Other people's weddings

[liv]

mobbsy and sonicdrift got married on Saturday. Many congratulations to both of you!

Now that jack and I have attended somebody else's wedding as a married couple, I think that marks the end of the newly-wed phase of our lives, and feels like a little mini-milestone after all the big milestones. Though it's surprisingly hard to turn off the part of my brain that has spent the last couple of years using other people's weddings as a source of ideas (to incorporate or reject) for our wedding. I don't want to let that turn into obsessively comparing everything either; I think the most useful conclusion is that mobbsy and sonicdrift made different decisions from us, and came up with a wedding that was as right for them as ours was for us.

People keep asking me, semi-ironically "how's married life?" The main difference is that my parents have started treating jack as family, which has both positives and negatives. On the plus side this means he gets invited to stay over and is even allowed to share a room with me; I'm slightly croggled that we had to actually go through a formal marriage ceremony to get to this point, but hey. On the negative side, he gets shouted at a lot when he's at family events, partly because people who are stressed see him as family who can handle that rather than a guest who should be protected out of politeness. Also partly because everybody feels entitled to give him lots of advice on every possible topic from how best to travel between two places to how to run his life, and that tends to involve lots of people shouting out suggestions. Having grown up with that style of interaction I find it totally comfortable, but it can be a little overwhelming for my rather quieter husband.

Anyway, this situation made it possible for me to get the last train to Cambridge on Friday night, so I was able to run the service and then travel. I don't love doing that, because travelling across the country isn't very restful, but there isn't a good way to have weekends in Cambridge if I refuse to travel on shabbat; if I took Friday afternoon off work I would not only be using up my holiday but letting the community down, as they kind of struggle with Friday night services without me.

Saturday morning jack decided he was curious to see how a Jewish service works, having listened to me babbling about them for the past four years. The Cambridge Reform shul my parents belong to is definitely the one I think of as "home"; the people there know me from a teenager, and their style of service is very much what suits me. I don't know I'd totally recommend it for someone new to the whole concept; they very much don't believe in providing guidance for newbies and visitors because they want to focus on the liturgy. On the other hand it has really good singing, a highly educated congregation, and a tradition of excellent sermons (most of the people who preach are university lecturers, so tend to be good at both the delivery and the content). Nice music and interesting sermons are exactly the sort of thing that's appealing to someone who doesn't particularly buy into the belief system, and are accessible when you don't speak Hebrew. Anyway people were very enthusiastic to meet jack, and it was very lovely to be back in a community where I feel totally comfortable (and I don't have to run anything!)

We went straight from synagogue to the wedding, which was a lot of ceremony for one day, somewhat mitigated by the fact that the wedding was entirely atheist. The event took place at Longstowe Hall, with the ceremony in a beautifully decorated though rather cramped room covered in murals of half-naked people. It was pretty much the standard civil ceremony, with the additions of a little chamber group playing live music and two really wonderful readings, Darwin's list of the pros and cons of getting married and an impressively translated poem about maths by Stanisław Lem. Then there was Pimms and champagne and wandering around the incredibly pretty gardens while the couple posed for photos and the rest of the guests arrived who hadn't been able to fit inside the room. Even though I was mostly there as jack's plus-one, nearly all the guests were people I know, which made it extra enjoyable, I basically spent most of the afternoon and evening talking to cool people, in between eating tasty food and dancing.

The evening involved a marquee, somewhat more elaborately set up than ours, with a large number of delicious courses spread out over about 5 hours and lots and lots of very tasty wine to accompany the food. I was particularly impressed with the veggie food; it managed to be exciting in similar ways to the meat and fish courses, without resorting to fake meats. The speeches were really touching, not polished but absolutely adorable. There was a kind of ceilidh after the meal, with a break for cheeeese and port. The dance floor was sized for more wedding-traditional disco of people mostly shuffling on the spot, rather than the kind of bouncy folk dances that take up a lot of space, and the band was drums and steel guitars who kept adding funky syncopations which made it hard for me at least to keep hold of the beat, but the caller was really good and the guests were very willing to make ceilidh happen even in slightly weird circumstances.

sonicdrift's dress was completely amazing. Like me she chose a coloured, period dress rather than a contemporary white one, but in a totally different style, and managed most ably with masses and masses of train. One of the bridesmaids told me that they changed the colourscheme from silver and green to gold and green so that it wouldn't be a Slytherin wedding, which is very adorable. Also they had the coolest wedding cake ever seen. If you can't see it it's a model of Smaug's cave, with actual little lights inside it to illuminate the horde and icing models of Yoda and the couple's dog climbing the mountain, and the most impressive dragon at the top.

Also I discovered that one of my friends is a delightfully cuddly drunk. Not sloppy or lechy, just incredibly endearing. So unexpected cuddling made a generally wonderful evening even better, yay!

The disadvantage of having the wedding in a gorgeous country house was that we were a bit trapped out there. Actually I was having such a good time that I'm not sure I would have chosen to leave before midnight anyway, but in general I find parties I can't leave a little anxiety-producing. They did organize a coach to get us back to Cambridge; by 1 am I was tired and drunk enough that I found having to walk back to the car in the rain and my period starting more upsetting than it should have been. jack was completely lovely about taking care of me and got me back to the parents' safely.

And then Sunday my parents were running a garden party in aid of Magen David Adom, which is the Israeli equivalent of the Red Cross, a charity that the Cambridge Jewish community has a 50-year plus tradition of supporting. jack and I helped with the setting up and then got roped in to running stalls, another sign that my husband counts as family now! The weather was dubious enough that we got a very small turnout, but those who did come had a very good time. Another sociable day, then, and a chance to introduce jack to some of my Jewish crowd who are either Orthodox or not into religion. Charity events in Cambridge always have really good used book stalls, so I came home with rather more than I'd quite planned to carry back to Stoke...

Comments

[simont]

it's surprisingly hard to turn off the part of my brain that has spent the last couple of years using other people's weddings as a source of ideas

I remember having similar sorts of feelings when I finished buying my house. I'd spent months keeping a sharp lookout for potentially interesting FOR SALE signs, and for months afterwards I was still reflexively spotting them and thinking 'hmm, I wonder ... d'oh!' I suppose it's a natural effect whenever you've got into a strong habit due to an incentive which then vanishes.

And I'm still unable to see any printed music notation without minutely scrutinising the typography :-)

[liv]

Heh, house buying and musical typography, I definitely like that!