Hi it has taken me all day to write this!! One finger typing!I know it is stream of consciousness but I have been wanting to write it up since the event. See what better order you can put it into! Before I send it to them. And you think organising a wedding is difficult? YES IT IS!! It is nine pages long!
Rachel and Rob’s wedding

This was a magical occasion. You know the sort of magic where a rabbit is pulled out of a hat? Well it was more than an illusion. It was very real and very special for a number of reasons. Rachel is my daughter and English and Rob is American and they live in Malibu and they both wanted to be married in our home town with many of her many relatives and her friends. I collected her from the airport with her beautiful dress about 12 days before the event.
I had very little money to run this wedding so I had to be very resourceful
Complicated is an understatement….
I had four brothers and one sister and we come from a family who love to travel. Two brothers live in Canada and another was in Australia. It was to be the first time in 43 years that we were all to be together, and sadly the last. But how special for that to happen. We had all seen each other the meanwhile but not all together.
They wanted a Melchite Catholic wedding because Rob’s origins are from the Lebanon. Something new I had to learn. I went to our Roman Catholic priest to talk to him about the wedding. He immediately assumed I wanted him to officiate at it. In fact I only needed his church and a Melchite Catholic Priest. He said he would only marry people who went to his church, pointing at me in strict admonition telling me I should go to church. I explained that I was there on behalf of my daughter who lives in America whereupon he asked if she went to church there? “Anyway” he said “I don’t like Americans”. “Really?” I said in astonishment. He continued “I don’t like America”. “Have you been there?” I asked. “No” he said. ”I don’t like the way they live”. I was shocked and horrified at his reaction. I grew up in this religion and learned that there were Catholics and non Catholics!! And nothing about Jews or Hindus! However I was able to book the church for a “private hire” which was unknown until then! To complicate matters, the flower ladies who always decorated the church did not understand Melchite Catholics so refused to decorate the church
So I was left with an undecorated church!!
The flowers
For a wedding on a Saturday when they would have needed to decorate it for the Sunday anyway! Oh dear. More challenges!
I am a very friendly person and I met some lost people in the wrong place. When they spoke I realised they were South African and being an independent traveller myself, I know how important it is to be helpful as I have been helped so many times. It transpired that Elise was a flower decorator so then I had a wonderful woman to decorate the church and do Rachel’s flowers. None of the Sunday church goers had ever seen anything like it!! I also had a promise from another creative friend to do anything I wanted for the wedding, so Sue did the four bridemaid’s flowers and the table ones. We had three dustbins full of flowers delivered to achieve this. In the end the flowers were magnificent everywhere.


With so little money available Rachel and Rob said we could have the reception in the garden and finish at 6 or so. I was working then in a building called Campus West where there is a lovely reception room and where Rachel had had her 16th birthday party. I booked that and also booked my best DJ, Mr.Wonderful. I organise dances as I knew he would create a good atmosphere. I was also extremely reluctant to finish such a magic event at 6pm when people were travelling long distances to be there. I had three floors from three different buildings delivered and assembled together for nearly wall to wall wooden floor on top of the carpet for dancing.
Campus West had not even a knife and fork or salt and pepper pot so I had to hire the lot. We had china, silver cutlery and linen tablecloths and napkins. My friend Jacky is also very creative and volunteered to decorate the tables. She was wonderful too as was everybody involved. She got all her family to fold the napkins in waterfalls and there were fresh flowers in each. She wanted circular tablecloths so I found some of those in London and she decorated all the tables with peach and cream net draped all around and tied with the same colour ribbons.
She organised gas filled balloons too, which were on the tables and also on the long wide staircase where everyone came in. Also on the tables were the menus beautifully written by Karen on beautiful photocards I had made of flowers mostly in peach or cream colours. Also the name places were bookmarks which I had also made and Wendy, my artist friend with beautiful writing, had written on them all in silver pen “Thank you for coming to our wedding” and Rachel and Rob had signed them all.
