Here comes the Bride

Who doesn’t love a wedding? Lots of champagne, smiles, drunken toasts, everyone gets gussied up (by the way, it turns out my British friends think that is a funny phrase. Really? You, of the people who brought us rhyming cockney slang?? Who call a telephone a whistle and bone? Really? Really?) And, as a 37 year old single woman, I’ve been to a lot of weddings. All over the world, in fact: Sri Lanka, Australia, Mexico, Belize and now, England. (yes, yes, yes, I can hear you now Paula, CountryDropper...) But, the fact is, I travel, so I meet a lot of people. And, I don’t require a plus one, so I’m a great bargain on the drinks/gift cost benefit analysis. And, I am pretty much guaranteed to whoop it up on the dance floor with someone’s parents so I’m inclusive and friendly. What could be better in terms of a wedding guest?

Now, one would think that British weddings wouldn’t vary too much from the weddings I’ve attended in the US, but that’s not so much the case.

And for the record, even weddings in the US have pretty big differences depending on where they are held. Turns out East Coast weddings have a requisite price tag for attendance; no one really wants a gravy boat from their registry so much as a reimbursement for their per-head outlay for food, drink and 80s DJ music. I tend to think of it as a party with a massive cover charge.

And, then there’s the Texas weddings – I’ve basically been to the same wedding about half dozen times. And, if you’re from Texas, you know it, too...white strapless gown with delicate and minimal beading, bridesmaids in black A-line dresses, walking down the aisle to Pachelbel’s Canon in D, reading from I Corinthians 13.

(Love is patient, love is kind…blah blah. (and, I know I am single, but based on what my friends tell me, this is a LIE. Love is trying to keep from committing murder on a daily basis. Perhaps, this is why I am not married? I have little patience. Or, self-control. Which was clearly in evidence this past weekend, when, following the boozy wedding reception, I made my taxi driver take me to a gas station where I bought a ciabbata(?), potato chips and a big bag of peanut M’n’Ms. English countryside is beautiful and all, but sorely lacking in all-night Mexican food drive thru’s))

But, I digress.

The perfect Texas wedding also includes a recessional accompanied by Trumpet Voluntary, cake cutting, bouquet tossing and the first dance, all with hundreds of cameras trained on the blushing bride and eager groom to capture that oh-so intimate look of love between the two. And, people really do want gifts off the gift list at a Texas wedding. I mean there is a whole book about what your silverware pattern says about you (for the record, Chantilly, my mother’s pattern apparently says “keep me safe, locked in a felt box next to the vodka. Then, proceed to ignore the silverware and drink the vodka.” (as that is what both my mother and grandmother had and do.) I suspect this may be my pattern of choice as well.))

But, in any event, I was looking forward to my English wedding, not the least of which was because it was going to be in a castle. And, not just any castle, but Leeds Castle (which, ironically, is not in Leeds. I suspect that is meant to confuse the Americans and keep them away...particularly, as the castle was most recently owned by, horror of horrors! an American woman) But, luckily I had my English friends (who ARE from Leeds) drive me down to the lovely Kent countryside to attend the wedding.

A tradition that I love about British weddings is the hat and fascinator option. Now, this is a sadly lost art of feminine adornment that went the way of corsets, petticoats and white gloves (ah, to be able to wear white gloves again and never have to worry about a manicure!) But, for some reason, it has endured in this fair isle for horse racing, polo and weddings. A woman can literally stick a bow and a feather on her head and she is a picture of grace. Needless to say, I was beside myself with the option and decided to treat myself to an appointment with my hair dresser to have some sort of keratin de-frizzing straightening blowdry.

