auntiegwen's guide to getting married

Ah you knew it had to come didn't you? The whole process of booking a wedding is sheer comedy blog fodder. The moral of this story is all about practice making perfect.

Practice smiling, a natural smile that won't scare the bejaysus out of people that you can turn on and off in a flash. You will have a million things said to you that your brain won't begin to understand, it gives you a minute to come out from being stunned and respond. You will also have a gazillion photos of you taken, from all angles and if like me, you look hideous in photos, it's best to get the practice in. This will be your most useful skill in this whole process.

Now stand in the street and hand out five pound notes to strangers passing by, this will get you used to giving away money for nothing, consequently this will make them very cheerful and you get to practice your smile at the people you give the money to. This happens more than you'd like.

When booking anything wedding related, have a figure in your mind about how much you think it might cost, then when you go and see the wedding related Johnny about it and they tell you the wedding price, you practice your smile and the handing out of money and then in the car on the way home, you and your beloved can have a good chuckle about how far out you were price wise, or an argument.

If like me, you are a (ahem) mature bride, when searching for a frock, always warn the shop lady that you are the bride, otherwise you will find yourself pointed in the direction of some fairly startling two pieces with matching hats, who designs these Mother of the Bride outfits? For me t'was streemly difficult to find something that was special enough to be my dress but not in white or ivory. On the plus side, I got to practice my smile, when my beloved sniggered every time he heard the word nude. Yes, my dress was nude, my shoes were nude, my stole was nude, my underwear was nude, knock yourself out Andrew, I will never say nude again.

Even if you have a small and intimate ceremony with just your closest family and friends, it will still take a ferocious amount of time and organising. It is probably best that you don't have it 5 days after Christmas as Christmas still needs the same amount of time and orgainising. You will also be low level aware of how your fancy frock fits and how much more you normally eat at Christmas, this may culminate in an 8 mile run on Boxing Day, whilst everyone at home gets stuck into the Quality street.

If you go to a wedding fair, prepare to be bewildered at all the things people appear to have at their wedding. Things you didn't know existed in that context or know you needed. For me I knew about chocolate fountains but thought they were a bit passe ditto fireworks, doves and magicians. New to me were ice cream vans, candy floss machines, pick and mix candy buffets (this will be after you've shelled out for a good dinner for them) and photo booths with props at the reception. My strangest was operatic pretend guests who would get up and burst into song between courses. You might be struggling a bit with your face to get beyond confused at this point never mind into a smile.

You may also decide you need sparklers and fortune tellers and romatic table trivia for your guests. You may also ponder that bubbles in mini champagne bottles would be great fun. You may get carried away in the whole wedding nonsense (who am I to judge you?) and also think that giving the ladies a mini white heart shaped bowl wrapped and tied in crisp white organza and navy blue satin ribbon so they could keep their own wedding rings in or put a wee tea light in would be a lovely gesture... This is the point at which your beloved will think you have actually lost the plot.

If you have managed to source said sparklers, fortune tellers, romantic table trivia in butterfly shaped boxes( in my defense it only came in butterfly shaped boxes), bubbles in mini champagne bottles and heart shaped mini bowls in white organza and navy satin... and breathe... if you have managed to source all of that, wrap it, pack it and fly it 350 miles, it's probably best that you remember to put them out on the table and not forget about ALL of it till around 10pm when the meal was all finished and the people who were most likely to enjoy it were a few glasses of the rose to the good. At that point my beloved family and friends were making their own entertainment.

Afterwards when it's all over, you will have tons of free time as you don't have anything wedding related to do, you get a bit overgiddy with it. You need something to occupy that previously wedding related void of time and money. I have now persuaded my beloved that we now need to buy a wreck of a house and renovate it, as we now are practiced at using up all of our spare time, spending money and smiling at the same time.

And when you reflect, you know it was the best day ever, worth all the time and effort and then some. You don't need to practice your smile any more.