Campus West had never looked so beautiful.
The licence… They needed a special licence as they would not be resident in England long enough for banns to be read so I went to the Registrars office for one explaining what we needed. She asked if either of them had been married before and I cheerfully lied and said “No”! How could anyone understand that Rachel had been arrested at 22 going back to New York and taken to a place of high security as she had outstayed her visa and worked illegally as a qualified nanny. She was “invited” to go home and accepted that invitation or she would have been deported. I collected her from Heathrow. She said it was story to tell her grandchildren. At the time it was World Cup football in America. I asked her what she really wanted to do. She said she wanted to be back in America as her job was there, her clothes and she hadn’t said goodbye to her friends. So my advice was to get another passport, another ticket on another airline to another destination and challenge the United States Immigration Intelligence Computer Network, and learn about football too. We had faxed from America an invitation to a World Cup game, and taught her about football! And she cleared her filofax and suitcase for one holiday amount of clothes for one season. With her new passport she flew off to Washington. I couldn’t go to bed until she rang me from the Youth Hostel there. With that kind of experience she didn’t want it to happen again. So the true answer to the question of has either of them been married before should have been “Yes, But only to each other!” They had walked into a Registry Office in LA and got married with no friends there. Their real celebration was to be with their family and friends in England. But try explaining that to a registrar in England!
The invitations
Meanwhile Rachel and Rob and his Mum in Ohio were sorting the invitation list and sending them from America.
Rachel’s dress I had been with them in the spring for their engagement party in Beverley Hills and we had gone wedding dress shopping but she couldn’t find anything she liked at that time so she designed her dress and had it made up. It was a dream.
She wanted her colours to be peaches and cream and her four cousin’s four daughters to be bridesmaids.
The bridesmaids
My friend Diane at work offered to make the dresses. Knowing how little girls love their pretty frocks and love to spin, I bought loads of fabric so there was a lot of material in the skirts in three layers and they were lovely and they certainly spun with the spontaneous joy of happy children on the day.
However, the complication here was that one cousin wasn’t speaking to her father, my brother, because of his earlier alcoholism and violence, both verbal and physical. He is much gentler now. So that cousin couldn’t come so her daughter couldn’t be a bridesmaid and dysfunctional family as they all were, her brother and sister didn’t come either. So we had a spare peach dress and invited another little girl Hanna who, as her grandma, my friend said, “would kill to be a bridesmaid” and the other three second cousins made her very welcome.
Sue made their headdresses and their baskets of flowers. They all looked lovely. Rachel’s best friend Catherine was the maid of honour and one of my friends made her a silver bracelet as her present.
The hospitality was complicated too. The Americans stayed in expensive London hotels and we had the rehearsal dinner in the Plaza at Hyde Park. I ran a mini bus from here to take us all there. It is an American habit and Rob’s mum paid for it all and although we had no rehearsal, we had the dinner for all family. Finally all my four brothers and my sister were together again. It was very powerful feeling to be together again. It was never to happen again. I had asked my brother Roger, the amiable drinker, who lives in the next town in a three bedroom house alone, to de clutter his house to accommodate the family, as we all stay in each other’s houses when we go to see each other. At first he was indignant but then did it in great style, buying new beds etc and was very pleased with his contribution to the magic wedding. Brother Peter from Australia, brother Kevin and two of his children and brother Michael both from Canada stayed there. It didn’t take long for Peter and Michael to quarrel!
My father in law was 82 and came with his girlfriend and they stayed with my great friend Jocelyn in great comfort and kindness. My father’s last brother, uncle Sea came from Ireland and stayed with my beautiful friend Margaret. The great cooks, Judy and Alan stayed with another wonderful friend, another Judy.
My cousin Alan and his wife Rose were over from New Zealand so they and his sister Ann and her husband Pete stayed in bed and breakfast accommodation locally. Rachel stayed here in her old room.
