Wedding in Calne, lunch in Avebury

My first of two weddings this year - I am now onto what I would describe as second generation weddings. I attended the wedding of his parents, and now was attending the wedding of the son, Kit. Here he is below looking smart and happy. I turned up early, so got my private photo of the groom.

I say I turned up early. At one point I was at risk of not turning up at all. I had it all worked out. The friends who had stayed with me on the Sunday night after the Catfish gig live in South Gloucestershire, and the wedding was in the neighbouring county of Wiltshire on the Tuesday. So I thought it would be nice to accompany them home on the Monday, stay at Eoin's house with his parents and then Eoin could drive me across county lines to the wedding venue (a barn converted for wedding receptions) near  Calne next morning, about half an hour away. Well that had been the stated plan for many months. 

But then Eoin got an invite to go to the last day of the cricket test at the Oval on the Monday with his mates (dressed as a crayon!). From that (and the fact that that the match was over before noon), one might deduce that really this was a drinking session. Which was fine. New plan was to catch the 7:30pm  train to Bath to be picked up by my friend Karen (Eoin's mum). Just as I reach Paddington station, ticket duly acquired, I got a message from his girlfriend that there had been a "mishap" . No information as to what the nature of the mishap might be. Which was a little short of helpful. But fortunately just before said train departed I got message from Eoin to catch the train, the mishap being that one of his mates was "paralytic." 

So I caught the train and enquired if he and Niamh would be on the next one. To which I got the reply "We are moving and grooving" which I pointed out lacked the lawyerly precision that I expected. Long story short they eventually caught the last train to Bath which was getting in at something like 2 am. Needless to say a slightly grumpy, Eoin got me to the church in time (and actually early) for the 12:30pm start of arrangements. This is a man who likes his sleep. At the  best of times.

As you can see the weather was very nice, plenty of sun, a decent breeze, but not too hot either. Before the start I met up with mutual friends the Naylors, occupying one of the outdoor sofas and looking rather smarter than I had ever seen them!

So below is a photo of what I can only describe as the barn complex. It is very much a barn that has been significantly extended to accommodate an area for the food, an area for the dancing, a bar (of course) and an outside space for milling in the clement weather.

The ceremony was outdoors - below all the groomsmen are gathering. No photos of actual wedding or the formal (biodegradable) confetti throwing thereafter as we were assured there was a wedding photographer who would be taking ample photos. (Kit later informed me that many thousand  professional shots  had indeed been taken, so I should be able to nick one or two in due course when they have been whittled down to a more manageable number!) 

It was a secular ceremony, and of course these things do follow a pretty standard pattern (I mean, its a legal requirement!) so no need for a running commentary of that part of the day. But the highlight for me was watching Kit just, and only just, holding it all together as he received the vows from Juliette. It sounds condescending to say it was sweet, but fuck it, it was really really sweet.😀I have known the young man since he was a baby, and it was just so lovely to see him so incredibly happy and in love. I know, if you aren't happy on your special day when will you be, but however much effort is put into making the ceremony look perfect, its the extra bit of genuine, unfakeable emotion that makes it actually perfect.

(Clearly outright blubbing would have been too much emotion. We are British after all. Being on the edge of tears though was just the thing! Just a note for future weddings....) 

Juliette surrounded by all the groom's family. (Yeah I hi-jacked the professional's photo with a long lens!)

So then onto the wedding meal. A late lunch followed by the speeches.

I was on a table with the Naylors, and sat next to young Peter below. If you are wondering about the chef's hat, there was an interesting and to me novel quirk for serving the beef. Rather than waiters bring us each a plate with slices of meet pre cut, each table was given a serving plate with a large hunk of beef and one person of  the table was kitted out to carve. This was an excellent idea as one could allocate amounts to each individual taste, and for each table it was truly freshly carved - we had seen it done before our eyes!

Yes, there were games....

The cake was of course, duly (and ceremonially) cut...

Followed by the opening dance.I don't know how long they had been rehearsing this, but I am guessing a long time. Kit is not a natural dancer, but it went very well. Which makes me think a lot of work went into making it look that good!😂

And then we went into the inevitable ceilidh, although when I say "we" I mean "they" as I opt out of organised fun. Fortunately I found a fellow traveller there in young Peter, so we propped up the bar behind the dancefloor and set the world to rights over a pint, as one does. Except with Peter, a fiercely intelligent engineer with a considerable understanding of science (well son of an astrophysicist, what do you expect?) and a great interest in, and knowledge of, international geopolitics and history, I  actually feel he could set the world to rights. Better certainly than the goons currently in charge of world affairs. Definitely a higher level of conversation than your average two men in a pub. By a factor of hundreds! 

It is possible with the alcohol imbibed by that stage, we may have missed just one or two of the world's problems, but I think we solved most. Just forgot to write them down...Sorry folks....

Meanwhile the somewhat overcrowded dancefloor resembled a terpsichorean dodgem car ride.

To complete the evening outside there were wood fired pizza ovens, braziers to keep warm by (and toast marshmallows) and a sunset to watch

I got a taxi back into Calne itself - Eoin had offered to come and collect me "in an emergency" but I was left with the impression that he wasn't overly keen at a late night rescue mission. I stayed at the Lansdown Strand Hotel, a surprisingly extensive establishment for a rather obscure little town (Calne has, for example, no railway station)

Its most attractive feature is the courtyard at the back, which I repaired to after breakfast 

Following which the Naylors picked me up and took me to where the groom's family had hired a cottage for a week - Avebury. Now I have to say the Fletchers did very well here. A lovely cottage with plenty of room to entertain (and royally entertain at that) guests at the back.

And only a few metres from the UNESCO world heritage site of Avebury. Obviously rather less famous than Stonehenge as a Neolithic site, but against that much bigger. Not as neat and tidy, but if anything more intriguing. Its a National Trust site while Stonehenge is English Heritage. One feels there is rivalry there.

The adjacent village of Avebury is chocolate box pretty.