Fab Feb Photo Collage Festival: Day 18 Wedding Bells

One of the big differences between when I was a young adult and today, seems to be that many of us married young. I don’t mean this is a commendable thing, nor am I being judgemental of today’s delayed marriages or civil partnerships….simply making a social observation. We were among the early batch of our friends and family to marry: two cousins beat us to the altar, and one set of our uni friends. Now I look at our photos and think “Good heavens, we were young!” Of course like every young adult that ever walked we thought we were terribly mature <smile>.

Our plans had changed and we were to head off to Alotau in Papua New Guinea about ten days after our wedding rather than remaining in Brisbane. You might imagine that everything was in a bit of flurry. I remember one of the seminarians at  Pellegrini’s asking me how the wedding arrangements were going….I’m sure he thought either a crocodile or Doberman had got loose in the bookshop.

With so much to organise and Mr Cassmob flying in just days before the wedding I was just a tiny bit frazzled so it was great that my cousin took a Super 8 movie of some of the day’s events (but not in the church, heaven forbid!) Much of our day remains a series of snapshots.

• Convincing the priest we could have folk hymns rather than the “old faithfuls”, and all that in the middle of Lent when no one was supposed to marry, and there was supposed to be no music –quite an achievement in retrospect.
• The cringe-factor compulsory pre-marriage classes with the priest.
• Rejecting the traditional hymn to Mary as my entrance hymn.
• Making my mother-in-law-to-be cry (not easy!) as I walked down the aisle to Mozart’s 21st.
• The priest’s injunction to the groomsman to ignore the best man if he fainted and just get the ring.
• The priest’s instructions to us not to look sideways at each other (he meant well but, I ask you, how silly was that! Even sillier that we tried to comply!)
• The gap in my friends, and bridesmaids, because one of my best friends was away.
• My friend, a seminarian who was assisting at the ceremony, making a joke afterwards about how I finally matched my parents’ house’s colour scheme (a standing stir)
• Mr Cassmob fiddling with his ring as we came out of the church.
• The crazy speed race by the limo driver to the reception because he had another booking: No chance of any sort of romantic moment as we lurched from side to side while he slalomed around corners.
• Hiding Dad’s 1^st car from our uni friends so no one would make a mess of it as our getaway car.

  

  Leaving the reception. My outfit is another of Mum’s creations -in a watermelon red colour. It would be nice if we were both still this thin!

• Our reception in one of the university’s function rooms, appropriately so much part of our story.
• Mum’s floral decorations on the tables.
• Our decluttered wedding cake after I removed lots of the icing  decor – I was having a “simple” phase. Mum had made the fruit cake to her recipe but we’d had it iced professionally.
• My wedding dress made by my mother as well as my “going away” dress. Do they do those any more?
• Driving through a monster storm to get to our first night’s honeymoon accommodation.
• Being recognised while on honeymoon as our photo had been in the paper, and I guess we looked exactly what we were, honeymooners.
• Trying our first Mexican meal at a place near Palm Beach on the Gold Coast.

 Do you remember your wedding day or did it pass in a blur? I’m not sure I’d go through a “bells and whistles” wedding any more, but then maybe that’s because I’ve already had the traditional wedding. At any rate it’s had a pretty good rate of return on everyone’s investment <smile>.

This post is part of the February Photo Collage Festival and the Family History Writing Challenge.