Best. Day. Ever.
Reader, we were married.
And it was more beautiful than I could possibly have imagined. No, really. I realise that being surprised at the wonder of one’s own wedding day might seem unusual, but nothing could have prepared me for the true glory of it all.
We woke up at 6:30am (yes, we spent the night together, having never been presented with any decent reason not to, despite a few familial frowns), showered and then I left for The House of T at 7am, passing the hairdresser at the front door on her way to three or four hours of solid hairdressing.
The girls’ morning was somewhat different to the boys’ morning. While the ladies primped, crimped, blowed, sprayed, painted, clipped, squeezed, threaded and perfected all the way between home and Hazelmere, the boys had a further sleep-in, watched Video Hits, ate croissants and bought a carton of beer and some sausage rolls.
It all went fairly quickly after we three fellas arrived in the MurphMobile. We ironed our shirts, donned our suits and greeted guests on the lawn in the last spectacularly sunny day of autumn. On the dot of a quarter to three, the celebrant gave the word and I took my place on the porch, under the now-bare vines, with Triton on my sword-side and all of the friends and family facing us and smiling,
Ché was given a secret nod and the music started. Mele picked Death Cab for Cutie’s I will follow you into the dark about a week before the ceremony. It’s a delicate little guitar number that, from the first few lines, appears to be about death, but actually turns out to be about love and trust.
The intro is very long.
My heart was pounding by this stage. I was giving nervous winks and grins to the crowd.
The first verse played. The chorus followed. The sun shone. I bit my lip. I gave Triton a punch on the arm
The second verse started. I’m sure my teeth were pressed together too hard. Nervous didn’t cut it.
The chorus began and She appeared.
Gods and angels only exist to explain the effect that women like Mele have on the men who are fortunate enough to see them like this. ‘Beautiful’ isn’t perfect enough and ‘perfect’ is too boring. Seeing my Mele walk from behind the bushes and across the lawns was paradise. I went weak at the knees, my vision swam and I had to clamp my hand to my face prevent myself from exploding in ecstasy. I probably spoke in tongues. All I remember is this black-haired woman floating towards me as the crowd parted. Then she hugged me and we held each other for the rest of the ceremony.
We lit comfort fires for Fred and Bruno. The ceremony was one we wrote ourselves with quotes from A. A. Milne, Graeme Greene, Iris Murdoch, Tom Shapcott and Dr Seuss. A part of Walt Whitman’s Song of the Open Road was our vow to one another:
Let the paper remain on the desk unwritten, and the book on the shelf unopened!
Let the tools remain in the workshop! Let the money remain unearned!
Let the school stand! Mind not the cry of the teacher!
Let the preacher preach in his pulpit!
Let the lawyer plead in court, and the judge expound the law!
Canerado! I give you my hand,
I give you my love, more precious than money
I give you myself, before preaching or law.
Will you give me yourself?
Will you travel with me?
Shall we stick by each other as long as we live?
We said that we would. And all week we have been prefacing questions to each other with that great line: “Canerado! Will you do the dishes?”
There were no ring blunders, no last-minute objections, no daring forays by secret admirers. We signed our names to a register and a certificate and Rosie and Triton watched and then signed underneath to say that they had watched. Announcements about photos were made and we were presented to one and all as husband and wife. Hugs, kisses, tears of joy and shouts of congratulations were rained upon us until the photographs began in earnest. Rosie Boehm is a died-the-wool professional artist and sheepdog and I mean that with highest possible respect. She took photos about 30 different combinations of family and friends, organising people and shifting her cheerful, chatty subjects into the desired groups raising nary sweat nor eyebrow. She had us all snapped and happy and mustered off to the open bar before the light had even begun to fade.
The food was unbelievably good for catered wedding food. In fact, it was excellent for food in general. The pasta entrée was hot and tasty (in honour of Mele’s Italian side), the Thai prawn salad was cool and delicious (in honour of my love of Thai food), the chicken was stuffed with something interesting and the beef was glazed with something hearty, turning the traditional mass-catered choice of Either-Dry-or-Bland into meals that people actually enjoyed and wanted to eat. I’m told the dessert was above and beyond, but I didn’t make it that far. I chose the chocolate fudge wedding cake for a reason and I just managed to fit it in.
Ben’s performance as Master of Ceremonies was brilliant. He even arranged a special fashion show, featuring Triton wrapped in a dressing gown to illustrate the story of Mele attending Ying Chow in her pjs and Marc squeezed into a pair of lycra tights of the kind that Cirkidz just loved to dress body-awkward teenagers in for almost every show. He read out telegrams from absent friends and relatives and he had even written a roast for every speaker. The fathers made speeches wishing us long and happy life. Dad made a devilish speech that began magisterially with “In China …” and went on to describe the way that nation’s single-child policy has resulted in numerous cases of Little Emperor Syndrome. Fortunately he pulled that one back on track and denied (almost) all evidence of this in his own son as evidenced this through my (excellent) choice of bride. At least, that’s what I believe happened – he’s an brilliant talker is my old Dad.
Mele rose and thanked all for coming and made special mentions to those wonderful girlfriends of hers who helped with everything from invitations to holding the train.
Triton had been asking me to write his speech for him since I had asked him to be my best man (sword side) eighteen months ago.
‘How’s that speech coming?’ I would say.
‘Yeah,’ he would reply, giving me a friendly poke. ‘When are you going to write it for me?’ At this point I would assure him that he was on his own and make admittedly idle and empty threats about deadlines. Needless to say, I was interested to see what he had come up with.
He recounted the story I’ve just written above and then stated that he had an email that I had written to him about Mele shortly after we announced our engagement over a full cooked breakfast in Port Douglas. An email that he planned to read in full. Which he, true to his word, then did. He followed this by thanking me for writing his speech and proposed a toast to the happy couple.
He was the best man after all.
I had been quietly poohing my pantaloons over my speech for days. I wasn’t nervous about the wedding or the weather, they were respectively good and planned for, but I had zero ideas for a touching speech. What more could I say on a day where I had promised to spend my life with someone? I pulled Ché aside and asked him what to do.
‘Toast your beautiful wife,’ was his advice. ‘Say nice things about her and have a few beers beforehand.’
I had a few beers, chewed my nails and, after Ben had finished his roastroduction, I stood up and opened my mouth to see what would happen. I think it went something like this:
A wedding is a big day. A big big day. You spend months organising it; the venue, the dress, the food, the people, the photos. It starts to take over. So you play it down. ‘It’s just a big party,’ you say to yourself. ‘You put on some nice clothes, go to a nice place, say a few words, sign a few forms and then get down and party on with all your loved ones. Easy.’ And that’s how I had been thinking about the whole thing. Yes, it’s a public declaration of love, but it’s still us, me and Mele, still the same people, the same healthy relationship that lead us here in the first place.
Only it’s not.
I only realised that on my wedding day when Mele appeared, looking so beautiful, not for what she was wearing or what her hair looked like, but because at that moment I stopped seeing her as the girl I’m with and saw as the woman I’m going to be with. My entire future in that one person. And I couldn’t be happier.
Here’s to the bride!