My Italian friend Margarita and her partner Paul stayed here as did my Canadian niece Karen, who lives in Ireland. This is certainly a little house with BIG IDEAS! One of the lodgers did the Order of Service on his computer at work, which I had printed in peach! Another one used his car for the bridesmaids and a previous lodger, little Val, whose wedding reception was here some years ago, gave us the wedding car.
The food and drink. Judy Alan and I went to France to buy the wine. We bought six bottles, three white three red and tasted them in the car park. Choosing from this we returned and bought crates of it and peach liqueur and three kinds of little chocolates which on the day were lost and when found I ate them!
Rachel had wanted baked salmon. I had bought a dozen salmon and put them in the freezer but I had not had them boned! Now cooking twelve salmon on the day of the wedding and boning and dressing them is no joke so I ordered another dozen fresh filletted ones to be collected on the wedding day. This was a great relief to the cook Judy, who was absolutely heroic in her determination to achieve something wonderful. She had brought all the stuff she needed and worked tirelessly in very adverse conditions in the kitchen at Campus West. She also made canapés and puddings. Geraldine and John did butter curls and black dustbin liners of green salad. Wendy did vast quantities of tomato salad. Herbed new potatoes was the only hot food served. We had a variety of delicious rolls made at our bakers in Welwyn. Margarita made tiranisu. Judy made apple pies. I made summer puddings, cheesecakes, pavlovas, fruit salad and chocolate mousse. Puddings to die for!
When people arrived at the reception they had a choice of cocktails created by my friend Sara and eight hundred canapés made by Judy and Carol. And the harpist played beautiful music and the huge landing was filled with laughing people, except for my friends the cooks, who were afraid to put the potatoes on to cook! As timing was essential!! And everybody was enjoying themselves and there seemed no specific time to go in and eat.
The wedding cake. This was a beautiful rich three tier fruit cake made by my sister Deirdre and decorated by her husband George and had been sitting on my desk at work for a week underneath a threatening collapsing ceiling. There was no room for it at home with all the comings and goings. It was on a swan stand looking very dramatic on a small table with an antique lace table cloth.
Comings and goings One day at home so many people came that we did fresh coffee and American bagels all morning. Then Uncle Sea said he would take me out to lunch but I was already full of bagels!
The wedding day. Rachel who lives on a fat free diet wanted bacon sandwiches for breakfast. But she had no time as she needed to get her hair and face done so by the time she was in her beautiful dress outside for photos, she hadn’t eaten so had one then .She had also always wanted silk stockings so I ordered some for her from John Lewis which laddered immediately she put them on from her stiff net underlining. Meanwhile the London Americans all phoned being lost as they had mislaid their maps given to them at the rehearsal dinner the night before. Alma, Rob’s mum phoned too so I asked her to do a reading in the service and she agreed. Meanwhile the drains blocked and flooded so I had to unblock them. Meanwhile the phone rang again “Hello. My name is David”. “How can I help you?” I said. To my utter astonishment he said “ I am the priest who is going to marry your daughter”. “Really?” I said. “Where is Father Shafic?” “ He is stuck in the Lebanon” he said. “And where are you now?” I asked. “In Devon” he said. “And have you a car?” I asked. “No” he said, ”I am coming up by train”. “Please take a taxi from the station and come to the house first” I said. To which he agreed. Meanwhile all my family arrived for lunch, with all the bridesmaids and Ian, the lodger, whose car was the bridesmaids one, had drunk all the beer so quickly rushed into town and bought another crate. The flowers arrived at last with Elise which were stunning and from Sue for the bridesmaids in baskets which were equally stunning. My friend Bev had helped both Elise and Sue. Father David arrived who was lovely. He confessed that this was to be his first Melchite Catholic wedding as all his others had been Baptist ones. I asked him to make it all clear as hardly anybody in the congregation would understand what was it was all about. I took Rachel, who looked absolutely beautiful, to the church, to give her away, in my unusual designer second hand purple outfit and a borrowed pink hat, purple died shoes and small bag stuffed with cool cash to pay church, trumpeter, band, choir, photographers and harpist and my small camera. And walked her up the aisle. The churched looked wonderful with all the flowers from Elise and Bev. What experience and excellence Elise has. What a wonderful friend. And Bev too. They and Sue spent two days on the flowers.
