The One About The Wedding...Part 1

Last week M's best friend A got married, it was a mid-week wedding in Suffolk (and not Surrey as I kept telling people!)  M, along with another friend C had been appointed best man.  The boys decided between them that as C was more comfortable doing public speaking, he would do the best man speech, and M would arrange the stag do.  They went to Bristol a couple of weekends ago with just the closest friends from Uni (6 of them altogether) and had a very busy few days with go-karting, clay pidgeon shooting and nightclubs!  (A, having two best men, also had two stag do's, the second being just a day out to Ascot races and another night club out with all his other friends from London, which was arranged by his brother-in-law to be).

We went down on Tuesday, (in the car - far better for Eddie spotting you know!) and made it in really good time, despite the weather trying to slow us down with a torrential thunder storm!  (Eddie's spotted were in the 30's - not all the names could be seen, and none of the fancy trailers were seen from the TV series (did you know there is a series on Channel 5 at the moment all about Eddie Stobart - its fascinating to watch)).

Anyway...We were booked into a Travel Lodge as that was the closest (and the cheapest) place near the venue.  It was somewhere to stay, it had a decent bed, a TV, plenty of space to hang things (and an iron and board for the morning when all the boys needed to iron out the creases of their brand new shirts of yet taken out of the packets!)  We literally dumped our gear in the room and went off to meet the groom and all the other men at the venue, where the family had rented out a large seven room cottage in the grounds for the duration of the wedding.  The venue was stunning, with lots of grounds and completely secluded from the outside hustle and bustle of daily life, and because it was just their wedding and nothing ese was going on in the main house that day we had the area to ourselves, and weren't running into strangers around the place, which was rather nice.

The girls had already gone off to the next town for spa treatments to be pampered.  As I'm saving pennies, I decided to hang out with the boys while they had a BBQ, and watched Wimbledon in the lounge.  Did I mention that on the Tuesday it rained?  Quite a lot???  So the BBQ had to be moved in doors, but was still just as tasty!  And A and his two best men were able to do some last minute checks to the reception layout, and test microphones and things.

Later that evening we all went for a meal in the next town, the close family, the bridesmaids, groomsmen and their partners.  I think there were 30 of us in all, and we took up the whole of one end of the pub!  It was lovely to catch up with A & N again, as I hadn't seen them since their engagement party last June.  N was being very tight lipped about her dress, and wouldn't share any details at all!  The meal was yummy, it had all been pre-ordered (and as we sometimes do, M lets me choose two starters and mains, so that if I don't like what I've chosen there is a good chance that I'll like the other one - he's very sweet like that) but I had the leek and potato soup which was so filling I didn't manage to finish my main course!  And the main was a red onion and tomato tart with feta cheese and rocket.  No room for it all though after the soup, let alone dessert!

The bride and groom to be

A and his two best men

Me & M (who is hugging the gerbera as it is my favourite flower and seems to be following us wherever we go at the moment!)

The girls all headed off back to the venue to stay the night at the cottage at about 10:30pm, and I got the boys back to the Travel lodge for just after 11pm.  And they were really good and actually all went straight off to bed!  (I think the fact that the Travel Lodge had no bar had something to do with it!)

Stay tuned for the next instalment where I tell all about the wedding.....