Public ritual celebration

Well, dear reader, we are married, my Viking Sousaphonist and I. All requited and ridiculously happy, here we are.

And, oh! what a wonderful wedding day.

Where shall I start? At the beginning, of course. Here is the wooden footbridge over the mill stream from the field where the cars were parked into the meadow where we held the wedding.

And here are our three young bridesmaids, my god-daughter Iona, and my nieces Beatrice and Colette, with their Mum, Tamzin (pregnant then with my newest niece, Aurelie, who was born last month). Colette ate most of her bouquet before walking down the avenue of trees that served as our aisle, but who can blame her, they looked delicious.

My dearest friends Fugitive Pieces and Piereth made all the bouquets. And they were absolutely gorgeous.

We also had Ed’s two lovely nieces, Gwenny and Amber, as Maids of Honour so I was surrounded by beautiful, kind, smart and fun females.

We all walked down through an avenue of trees in Spring bud, strung with colourful bunting, to the willow arch where all our family and friends – and the groom – were waiting.

My sister, Dana, and Ed’s elder brother, Charles, and his uncle, Julian, read poems and stories for us, and we sang “It Had To Be You” and “My Baby Just Cares For Me”. We talked about love and how much we loved all the people there witnessing our love for each other.

And then we exchanged the rings we’d made together in Sydney [more on that anon].

And so we were Man and Wife. At last. Cue much cheering and throwing of lavender.

Here we all are, including the 50 children and several of the dogs.

I’ll post the pics of the tug-of-war, treasure hunt, hog roast, petting farm, pony rides, cake, dancing, bonfire, fireworks and chinese lanterns later. But gosh, what a day!