My best friends' wedding

A few weeks ago a group of us from Durham travelled down from Essex to the wedding of our university friends Mark and Catherine. They've been together for 5 and a half years and engaged for 4 years. Ever since they got together whilst we all lived together in Wynyard Grove, none of us doubted this day would eventually come. It was almost a waiting game for us until they became a couple as soon as we found out they shared the same birthday.

Blondie, Tim and I travelled down in Blondie's Saab on a pretty laid back road trip. We travelled down to Crystal Palace to stay with Mel where we were warmly welcomed. The next day we set off to Vaulty Manor, close to Tiptree where Catherine is from. We arrived with plenty of time to spare and settled into our "family" accommodation block. Gradualy we started seeing old friends milling around and eventually we filed into the main hall. There were two ladies officiating, one of whom just starred at me. I turned to Mel to point this out and when I looked back she was giving me real evils. Strange. Both Mark and Catherine looked very laid back and relaxed and everything went to plan.

After signing the register they posed for photos inside and outside, before they were lead away to let their photographer have his way with them whilst we set about the bucks fizz. The former Trevs students were easily identified as those going back for repeat visits to the alcohol table. This was the part where I got to chat to loads of peope I haven't seen in years. It's really sad because I haven't really kept in contact with a lot of them. They're on my MSN list, but I always fall into the "if the want to talk to me, they'll start a chat" trap. These are the people that I lived with for 3 years and pretty much saw every day. We grew together, finding out who we were, laughed and cried together and I was really close to several of them. It's far too easy to drift away from these people, but it made me resolve to try harder to keep in touch with them. After all, they formed a massive part of an important part of my life. The year after they left (2002-3) I essentially started again at Trevs and it's been nearly 4 years since then. Needless to say after 4 years of working, most of them can't even imagine what it's like to live as a student anymore as we PhDers do.


Eventually Mark and Catherine reappeared for the group photos. We only appeared in one so we took the time to explore around the hall. Finally, the photographer was done and Mark and Catherine were free to mingle with the guests. We were then called into the dining hall for the lunch, consisting of a fantastic salmon/prawn starter and lamb main. I was sat on a table of half Trevs, half Mark's friends whom we had been paintballing with a month or so earlier. Of course, I'd brought my camera and for some reason I seemed to be on it and got a lot of pretty good pictures - you can see the complete set by clicking on any of them.


The centre-piece of each table was a metre long vase with flowers that had all the ex-students thinking the same thing - trophy. The banter was entertaining and in no time it was time for the speeches. Catherine's father decided to go hi-tech and gave a powerpoint presentation to delve into Catherine's past. The fact he is a teacher played up in the style of talk and the over-dinner quiz. Next up was the best man - Mark's brother, David. His speech was short and to the point and then it was left up to Mark to wrap up which he did well.

After the cake was cut we returned to the main hall for more drinks before some free time during which we sat and chatted more. Eventually the evening buffet was served before fireworks outside and the obligatory cheesy DJs introduced the first dance of the new Mr and Mrs Carrington. The bar wasn't too badly priced for a southern wedding venue (although £3/pint still hust).

Things wound down at midnight and we were ejected. On the way out we spied the "yard" vases and one of them accompanied us back to one of the bedrooms where the drinking continued with the aid of the vase.


The next day dawned with the prospect of being kicked out of our rooms at 9.30. Thankfuly we were all up and made our way to the breakfast room for brunch. Soon after, people began drifting off. Thankfully, there's an alumni weekend in a few weeks so it won't be too long before I see people again. We drove Mel to visit her grandmother in Theydon Bois and went for a walk around the local wood. It was fantastically hot day. It's probably a good thing the wedding wasn't a day later cos although the photos would have looked better, it would have been uncomfortably hot.
Eventually we piled back into the Saab (after having to disable the alarm due to a beeper fault) and tore back through East Anglia and up the M1 back to Durham.