The story of my actual wedding day

My hubby and I – Oo that sounds like a wedding service – we – putting it mildly – had had a few ups and downs in the first two years we were together. We’d met in the November a couple of years before, dated about eight times, and then, due to circumstance, he’d moved in with me, so stuff was a bit rushed, but then he wanted to put down permanent roots, because he’s ten years older than me and just wanted to feel settled, so we bought a house together five months after meeting. Yep, I know all very in at the deep end, but I think he wanted to persuade me I was the one he wanted to keep.

Then things were a couple of years of rocky because I’d moved away from all my friends and he was going through a lot of stuff sorting out his life history. So finally when we hit a patch of flat ground we sort of had this agreement that why not get married now.

So if you meet me, you’ll see I don’t have an engagement ring. We didn’t get engaged. We just got married 😀 I don’t even remember the conversation, which ended up agreeing it. I think it went something like. Why don’t we get married now? Why not? I know not romantic at all really, but then it is, if you’re a just-do-it type of person. What I do remember is going along to the registry office at the beginning of December and saying, “How soon can we get married?” If I’d paid for a special licence we could have done it sooner, but we didn’t have much money so I booked it for as soon as possible, in 3 weeks, December 22^nd. The plan was just to do it and not tell anyone. We’d had such a rocky road in the first year we were together that my parents weren’t that happy with us, so we thought they’d be against the whole idea anyway, and we weren’t getting married for anyone else’s benefit anyway, we’d both been married before, so we’d done the big wedding once, and gone through the failure following it, so we were just going to keep it quiet.

I’d previously got married at nineteen, and was separated from him by twenty-one, and I felt awful about how much money my parents had wasted on that wedding. Anyway, that’s a whole other story.

I’d met Tim two weeks after my twenty-second birthday, and I was twenty-four when we got married. But it wasn’t as quiet as we originally planned because I started feeling guilty, and worrying what people would think if we didn’t invite them, so I caved about ten days before and told his family and my family, and just said, “We’re getting married, come if you want. But there’s not going to be a reception or anything.”

Well it turned out my parents had relented on their previous views – and they refused to let us get away with no reception, so they insisted on asking a local pub just to put on a few trays of sandwiches and stuff, only in the bar, not in a hired room.

I hadn’t told anyone at work about it still though, but the day before,on the Friday before lunch, I told one of my work friends. They all knew what a year of it I’d had at work too, so she, promptly told everyone without letting me know and when we finished work to go to the office after work drinks party at five pm, I was presented with a bottle of champagne, with fifty pounds stuck to it, as they’d done a collection. Then the office party became my hen night, although it was half men too, but many of the men were my good friends. So I then told all them when we were getting married, and which pub we were going to after.

So the morning of our wedding – we got up – got ready together – I’d bought a special dress, it was covered in small yellow and pale brown flowers and I had a black jacket and hat. Black, for a wedding? I know, I was very non-conformist. I’d also bought flowers, which I’d collected two days before, it was meant to be a really small posy but they’d done them wrong and made them big, grrr, which looked stupid with my non dressy outfit. Anyway, we walked about a mile into town to the registry office, he wanted a plain black tie and didn’t have one, so he walked on down to the department store, while I went in to meet the family, about fifteen mins before the service was about to begin. My parents had showed, his parents had showed, two of his brothers were there with their families, and our friends, Steve and Caz, who’d known about it all along were there as they’d stuck by us through our rocking times and we’d asked them to be witnesses.

Tim arrived back at the registry office with about three minutes to go, doing up the black tie he’d bought, and before his brothers he was full of swagger and acting like marrying me was nothing important. Typical man.

Anyway, so we did it, and I barely remember the service, only from the pictures, and there aren’t many, because you can’t take them of yourselves, (this was before the age of selfies. Haha) and as I had my accident a few weeks after, all our family who had taken pics forgot about letting us have them so most pictures just vanished. When we stepped outside two of the guys I was friends with at work were out there and threw confetti over us, which was sweet, especially as they’d come along with hangovers from the party the day before, we got married at about ten o’clock or even earlier.

I only remember it was so early because we had to then drive around in our friends car, wasting time till the pub opened. When the pub did open, a couple of my girlfriends from work turned up too, although Tim was so drunk by twelve I think he offended one of them somehow, she always looks at him warily even now whenever she sees him – and he can’t remember what he said.

It was sort of like a real wedding reception though, as Tim’s brothers’ kids were running around, and we had half the pub to ourselves with the buffet of sandwiches my Mum had paid for on the tables. Still it all broke up a little after one pm, which was probably good, as Tim had been so nervous he’d drunk loads, and Steve had drunk loads too, though his wife, Caz, was pregnant so she was the driver and entirely sober. We said good-bye to our family and other friends who’d turned up and then went home with Caz driving. Steve and Tim were sick back at the house. LOL. Then Caz took Steve home at about three and Tim crashed out asleep on the bed, in a drunken stupor. LOL.

I think he woke up, and ate the steak and chips I’d cooked him at about ten pm… And the rest is a secret 😉

And that’s the story of my real wedding day… You’ll have to see if you ever spot any likenesses in my books 🙂