The Service Well this was something completely different from what most of us are used to. A bit like Greek Orthodox. The bride and bridegroom had crowns on their heads and walked around the altar three times chanting. Rachel and Rob had chosen their hymns and a local members of “Singing for Pleasure” sang them. I read from “The Prophet” and Alma read something too. We had a special musician to play the trumpet voluntary, which we all love and to everybody’s surprise and delight there was a band playing outside the church with wonderful brass band and trombones and trumpets and drums. These were a group of retired musicians who all got themselves together to play again for fun and entertainment. Indeed one of them made a video of the wedding but hadn’t realised it was my daughter’s wedding or he would have filmed the whole ceremony, but at least we all have a short one. While photos were taken in the sunshine, after a week of rain, the people were entertained.
The photos were important and Rachel had chosen a photographer recommended by a friend and she really loves black and white ones.
However, one dark evening at midnight on my way from one of my evening dances, at the petrol station I met a group of boisterous noisy youths so I asked them what all the noise was about. They said they were art students who had finished their exams. I had seen their exhibition at the university which was interesting. I asked if any of them were photographers and one said he was, so I asked him if he wanted to photograph a wedding, to which he said “Yes”. In the event he brought along another photographer so I gave them each a supply of colour and black and white films and gave them the freedom to photograph anything so we had a wonderful collection to distribute to the family as I had four of everything printed. They were in our garden, in the church and outside the church. We also owned the negatives so later Rob printed some lovely black and white ones of Rachel. We had enough to give them away to lots of people. We bought hardly any of the professional ones which arrived six weeks later and were very disappointing.
The reception was wonderful. It had to be with all of our hard work. There was a whole salmon on every table and a chicken pasta alternative, or additional! with green salad, tomato salad, hot new potatoes and delicious rolls with butter curls and lots of wine. Puddings already described were fantastic. A smart red dressed master of ceremonies came to add glamour and co ordinate speeches. I made a speech of sincere thank yous to all my very many helpers and a poetic one I wrote too. Rachel also made a speech. We had Mr.Wonderful’s microphone and dear uncle Sea recorded them.
The first dance for the married pair was to the music Rob wrote, “Rachel’s theme”, which he spent weeks creating. The party went on and on. Mr.Wonderful played many of Rachel’s chosen favourite songs. He really was good.
There were double crown boards with photos of Rachel and Rob as they were growing up which entertained everybody. Alma, Rob’s mum, had reluctantly sent me her prized photos and one black and white photo which was especially interesting was Rob with David Bowie as they both love music.
Rachel enjoyed herself so much she didn’t want to leave. All her college friends were there, some with their children. Her cousins and her lovely family. The beautiful cake was cut and distributed with specially printed napkins.
There was an evening buffet and peach candles on the tables. The bar was then open.
And when everyone had finally gone, there was only Jacky and me to clear up. Downstairs there was then a night club so we fed all the bouncers with yet more salmon and washed hundreds of glasses and plates. All were hired and had to go back. All breakages paid for. We were there until 3am when the building closed and back the next morning to finish off and pack everything away. By then the family had arrived and help was given. My other daughter Elizabeth simply arrived with her then partner and did nothing to help. However I did the very best I could with my many wonderful friends to create a day we could all never forget. It was in all the local papers too, with Rachel’s photo both the week before with invitations to our local friends to come to the church and a feature article of Rachel with a photo of us both, and the week after with a press photo. We all enjoyed it very much
Hi it has taken me all day to write this!! One finger typing!I know it is stream of consciousness but I have been wanting to write it up since the event. See what better order you can put it into! Before I send it to them. And you think organising a wedding is difficult? YES IT IS!! It is nine pages long!
