves, attracts me like no other lover — followed by the ecstatic September. I’m sweating and sweating and threatening to slip the ice cubes from my drink down my dress; rain pours down the plastic-sheeted sides of the marquee and the band move into Freed From Desire. People briefly wonder at the appearance of a rainbow overhead which only reaches me in snatches from the hot pit of the dancefloor which, according to reports the following day, you just would NOT leave!! Step into my office, I say with my eyes and my hips and both arms bent at the elbow, motioning them, nay, commanding them to join me CMON CMON CMON. The music just keeps on coming, rolling over us in waves of yes yes yes, what a banger! again and again; everyone we love is here and loose-limbed and screaming in each other’s ears and I just do not know what could be better. Much much too soon — after the conga line and the limbo and an exquisite rendition of Love Shack — the stragglers are joined in a circle around A and I, all of us bellowing country rooooad take me hoooome and everything fades to black.
We awake again to laughably blazing sunshine and the total loss of our voices. I overindulge during the laid-on brunch and have a green-faced communion with a nearby hedge before rejoining the debrief full of the stories we had missed — A in search of his best man in the neighbouring field replete with headtorch; troupes of drunken guests encountering others on country lanes in search of a cab; various injuries incurred on the dancefloor. It’s soon time to wave friends off on their long journeys home with armfuls of flowers and thank yous. We retire to the sofa ourselves where we fall asleep in front of the football and wake again for a walk in the gloaming. I begin to think that I could get used to this married life of ours.