The Wedding: Part 2 - Writing the speech the day before

I got thinking but the fact that I've always been on the not so good side of poor when it comes to public speaking was nagging at me in my mind. It's no underestimation. Even when feeling confident about what I'm saying, about a minute or two into a speech, if there are more than around 10 people in the room, I don't know why but my hand starts to quiver and then the situation heightens. I get self conscious that people are listening to my tone and wording and whatever confidence was there just drifts away like a demon leaving the body of a host in Supernatural.

I usually end up mumbling plenty of disjointed sentences to an unsuspecting audience. Anyways, the point is, my speech was hardly going to be the fitting tribute to my bride that she so very much deserved but what the hay. I thought I'll give this my best shot and just went down the personal route, and tried to put down in words something meaningful to my bride disregarding whatever anyone else might think.

I got typing and surprisingly when I focused on Norn Girl herself and not what people would think of my words, I had a speech written, typed up in large print, colour coordinated paragraphs surprisingly quickly - the last part a great tip recommended by my best man and I was all set for the reception. All I had to think about now was the wedding itself and making sure all our best laid plans went to schedule.
My cousin and his girlfriend returned not long after I had finished. They had taken in a Sunday whistle stop tour of Belfast which is admittedly not the greatest day to do so due to a lot of things being closed, but they had gone to the Ulster Museum and returned with a mixed report. Apparently abstract art has crept in but they liked the café. A trip in the near future is no doubt on the agenda to compare the old to new. (And here is that very trip we took to the Ulster Museum in February).

The day seemed to fly by and it was soon the evening and time for us to head to Carrickfergus. We were all heading to the Clarion Hotel that night, not to see Norn Girl but to collect the rest of my family and Norn Girls brother as he was staying with my side of the family later. My dad, as always, was being a star and became taxi driver for the lot of us. We were soon at the Clarion and waiting for my sister to appear from her room, late as usual! Most of the family headed off the in car but those of us brave enough braced the cold and made the short walk to Carrickfergus harbour and into the Brewers Fare for a meal.

The party were all rather noisy, especially down the bottom end of the table where the oldest generation of our family were having quite a few beverages and becoming rather vocal. Us younger folk tried our best to join in but most of us were going t-total for the day and so it was all rather civilized down our end. It was like some kind of random role reversal. The meal wasn't the greatest but it was ok for the price and was filling enough to get us through the evening and into the big day. Before long we had to get going and left those of the family staying at the hotel to enjoy a few more drinks and those of us staying at my place headed back with me to Belfast in a taxi.

When we got home, I started to get prepared. In some sort of nervous double checking mode, I was simultaneously trying to make a check list for the morning as well as playing pro evolution on the PS2 with Norn Girl younger brother. Thankfully the later helped my nerves as it was a great distraction. In our games of football on the games console, there are 2 ways to win. First is the regular way, by scoring more goals than the other team. The second is by getting the most players sent off which is surprisingly harder than you might think when you are trying to do it. The ultimate victory is to have 8 men left on the pitch with your best goalie playing up front and win the normal way too. This very rarely happens and didn't in these games. On this occasion it was a win each time for the side with most players left on the pitch so a draw overall. It was soon past midnight and we headed to bed. With a full house I was on the sofa for the night, so I got the pillows set up and threw the spare duvet over me and that was where I woke on my wedding day...

...To be continued...

The Wedding: Part 1 - The build up to the big day

**The following was written last November in the presence of a warm soft breeze, a soothing environment and several cocktails in what can only be described as luxury. Having been broke for 2 years to make it happen, we were still feeling so very lucky to be chilling on our amazing honeymoon in the tropical wonderland of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean... more of that to come later**

Sat here writing with pen and paper in a pad rather than typing from my laptop, let me take you back 6 days, rewinding a 12 hour flight, a 3 day break in London and our wedding day. We've landed back in time the day before the big day. My best man and his girlfriend are present and staying over, they arrived on Saturday and the nerves or anticipation were starting to get to everyone was having to give a speech the next day. The big day was almost upon us.

Within hours of landing on the Saturday we'd disappointed both my best man and his girlfriend by taking them to a less than impressive game of football when we went to watch Crusaders Vs Glentoran, not a regular occurrence mind, just one of those games, it ended 1-1. Thankfully things picked up quite quickly.

It was soon Sunday and Norn Girl had been picked up by her mum and driven away to the Clarion Hotel in Carrickfergus (the location of our reception) where she was to hide out near Carrick Castle, the location of our wedding ceremony on the big day that was now just a day away. My best man and his girlfriend had taken the chance to head into town and see the sights. So there I was, all alone with my laptop, my new shiny shoes eager to be worn the next day and with my fish noming the surface of their water hoping for an extra sprinkling of pellets. My mission, with less than 24 hours before the event and the speeches to be given, was to write my speech for the reception.

I know, I know, I should have had it done ages before and I had tried so very hard. I had even taken my pad over on my stag party but time and events got away from me. On my return work was very, very, very busy (as it still is to this day in March 2010!) and I was rushing until the last day to meet future deadlines to ensure that I'd not miss them whilst I was away. During that same time in the weeks building up to the wedding day, Norn Girl and I were nervous wrecks operating on a mixture of adrenalin and auto pilot, always trying to think about what we still had to do and what we might have missed. Everytime I had assigned time, the time had somehow got away from me and so, with only a couple of hours to myself before it was too late, this was my last and only opportunity!

