h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Our family does weddings very well indeed (or maybe it's because the boys had the sense to marry Irish women)
Very twinkly,very old Irish priest in beautiful church in Ranelagh, Dublin.Friends or relatives of the bride and her father did arrangements of Irish summer flowers, sang wonderfully in Irish, Latin and English,hired monkey suits to the groom and his men and printed pretty orders of service.
Ciara's mother is long dead, so an extra candle was lit for her on the altar. I love the (apparently new)custom of the bride and groom lighting separate candles at the start of the ceremony and lighting a single larger one from them once they are married. The other custom less observed in England is getting friends and relatives to read the various lessons.
Then we travelled by road down to Arklow in the blazing sun which stayed out the whole weekend. Sat out on the lawn by the lake watching the wild swans and drinking lots of champagne with strawberries until it was time to go indoors for an Irish sourced meal. The happy couple were piped in behind a very large bagpiper in full fig.The delighted shock caused by this changed to helpless laughter when he repeated the performance later, to pipe in the very local beef,
Once of the bride's brothers made the cake(three different tiers - all delicious)iced by the bride's sister. The band was good - this time we managed to stop the ignorant English dancing to the Irish national anthem. What a pity I don't have any more sons!
Tip for anyone doing this in the near future: children under the age of 10 were given party bags at their tables with books and pencils and a couple of bits of touristy souvenirs. They also had a Chinese lucky packet with some money in it. Very successful.
(Everyone else got a small peice of rice China as a table favour - brought home from Hong Kong by me. This China is made with grains of rice baked into it and the superstition says that if you have a piece of it in your kitchen you will never go hungry)

Would you like me to invite you to my sons' weddings - there will be three taking place probably in the next couple of decades.

In Germany it is usually friends or siblings of the couple that read the lessons and/or the offertory prayers.

It was lovely to hear you had a good time. Are you writing from Ireland or from China now?

Ireland, but I'm flying to England tomorrow

I have known Gordon for all of his life,
in fact in many ways he has been like a brother to me.

As many of you know Gordon was my best man and his own speech was very well recieved - in fact it would be fair to say that that speech is about 75% responsible for us being here today.
Unfortunately I have to err on the side of decorum in telling you about that as in the intervening 4 years Ciara attained a black belt in karate - a fact that explains the remaining 25% - and so here we all are now.

In his speech, Gordon mapped out my life in terms of my occaisional "driving mishaps" - and by doing so he robbed me of some of my best material! For example, I would love to be able to tell you all about the time that Gordon was working as a driver for the parks and gardens department of Birmingham city council and, on approach to one of the city's busiest roundabouts managed to mistake the button marked "hazard lights" with the button marked "dump" - which had the effect of dumping three ride-on mowers in the middle of the road and causing a traffic jam that actually made the national news. It is a pity - I'd love to have been able to tell you all that story.

In my "how to be a best man" book it says that one of the standard parts of the best man speech is to read out the congratulatory telegrams - this being the twenty first century I only have text messages:
The first message reads "I am very happy for the happy couple. Happy, happy, happy - oh I am happy". Th etext is anonymous, but I would suggest that the people running a book on how often the word "happy" appears in the speeches should hold an urgent stewards enquiry.
The second message is from Gordon's employers, Meteor mobile communications. It reads: "Congratulations on your wedding - I hope your reception is a hundred times better than ours!"

In addition to reading these messages I am mindful to remember those who are only present today in our hearts and minds and so I would like to propose a toast - to absent friends.

In particular I would like to remember George Walker, - our uncle and dear friend who is no longer with us but whose soft irish accent and extensive whiskey collection were instrumental in bringing the two of us to this side of the Irish sea. As the Bord Failte poster puts it: "Ireland: Come for the whiskey, stay for the women!"

I am sure you all have hundreds of mad stories about the various things Gordon has done over the years and if I was to recount them all we would be here for hours - better that you tell each other over a pint or two later. What I will do is wish Gordon and Ciara as much adventure in their life together as they have both had in getting here today. There is an Irish saying "Gearrann beart bothar" which means "Two shorten the journey" which I'm sure that you will find to be the case - as long as you don't let Gordon navigate!

So - happy trails and best wishes to yopu both. Ladies and gentlemen, please raise your glasses for one last toast to Ciara and Gordon - your bride and groom.