I forgot to read the fine print, though, which required no hair washing for three days and no adornment of any sort that might “bend” the hair permanently. This wouldn’t be so bad except that the straightening that I got left with me with this poker straight fine and limp WAG wannabe do (for my American friends, google WAG. It will become as painfully clear as Victoria Beckam’s clavicle). So, all in all, not a good look. But, naturally, I paid a ridiculous sum of money for it, so I am determined to keep it straight, dry and unadorned for three days. An uphill challenge, turns out, as this is the hottest weekend of the year. And, we are driving to the wedding in a car with no air conditioning. And no back windows. And we’re stuck in a traffic jam getting out of central London, so no breeze. Just a baking, melting torrid stillness. Needless to say, it isn’t long before my hair is drenched at the scalp and sticking to my back and face in chunks. Did I mention that I have a very efficient self-cooling mechanism? This is, of course, code for the fact that I sweat. A lot.


Now, the fine print also said that if I were to get my hair wet, then I was to dry it immediately and run a straightener through it. So, while I did, indeed, do that on days 2 and 3 (much to friends’ delight when I whipped it out in the kitchen and straightened away while drinking a rose and watching my friend Leslie prepare a delicious paella), I did not have the foresight to bring one to the wedding. Luckily, my fellow-wedding go-er did have one, so I made use of hers.

Now I won’t bore you with all the details of my hair drama, which had me holding my head upside down over the air conditioning unit in the hotel room after “steaming” my dress in a failed attempt to render it wrinkle-free in the bathroom of the hotel. Which, incidentally meant my poor fellow wedding go-er also had to observe my naked and profusely sweating self wrench my upper torso into a particularly snug strapless bra when I couldn’t bear to go into the bathroom cum sauna/steamer that I had created in said failed attempt. But, in any event, I promised that once I had a drink in my hand, I would cease to b*tch about my hair. Never saw a mini bar open so fast! (and, not to brag, but I have now discovered an as yet unknown skill of opening a beer bottle off the bathroom sink in the absence of a bottle opener. Yep, all class, me.)

So, wrinkled, frazzled and damp, I headed out to the wedding. Or, actually, not. Because there is another tradition in Britain when it comes to weddings that allows certain guests to be invited only to the “party.” See, there’s a wedding, a wedding breakfast (which isn’t breakfast at all, it’s actually a sit down dinner, but why get lost in semantics?) and speeches and toasts and drinks and then the “party.” Now, after a long day of festivities, you would think that no one would be up for a party – actually, come to think of it, I think that is the whole point. We’re like the substitutes, the pine-riders who breathe new life into the festivities and replace the worn out A gamers. But, this only works when you unleash the subs on a bar to help them get up to speed with the rest of the players who’ve been battling the booze all day. Doesn’t work so much when you get there at the appointed time and the wedding (the real wedding that is, you know, the one that you weren’t invited to?) is running an hour and a half late. And, the bartenders haven’t yet set up. Then you’re just kind of cooling your heels (Or, again, not so much as it turns out. Old castles also lack the ole AC).

But, at least it was a stunning backdrop and I got to wander around the castle, being careful to avoid stumbling into the wedding inadvertently. (I have a history of stumbling into/onto things inadvertently. Like the red carpet at a premiere in New York. You would think that the fact that James Gandolfini was in front of me and Jeff Blum was behind me would have tipped me off to the fact that the cordoned off escalator was not, in fact, the way to the ladies' room.)

Needless to say, we did finally harass the bartenders enough to start giving us double vodkas. And hundred quid each later, we had caught up to and were lapping the A gamers. So much so, that my fellow non-wedding go-ers stayed until the sun came up having a piano sing-a-long in the castle with the other non-wedding go-ers. I, myself, retired at a reasonable time. (I won’t lie and say that the AC in the hotel had nothing to do with that decision.) (Or the lure of a ciabbatta, potato chips and M’n’Ms from the local gas station!))

So, while the whole concept of non-wedding goers is strange to me, it also means we’re non-gift givers as well. So, at least I don’t have to worry about the appropriate cover charge for my plate or which gravy boat to give. And, I didn’t have to hear Pachelbel, Trumpets or any Corinthians either. Just a little Salt ‘n’ Pepa. And, who doesn’t love a little Push It in stilettos?

Turns out some wedding traditions are the same world over.