Rachel and Rob’s wedding

This was a magical occasion. You know the sort of magic where a rabbit is pulled out of a hat? Well it was more than an illusion. It was very real and very special for a number of reasons. Rachel is my daughter and English and Rob is American and they live in Malibu and they both wanted to be married in our home town with many of her many relatives and her friends. I collected her from the airport with her beautiful dress about 12 days before the event.
I had very little money to run this wedding so I had to be very resourceful
Complicated is an understatement….
I had four brothers and one sister and we come from a family who love to travel. Two brothers live in Canada and another was in Australia. It was to be the first time in 43 years that we were all to be together, and sadly the last. But how special for that to happen. We had all seen each other the meanwhile but not all together.
They wanted a Melchite Catholic wedding because Rob’s origins are from the Lebanon. Something new I had to learn. I went to our Roman Catholic priest to talk to him about the wedding. He immediately assumed I wanted him to officiate at it. In fact I only needed his church and a Melchite Catholic Priest. He said he would only marry people who went to his church, pointing at me in strict admonition telling me I should go to church. I explained that I was there on behalf of my daughter who lives in America whereupon he asked if she went to church there? “Anyway” he said “I don’t like Americans”. “Really?” I said in astonishment. He continued “I don’t like America”. “Have you been there?” I asked. “No” he said. ”I don’t like the way they live”. I was shocked and horrified at his reaction. I grew up in this religion and learned that there were Catholics and non Catholics!! And nothing about Jews or Hindus! However I was able to book the church for a “private hire” which was unknown until then! To complicate matters, the flower ladies who always decorated the church did not understand Melchite Catholics so refused to decorate the church
So I was left with an undecorated church!!
The flowers
For a wedding on a Saturday when they would have needed to decorate it for the Sunday anyway! Oh dear. More challenges!
I am a very friendly person and I met some lost people in the wrong place. When they spoke I realised they were South African and being an independent traveller myself, I know how important it is to be helpful as I have been helped so many times. It transpired that Elise was a flower decorator so then I had a wonderful woman to decorate the church and do Rachel’s flowers. None of the Sunday church goers had ever seen anything like it!! I also had a promise from another creative friend to do anything I wanted for the wedding, so Sue did the four bridemaid’s flowers and the table ones. We had three dustbins full of flowers delivered to achieve this. In the end the flowers were magnificent everywhere.


With so little money available Rachel and Rob said we could have the reception in the garden and finish at 6 or so. I was working then in a building called Campus West where there is a lovely reception room and where Rachel had had her 16th birthday party. I booked that and also booked my best DJ, Mr.Wonderful. I organise dances as I knew he would create a good atmosphere. I was also extremely reluctant to finish such a magic event at 6pm when people were travelling long distances to be there. I had three floors from three different buildings delivered and assembled together for nearly wall to wall wooden floor on top of the carpet for dancing.
Campus West had not even a knife and fork or salt and pepper pot so I had to hire the lot. We had china, silver cutlery and linen tablecloths and napkins. My friend Jacky is also very creative and volunteered to decorate the tables. She was wonderful too as was everybody involved. She got all her family to fold the napkins in waterfalls and there were fresh flowers in each. She wanted circular tablecloths so I found some of those in London and she decorated all the tables with peach and cream net draped all around and tied with the same colour ribbons.
She organised gas filled balloons too, which were on the tables and also on the long wide staircase where everyone came in. Also on the tables were the menus beautifully written by Karen on beautiful photocards I had made of flowers mostly in peach or cream colours. Also the name places were bookmarks which I had also made and Wendy, my artist friend with beautiful writing, had written on them all in silver pen “Thank you for coming to our wedding” and Rachel and Rob had signed them all.
