Gillian's wedding was yesterday. I went up to it with Christopher and his wife. I wore my long black skirt, black velvet pumps and a green cardigan. Everyone else seemed to be more coordinated between the various parts of their outfits, but oh well.
The service was in Cloughmills, and Peter Jemphrey took it. Not that he had that much to do with the marrying bit, becasue they had their vows off by heart and said them themselves, instead of going 'I will'. Their rings were engraved with 'Psalm 34:3 Love Phil (or Gillian). Her brother Peter was giving her away and the younger boys were ushing (a word we have invented), and Cameron was also doing filming. They gave out little tubes of bubble blow with a heart on the lid, so we had bubbles instead of confetti. It was the first wedding at the church, and they had the new building all finished in time. The entrance is all glass, so there wasn't any surprise when the bride came in. We could see eveything as they were taking photographs outside. Gillian's dress was strapless (as they all are these days) with a full skirt, a sort of golden cream colour, with her hair all curled and flowers in it. Her veil was longer than the skirt; the bridesmaids had to keep rescuing it. They were in a dark pinkish-red, and so was Gillian's mother, except in a suit, natch.
The part of weddings between the ceremony and the reception is always a little dull. We went to the hotel and had tea or coffee while the photographs were being taken. We stopped off for a packet of peanuts on the way. I met Gillian's grandparents (her grandfather knew mine), and the Hamiltons from Galway. Billie though that I must br Christopher's sister or cousin. Phil brought Gillian a little tub of Pringles and fed some to her. Then he made two into a beak and tried to kiss her with it. I took a photo of them doing that because it seemed more normal for them than a lot of the poses they were doing.
Our tabel at the reception consisted entirely of people who had lived in the Donegall Raod house at one time or another, and their SOs. The meal was stuff that they thought most people would like: leek and potato soup, roast beef with Yorkshire pudding, potatoes and vegetables, then a choice of profiteroles or passionfruit brulée for dessert. I almost exploded. Their cake was partly chocolate and partly jam sponge, rather than traditional fruit cake. Which was sensible as far as people not liking things was concerned. It still had marzipan and white icing, so Christopher ended up with extra icing.
Several more ex-Renwick-ites turned up fro the evening party. The buffet was mostly traybakes and sandwiches made by friends. By that time I was getting pretty tired so I didn't dance much, just sat at the table that was surrounded by people I knew (we just kept adding more and more chairs as more people arrived) and tried to talk over the music. Gillian had detatched her veil by this time, I don't know how, because when people hugged her earlier, it made her head go back because it was so securely fastened. I was shedding some green fluff from my cardigan earlier in the day, where the seatbelt had rubbed it, so I didn't hug her then.
They've gone of to a Greek island, whereabouts forgotten from my brain, for the honeymoon. I still can't quite believe that she's married.
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