Like - invitation, celebrant, music
and flowers, photographs and videos. Once the venue was bolted down
the invitations could go out.
Here is the front page:
We worked together to design the layout and write all the words, then
printed it on mottled white card stock from Penfolds.
The inside was inscribed with:
Friendly and supportive, she assisted us in understanding what we were facing, and helped us through the paperwork that was involved.
On the day, Cecily lent a good-humoured, natural dignity that brought a proper decorum to the official activities, and left no doubt in our minds - nor anyone else's, we are sure - that the ceremony we were enacting, though joyful, was at its core the undertaking of a serious, formal, binding contract.
The flowers took a lot of organising - well, actually they took a great deal of decision, which Peter wisely kept right out of, but once the decisions were made, the florist did an excellent job.
The toile complete and fitted, as shown here, the dress proper went together very quickly, with the lovely result that everyone admired on the day.
Neither of us are very hot on formal wedding pictures and films, so we
passed up the commercial suppliers of these services, and called on
(nominally) willing friends to help. Jonno Beckett offered up his
miniature video camera as sacrifice, and threw in his services as
cinematographer. Now Peter will have to pay him back by teaching him
how to ski easily down the Hobacks when the snow is chopped up.
"Anything but Jonathon" seen here in a skilled, left-handed
performance of the formal cinematograhic rites!
Graeme Ward, an expert in photographing rock drawings, inter alia, and
who has had well over thirty years to try and get used to Peter,
finally gave way and agree to take camera in hand and pretend we were
all a bad case of rock art. As a result, we didn't get many photos of
him on the day, but here's one somebody else took.
Graeme with his wife Kath (Sue) who graciously agreed to be without
an escort much of the time while Graeme immortalised us all on
emulsion.
As the day came closer, Bonita had a brainwave. "You play an
instrument, don't you?" she asked Peter, having seen his trombone
case. "You could play at our wedding."
"Have you any idea how a badly played trombone sounds?" Peter asked.
So Bonita demanded an audition, then told him to go into the back room
and practice. And practice and practice and practice. Well, they say
men marry their mothers, but Peter never ever expected to relive "You
do your practice - now!" Actually, it was all great fun. We downloaded
midi scores and transposed them for trombone, rehearsed them with
Michael Hope and accepted his rulings on which ones would work, and
which merely sounded dreadful.
Bonita still couldn't decide what music to have for her entrance,
until one day Peter, horsing around, blew the fanfare and bridal march
from Wagner's Lohengrin - badly to be sure, but well enough to
convince Bonita to make him practice that work, too.