Campus West had never looked so beautiful.
The licence… They needed a special licence as they would not be resident in England long enough for banns to be read so I went to the Registrars office for one explaining what we needed. She asked if either of them had been married before and I cheerfully lied and said “No”! How could anyone understand that Rachel had been arrested at 22 going back to New York and taken to a place of high security as she had outstayed her visa and worked illegally as a qualified nanny. She was “invited” to go home and accepted that invitation or she would have been deported. I collected her from Heathrow. She said it was story to tell her grandchildren. At the time it was World Cup football in America. I asked her what she really wanted to do. She said she wanted to be back in America as her job was there, her clothes and she hadn’t said goodbye to her friends. So my advice was to get another passport, another ticket on another airline to another destination and challenge the United States Immigration Intelligence Computer Network, and learn about football too. We had faxed from America an invitation to a World Cup game, and taught her about football! And she cleared her filofax and suitcase for one holiday amount of clothes for one season. With her new passport she flew off to Washington. I couldn’t go to bed until she rang me from the Youth Hostel there. With that kind of experience she didn’t want it to happen again. So the true answer to the question of has either of them been married before should have been “Yes, But only to each other!” They had walked into a Registry Office in LA and got married with no friends there. Their real celebration was to be with their family and friends in England. But try explaining that to a registrar in England!
The invitations
Meanwhile Rachel and Rob and his Mum in Ohio were sorting the invitation list and sending them from America.
Rachel’s dress I had been with them in the spring for their engagement party in Beverley Hills and we had gone wedding dress shopping but she couldn’t find anything she liked at that time so she designed her dress and had it made up. It was a dream.
She wanted her colours to be peaches and cream and her four cousin’s four daughters to be bridesmaids.
The bridesmaids
My friend Diane at work offered to make the dresses. Knowing how little girls love their pretty frocks and love to spin, I bought loads of fabric so there was a lot of material in the skirts in three layers and they were lovely and they certainly spun with the spontaneous joy of happy children on the day.
However, the complication here was that one cousin wasn’t speaking to her father, my brother, because of his earlier alcoholism and violence, both verbal and physical. He is much gentler now. So that cousin couldn’t come so her daughter couldn’t be a bridesmaid and dysfunctional family as they all were, her brother and sister didn’t come either. So we had a spare peach dress and invited another little girl Hanna who, as her grandma, my friend said, “would kill to be a bridesmaid” and the other three second cousins made her very welcome.
Sue made their headdresses and their baskets of flowers. They all looked lovely. Rachel’s best friend Catherine was the maid of honour and one of my friends made her a silver bracelet as her present.
The hospitality was complicated too. The Americans stayed in expensive London hotels and we had the rehearsal dinner in the Plaza at Hyde Park. I ran a mini bus from here to take us all there. It is an American habit and Rob’s mum paid for it all and although we had no rehearsal, we had the dinner for all family. Finally all my four brothers and my sister were together again. It was very powerful feeling to be together again. It was never to happen again. I had asked my brother Roger, the amiable drinker, who lives in the next town in a three bedroom house alone, to de clutter his house to accommodate the family, as we all stay in each other’s houses when we go to see each other. At first he was indignant but then did it in great style, buying new beds etc and was very pleased with his contribution to the magic wedding. Brother Peter from Australia, brother Kevin and two of his children and brother Michael both from Canada stayed there. It didn’t take long for Peter and Michael to quarrel!
My father in law was 82 and came with his girlfriend and they stayed with my great friend Jocelyn in great comfort and kindness. My father’s last brother, uncle Sea came from Ireland and stayed with my beautiful friend Margaret. The great cooks, Judy and Alan stayed with another wonderful friend, another Judy.
My cousin Alan and his wife Rose were over from New Zealand so they and his sister Ann and her husband Pete stayed in bed and breakfast accommodation locally. Rachel stayed here in her old room.
