It’s now the day before the wedding and the final preparations are going on here. The house is a hive of activity – everyone who comes through the door gets a job to do and everyone seems to do it with good grace and a happy spirit. That’s despite the fact that some of the jobs being done are pretty grotty – that especially goes for Patti and Dave who volunteer to dig up and clean potatoes in the rain!
There is such a lovely buzzy atmosphere about the place. I can’t remember when the remark was made, whether today (23rd) or tomorrow (24th) but someone observed that the build up to our wedding was a really old-fashioned experience. They didn’t mean old fashioned in a fuddy-duddy way, but in a way that contained all of the positive values and vibes we wanted to achieve.
It IS old fashioned in the sense that most weddings would have been more like this if you go back more than 20-30 years. Most weddings would have been a collaborative affair, with family and friends all bringing their skills and effort to make the day a success. Nowadays, in the days of wedding planners and competitive weddings, it’s hard to spot any human aspect to the day. Well, that’s how I feel about it anyway.
There has been a lot of thought going into what we’re going to feed our guests, although I confess readily to having been pulled up by my boot straps a few times by friends who’ve insisted I sort out things like reasonable seating (I’d planned hay bales) and logistics like getting food delivered to the marquee, served and cleared up.
Claire said to me on the morning of the wedding that she was shocked by my lack of forethought in these areas. However, I defend my case by saying that if I’d spent more time on those things, then the thing that I’d cared most about (the food) would have had less attention. With lots of good luck, a following wind and the goodwill particularly of Claire who masterminded all of the food service on the day, along with Janet, Becky and Toni who shared in the “making nice” and serving on the day, my shortcomings in these areas went un-noticed by our guests (I think).
I’ve spoken of making these little pots of jam already. I bought the tiny jars from ebay and filled them with home-made jam a month or so ago. We took the photo used for our wedding invitation (again home-made using one of our own photos), cropped it and laid out the text over the photo before sending it to a print company to make up into labels. I’d intended that our guests would take home what they’d not consumed on the day but forgot to mention it and so I’ve spent the days since the wedding shoving little jars of jam into the hands of anyone coming here.
We’ve both always felt that many modern weddings somehow miss the point. Surely the point is that the day is meant to celebrate the commitment a couple make to one-another rather than an extravagant “our wedding is better/more expensive/flashier/more opulent than yours”? We just wanted to make the commitment to one-another surrounded by our family and friends, then have a fun afternoon/evening with good food and wine. Tomorrow (24th) we’ll do just that……I know we will because we have by the time I write this!
My attention to detail was patchy - good in some places, less good in others!
