venue visit

(photo by me)

This weekend was spent visiting the venue with both mine and J's parents.

Beautiful countryside and weather, copious amounts of tea and lots of blackberry and sloe picking meant that what could have been a stressful couple of days was actually utterly lovely. My mum found a four-leafed clover at the farm, which she wrapped in tissue and made me press in a 1950s film encyclopaedia that J's dad had found for us at a charity shop that morning ("I thought you could put this in your loo. It would be good toilet reading.")

(photo by me)

There were scones, there was booze and it was peaceful. They walked up the hill with us to where we're going to get married and declared it lovely.

They talked about their own weddings: my parents was in a church and then a church hall for the reception, six weeks after my dad was made redundant. They cancelled everything when he lost his job, but everyone rallied round. A friend took the photos and another friend became their chauffeur, even buying a velvet jacket, a cap and flowers for the parcel shelf of his brand new cream Ford Cortina. Food was brought to the hall made by aunties and apparently everything went off great, aside from my Grandad pouring a pint of ale over my mum's dress, but she didn't mind. They've been married 28 years.

J's parents were married after knowing each other for just a month, and having only had two dates. They both worked for the foreign service in Africa and were about to enter a war zone. The only reason they were allowed to get married so quickly was because they both had security clearance (any man in the service who wanted to get married had to have his wife-t0-be cleared, a process that could take months). I believe they have been married 30-something years.

There were just two hairy moments. The first was crossing a dual carriageway with my mother-in-law to be driving us ladies to the florist. The sun was glaring, she had no sunglasses and we were trying to turn right. "Tell me when to turn, I can't see a thing!" is not something you want to hear on any road, let alone a fast one.

The other moment was when the same mother-in-law to be confessed that she had started buying baby clothes. N0 - there is no secret - I'm not pregnant. She just really really really would like it if I was. Cripes.