My Italian friend Margarita and her partner Paul stayed here as did my Canadian niece Karen, who lives in Ireland. This is certainly a little house with BIG IDEAS! One of the lodgers did the Order of Service on his computer at work, which I had printed in peach! Another one used his car for the bridesmaids and a previous lodger, little Val, whose wedding reception was here some years ago, gave us the wedding car.
The food and drink. Judy Alan and I went to France to buy the wine. We bought six bottles, three white three red and tasted them in the car park. Choosing from this we returned and bought crates of it and peach liqueur and three kinds of little chocolates which on the day were lost and when found I ate them!
Rachel had wanted baked salmon. I had bought a dozen salmon and put them in the freezer but I had not had them boned! Now cooking twelve salmon on the day of the wedding and boning and dressing them is no joke so I ordered another dozen fresh filletted ones to be collected on the wedding day. This was a great relief to the cook Judy, who was absolutely heroic in her determination to achieve something wonderful. She had brought all the stuff she needed and worked tirelessly in very adverse conditions in the kitchen at Campus West. She also made canapés and puddings. Geraldine and John did butter curls and black dustbin liners of green salad. Wendy did vast quantities of tomato salad. Herbed new potatoes was the only hot food served. We had a variety of delicious rolls made at our bakers in Welwyn. Margarita made tiranisu. Judy made apple pies. I made summer puddings, cheesecakes, pavlovas, fruit salad and chocolate mousse. Puddings to die for!
When people arrived at the reception they had a choice of cocktails created by my friend Sara and eight hundred canapés made by Judy and Carol. And the harpist played beautiful music and the huge landing was filled with laughing people, except for my friends the cooks, who were afraid to put the potatoes on to cook! As timing was essential!! And everybody was enjoying themselves and there seemed no specific time to go in and eat.
The wedding cake. This was a beautiful rich three tier fruit cake made by my sister Deirdre and decorated by her husband George and had been sitting on my desk at work for a week underneath a threatening collapsing ceiling. There was no room for it at home with all the comings and goings. It was on a swan stand looking very dramatic on a small table with an antique lace table cloth.
Comings and goings One day at home so many people came that we did fresh coffee and American bagels all morning. Then Uncle Sea said he would take me out to lunch but I was already full of bagels!
The wedding day. Rachel who lives on a fat free diet wanted bacon sandwiches for breakfast. But she had no time as she needed to get her hair and face done so by the time she was in her beautiful dress outside for photos, she hadn’t eaten so had one then .She had also always wanted silk stockings so I ordered some for her from John Lewis which laddered immediately she put them on from her stiff net underlining. Meanwhile the London Americans all phoned being lost as they had mislaid their maps given to them at the rehearsal dinner the night before. Alma, Rob’s mum phoned too so I asked her to do a reading in the service and she agreed. Meanwhile the drains blocked and flooded so I had to unblock them. Meanwhile the phone rang again “Hello. My name is David”. “How can I help you?” I said. To my utter astonishment he said “ I am the priest who is going to marry your daughter”. “Really?” I said. “Where is Father Shafic?” “ He is stuck in the Lebanon” he said. “And where are you now?” I asked. “In Devon” he said. “And have you a car?” I asked. “No” he said, ”I am coming up by train”. “Please take a taxi from the station and come to the house first” I said. To which he agreed. Meanwhile all my family arrived for lunch, with all the bridesmaids and Ian, the lodger, whose car was the bridesmaids one, had drunk all the beer so quickly rushed into town and bought another crate. The flowers arrived at last with Elise which were stunning and from Sue for the bridesmaids in baskets which were equally stunning. My friend Bev had helped both Elise and Sue. Father David arrived who was lovely. He confessed that this was to be his first Melchite Catholic wedding as all his others had been Baptist ones. I asked him to make it all clear as hardly anybody in the congregation would understand what was it was all about. I took Rachel, who looked absolutely beautiful, to the church, to give her away, in my unusual designer second hand purple outfit and a borrowed pink hat, purple died shoes and small bag stuffed with cool cash to pay church, trumpeter, band, choir, photographers and harpist and my small camera. And walked her up the aisle. The churched looked wonderful with all the flowers from Elise and Bev. What experience and excellence Elise has. What a wonderful friend. And Bev too. They and Sue spent two days on the flowers.