So I set my head to the task again, a task of trying to write something both personal and impersonal, affectionate (or as I had written at the original time of writing this - Effectivate, now there's a word - send your meaning on a postcard!) but not sickly, not overly waffley but also not too direct. This task worried me for about 10 minutes until in a moment of inspiration I came to the conclusion (aided by everyone I'd asked about this sort of thing too) that it probably wasn't going to make the slightest bit of difference. Sure, by chance I might have been able to write the perfect speech but this was me, even if I was to have had the perfect speech written down word for word it wouldn't come out of my mouth that way! It still had to be written though so what was I going to put in my speech?...

...To be continued...

Plenty to come... please hang in there!

Sorry for the lack of posts this November. As November's go, this one has been, and will be, an extra special month. In 12 days I'll be getting hitched. The weekend just past was my stag do weekend. The evenings are taken up planning and sorting, the days working and getting things done and the spare moments hopefully dedicated to writing a speech that is still only a small bunch of notes long... eek!

Though for once I have a list of events, meaningful thoughts and feelings to blog about, the time isn't yet there to put them into the form of a blog post. To that end I am making a real and actually-written-down-in-a-hard-backed-notepad type list and I am determined to make my way through writing about them as soon as I find time - this is more than likely after the wedding. Possibly in the sun whilst Norn Girl reads chick-lit books about divorces ;)

So from appearing in the audience of BBC TV/Radio shows and a Leeds game, to Stag do's and meeting old friends, from ponderings about keyboards and time travel to hopefully (what will probably be many an entry of) the biggest event... the wedding and honeymoon.

Unfortunately life doesn't seem to have a pause button. So what has been and what is to come will have to just hold on a little while longer. Please don't venture far... I'll try to make small updates in the mean time but I'll be back soon, with more to blog than ever!

Wedding planning, "Yellow Alert!"

With less than a month and a half until the wedding, yellow alert has been called. The rise in stress has stepped up a notch, especially last week. The joys of planning, arranging and holding a wedding with many of the more traditional elements, would seem to hold the potential to provide a taste of married life, before it’s even upon us.

The 'yellow alert' we've called, is seemingly due to a culmination of a few factors. The first admittedly, is that of me as of the end of last week not getting involved enough - my bad.

The other more substantial issues causing us headaches in our wedding organisation are as follows:

- Lots and lots of little things that snuck under the radar which all raise their little heads from the ground like attention seeking zombie leprechauns. Just little to-do's all asking for attention and needing a resolution.

- Work and other commitments eating time. It’s hard to relax when your wedding is on the horizon. Sadly and probably short sighted of us; the main victim of this, apart from our sanity, has been our gym time. This fell by the wayside some time ago.

- Other people. Please don't get me wrong, we really want everyone who's invited to show up to our big day (especially given all the planning involved with the day itself) but our original plan didn't include the complex web of wedding planning that we're still working on today. We didn't plan to be antisocial, but our initial ‘Plan A’ was to travel somewhere else, ideally Scandinavia. To head there with just our immediate families and in a beautiful setting, to have an intimate ceremony. The up side would have been that along with our families, we would have had a trip to remember. We wanted to then just hold a wee gathering back home for everyone else to not be left without a party.

Sadly, because of the cost of the travel, those plans didn't fit into our budget, even when cutting corners and after saving for the best part of 2 years. Now we're dedicated to Plan B. Plan B happened to provide us with some great venues here in N.I - a castle and a hotel no less. The problem with being here is that so many other people will also be there because its close, and as we've come to find, now more than ever, even some people you know well can be very unpredictable. It seems almost surreal the unnecessary problems we've had thrown our way.

It's not that we don't like helping, if anything we've a habit of never being able to say no when asked to help. However, if its not people wanting us to resolve their travel arrangements its being asked to confirm details that they have already been given the means to the information for and just not looking. As well as that its people asking for plus ones. It wouldn't be so bad if it was just asking - in fact we've not turned anyone down and now have people coming to the reception who we will be meeting for the first time. Come to mention it, we must ask for full names for the seating plan. The annoyance has come in the way we've been confronted with the requests. Whether intended or not, the enquiries we've had, have basically insinuate that they won't be coming unless they can bring a plus 1.
This would be understandable if it wasn't for the fact that the people know a lot of other people who will be there anyway. After all, we planned and planned and planned the guest list, it might not be perfect but everyone will be near someone that we know they know and actually like - or at least we hope they still do, eeek.

We've tried our best to cover every base and the majority of people have been great and many RSVP's have come back with Yes I will attend proudly ticked so it’s not as bad as I might have made the situation out to be. Its just a little disheartening when your best efforts are thrown back at you by people who you would have thought would appreciate those best efforts, even if they obviously fell short of their expectations.

Ah well, I'm sure there will be plenty more ups and downs yet as the time draws closer.

A big list in a calendar format was a creation on Sunday. A countdown, as well as a reminder of all we still need to do. A list I'm already behind with, oops.

Despite the stresses and what seem to me to be overly complicated arrangements. I still can’t wait to be married to the girl I fell for 7 years ago. I might be dreading the speech and we're both unnerved about the fact that so many eyes will be staring at us all day, but I'm defiantly looking forward to saying "I do". I just can't fathom why its so damn hard to set the scene to do so, and to throw a party afterwards. We were never going to be able to afford a wedding planner to take the stress away, so there was always going to be some organising to do. Its just maybe proving to be more complicated than it might have been.

I just hope that we can ride out the storm long enough to prevent us swimming away and eloping. All being well it won't come to that but I'll keep an eye out on national express coach prices to Gretna Green just in case.