My wedding day disasters part two

Yes, there is more! Don’t worry, some things did actually go right for us! I’ll fill you in on those another time.

My friend who was chosen to sign the registrar was told, months before our big day, that valid photo ID was required to be an official witness. That was no problem for him apparently so I didn’t waste another moment thinking about it. Seven days, exactly, before our day he told me that his photo ID was out of date and had been for months. In a panic I emailed our registrar and asked her what we could do now. We had to face a long wait for her reply over that weekend. Monday brought good news, however, with an email sitting in my inbox informing me that she would accept the out of date ID. Wahoo!

My better half wanted to wear cufflinks with her shirt which was fine. Well, it was fine until we realised that her brand new shirt only had one open cufflink hole. We were seriously not impressed. So, I left her sitting in my bedroom at my Mother’s house while I went downstairs and started ripping things out of the drawer in the hope that I could find something to help our situation. The lining was present so I could clearly see where the cufflink hole was meant to be. Eventually I had a light bulb moment and poked tiny holes along the lining of the absent hole. I used these tiny holes as a guideline of where to cut. I tried my best to cut in a straight line to create the best opening possible. (A gay on her wedding day attempting to do anything straight is madness.) Somehow I did it. It turned out perfect and no one could have ever guessed that her shirt was temporarily confused about whether it wanted to be cufflink friendly or not.

During our vows the words “lawful impediment” had to be said. You know, declaring that there’s no lawful reason why you should not be wed. My love struggled here big time. There was obviously no reason why we should not wed. The problem here was that pronouncing the word “impediment” was incredibly difficult for her. I think she would have happily said her vows upside if it meant she could avoid saying that word. We had practiced pronouncing it and she had improved a lot but on the day the nerves of saying it in front of everyone got the better of her. She attempted to say it three times before saying “Yeah, that word”, however, on the fourth attempt she did it. Yay!

As part of our ceremony we planned to light candles so we had a small candle holder that held three candles. The idea was to light a candle each separately then light one together as a symbol of two people joining together. This was a simple gesture that should not have taken up much time. Who am I kidding? There was no simple with us that day! One of the legs of the candle holder broke, before we had lit any candles, turning it into a bit of a potential fire hazard. This issue was resolved by my wife putting her cigarette box underneath the candle holder to replace the missing leg. Our registrar said some lovely words then it was time to light the candles. Unfortunately, our lighter was in the cigarette box. Damn! Our guests noticed the problem and we suddenly had lighters coming our way from every direction. I felt a sudden strange surge of gratitude for the fact that so many of our friends and family are smokers.

Despite all of our obstacles, we were wed. We left the room to the sounds of Savage Garden’s Truly Madly Deeply as our friends and family applauded and wished us the best in life. I was almost expecting the CD to start skipping or for the stereo it was in to decide to stop working. Luckily neither of these things happened. What did happen was this: as we both walked away we knew this was the start of our forever together and it felt amazing. I would have happily frozen time just to enjoy the elation I was feeling for longer. Life is so much better with her and I am so much happier knowing that she is mine.

This Moment

She gasped. Her heart started beating faster and her eyes were glowing. Happiness shot through her body as she got high from the power of the moment. She’s more excited than she ever could have imagined. This moment should last forever. This feeling is so good it should be bottled and sold she thinks to herself. Then she looks through the crowd of people and sees her. Everyone else surrounding them begins to evaporate slowly. The vision of beauty gracefully moves towards her. Each step she takes is breathtaking. Her short hair is shining as the gleam of sunshine coming through the sparkling clear windows hits it. The vision of beauty finally stops beside her and they embrace warmly. This is what she’s been waiting for. This is amazing. They grab each others hands instinctively and look forward simultaneously. The woman in front of them smiles brightly and her words wash over them like a warm wave on a cold winters day. This is the start of their time, their ceremony. They are getting married and this is the beginning of a promising and hopeful future. This is what love is all about and everyone deserves the chance to savour the brilliance of true love and commitment.