The Service Well this was something completely different from what most of us are used to. A bit like Greek Orthodox. The bride and bridegroom had crowns on their heads and walked around the altar three times chanting. Rachel and Rob had chosen their hymns and a local members of “Singing for Pleasure” sang them. I read from “The Prophet” and Alma read something too. We had a special musician to play the trumpet voluntary, which we all love and to everybody’s surprise and delight there was a band playing outside the church with wonderful brass band and trombones and trumpets and drums. These were a group of retired musicians who all got themselves together to play again for fun and entertainment. Indeed one of them made a video of the wedding but hadn’t realised it was my daughter’s wedding or he would have filmed the whole ceremony, but at least we all have a short one. While photos were taken in the sunshine, after a week of rain, the people were entertained.
The photos were important and Rachel had chosen a photographer recommended by a friend and she really loves black and white ones.
However, one dark evening at midnight on my way from one of my evening dances, at the petrol station I met a group of boisterous noisy youths so I asked them what all the noise was about. They said they were art students who had finished their exams. I had seen their exhibition at the university which was interesting. I asked if any of them were photographers and one said he was, so I asked him if he wanted to photograph a wedding, to which he said “Yes”. In the event he brought along another photographer so I gave them each a supply of colour and black and white films and gave them the freedom to photograph anything so we had a wonderful collection to distribute to the family as I had four of everything printed. They were in our garden, in the church and outside the church. We also owned the negatives so later Rob printed some lovely black and white ones of Rachel. We had enough to give them away to lots of people. We bought hardly any of the professional ones which arrived six weeks later and were very disappointing.
The reception was wonderful. It had to be with all of our hard work. There was a whole salmon on every table and a chicken pasta alternative, or additional! with green salad, tomato salad, hot new potatoes and delicious rolls with butter curls and lots of wine. Puddings already described were fantastic. A smart red dressed master of ceremonies came to add glamour and co ordinate speeches. I made a speech of sincere thank yous to all my very many helpers and a poetic one I wrote too. Rachel also made a speech. We had Mr.Wonderful’s microphone and dear uncle Sea recorded them.
The first dance for the married pair was to the music Rob wrote, “Rachel’s theme”, which he spent weeks creating. The party went on and on. Mr.Wonderful played many of Rachel’s chosen favourite songs. He really was good.
There were double crown boards with photos of Rachel and Rob as they were growing up which entertained everybody. Alma, Rob’s mum, had reluctantly sent me her prized photos and one black and white photo which was especially interesting was Rob with David Bowie as they both love music.
Rachel enjoyed herself so much she didn’t want to leave. All her college friends were there, some with their children. Her cousins and her lovely family. The beautiful cake was cut and distributed with specially printed napkins.
There was an evening buffet and peach candles on the tables. The bar was then open.
And when everyone had finally gone, there was only Jacky and me to clear up. Downstairs there was then a night club so we fed all the bouncers with yet more salmon and washed hundreds of glasses and plates. All were hired and had to go back. All breakages paid for. We were there until 3am when the building closed and back the next morning to finish off and pack everything away. By then the family had arrived and help was given. My other daughter Elizabeth simply arrived with her then partner and did nothing to help. However I did the very best I could with my many wonderful friends to create a day we could all never forget. It was in all the local papers too, with Rachel’s photo both the week before with invitations to our local friends to come to the church and a feature article of Rachel with a photo of us both, and the week after with a press photo. We all enjoyed it very much