Wedding, Day 2

"Look! Blue Sky!". This was my introduction to wedding day, take two. I am sharing a bed with Miss J (a.k.a her illustriousness, 'The Flower Girl') and The Programmer. Without exaggerating, she has an enormous european super-king bed that could sleep 5 and we sleep under a skylight. Every morning Miss J wakes up full of pre-schooler enthusiasm, opens the skylight using her remote control, and announces loudly that it's a sunny day - even if it's distinctly overcast. She is an unfailingly optimistic alarm clock. By the time she sprung into consciousness, those that had a hairdresser appointment had already left, which immediately relieved my anxiety about having to usher a carload of hungover women on their way. I'd elected to try and self-tame my mane. I recruited The Programmer to operate the curling tongs, which Miss J and all the remaining rellys seemed to find most hilarious and photo-worthy. He did well, even managing to purr 'daaaaarling' a few times and then spray it all into submission with Schwarzkopf super-hold. The man is a gem.

Once coiffed and dressed, I supervised the coiffing and dressing of The Flower Girl, helped the bride into her dress and packed my impractically tiny, sequinned clutch with indispensible bridesmaid gear (eyeliner, lippy, tissues and the brides cigarettes). The car arrived, and what a car! Entirely at the insistence of The Flower Girl, the wedding car was pink. It was a pink Cadillac, 1958 model - I think this is the same car as Stephen Kings 'Christine', but I digress. The first mission was photographs at various picturesque locations, including Werdenberg, which is the smallest town in Switzerland, really just a very quaint street, with a castle (naturally - doesn't every town have one?). The sun finally came out with a passion and instead of shivering, we were sweltering, which did nothing to diminish the level of whingeing about the weather, except from the photographer. Combine the unexpected heat with the difficulty of navigating rough cobbles in ridiculous shoes and it's surprising we managed to look as fabulous as we undoubtedly did. The bride, of course, was radiant and the guys looked swish in their expensive suits. The Flower Girl was having an on and off kind of day, one moment turning on the cutesy poses, the next announcing "I've had enough, no more photographs" like a temperamental celebrity and then demanding to be carried around.

After posing for so long that our cheeks hurt, we piled into the car and took a raucous path through parts of Switzerland and Liechtenstein, with the driver honking the horn and causing as much fuss as possible. Finally we got to the church, fashionably late. I posted a pic of the church on Facebook and my cousin said 'why do I hear The Sound of Music?'. Which pretty much sums up the church and the pretty surroundings. Once the wilting guests had made their way inside, we did a panicked protocol check with someone who had been married before and entered in the following order: bride and groom, flower girls (the second of which, the grooms niece, had met us at the church) then me and Alex. The service again was bilingual and interspersed with songs and some impressive organ playing. I was sitting near the organist and cannot really fathom how someone can be playing music with both feet and both hands at once. You'd have to possess something equivalent to a second brain. Leaving the church, the flower girls went first, throwing rose petals before the bride and groom. They had been itching to get on with it, casting meaningful 'is it time yet?' looks at me every second minute, and when the moment arrived, they powered off at such a speed that the exit took about oh-point-five seconds.

I need to mention one especially touching part of the ceremony. When Miss J took the rings up to her mum and mums new hubby, she found a little ring on the floral cushion for her too, a very small one to go on her necklace. She was so delighted that her smile took over the whole church and made everyone go 'awwwwww'. It's been very important to both my sister and her man that Miss J had a special role and understood that she is very much included in the relationship. Naturally, as a nearly-five year old, she actually controls the house anyway, but it's very nice that everyone made an effort.


Next installment: kidnappings, quotes and chaos.