Life, Squished

My Dear Fellows and Dear Princess Normal,

Weddings are stressful things. I learned this when we were at Joanne's flat in the early 2000's while she was meticulously planning her wedding to Lio. She was like Eisenhower and the Normandy Landings, only with centrepieces and save the date cards.

"Oh my god!" she said out of nowhere. "Choolie! Who's doing your make-up?!?"

Julie was Joanne's sister. I should explain that they were from Stornaway and had cute comedy Hebridean accents.

Julie was feeling much more mellow about things. After all, it wasn't her wedding and she was halfway down a bottle of Pinot Grigio. "Oh, I don't know Cho-anne," she said. "I expect I'll just squish some on."

Joanne's face changed. Her back straightened. Julie sobered up all at once. She realised she had made a mistake. A voice came out of Joanne, it was like a horror movie voice. Like the voice of someone who has been possessed by a Demon and is moving furniture around with THEIR MIND:

"YOU WILL NOT JUST 'SQUISH SOME ON'!!!!"

By the time her wedding day came, Joanne was like an exposed NERVE. She coped by drinking. A lot. As I remember she had to be carried out of her own wedding reception about ten minutes after it started. The last time I saw her she was waving over her new groom's shoulder. "I'm sorreeeee, sorreeee..." she said.

Ironically enough, her make-up looked decidedly squished.

Er Indoors and myself were determined this was not going to be us. But right away we ran into a problem when we planned our wedding. Our families. They were on two opposite sides of the planet. Which side to shun?

"Let's shun them both," I suggested. "We can get married in Las Vegas and the families can watch it on webcam."

Er Indoors was enthusiastic. The next decision was who to marry us. I mean, obviously we wanted an Elvis. Not 50's Elvis. Not skinny Elvis. But Vegas Elvis. Or possibly Hawaii Elvis. Definitely some sort of Jumpsuit Elvis. But while we were looking at webcams of live weddings Er Indoors came across "Harnik" - a Tom Jones impersonator.

"We have to have this guy," said Er Indoors.

We weren't going on this adventure completely solo. Er Indoors enlisted her favourite partner in crime Lisa to be her Maid of Honour. Lisa agreed so long as we promised to NEVER call her that. I then asked Er Indoors's sister Feefs to be my Best Man.

"Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyy!!!"

I took that as a yes.

Despite the fact that we were planning the most stress-free wedding ever, I seem to recall that there was tension over "hair-ups" on the morning of the big event. To escape it, Feefs and I headed off to get my tuxedo. I had allowed two hours for the endeavour. I figured it would involve a lot of fitting, measuring and trying on of various cumerbunds and bow ties.

Ten minutes. That's all it took. Me and Feefs were stuck with nothing to do while wating for Lisa and Er Indoors.

"Let's go to that bar and play pool," I suggested.
"Ooh, it's two for one on shorts in here today," observed Feefs.

Whoooops.

By the time Lisa and Er Indoors arrived, Feefs was STEAMING. SMASHED. RAT@RSED. "Yaaaaaayyy, we're getting MARRIED!!" she told Tom Jones.

Tom Jones looked at Er Indoors. He looked at Feefs. He looked at me. I expect he was wondering if I was an extremist Mormon.

We clarified the situation, and the wedding began. Er Indoors came down the aisle to "She's a Lady" and as I recall the ceremony was peppered with lots of Tom Jones puns along the lines of "Do you promise to be his Pussycat?" and "Do you promise to let her Just Help Herself?"

But in between there was singing. Tom Jones. Singing right at the four of us. It was a bit weird. The only polite thing to do was dance.

"Where's the webcam?" asked Feefs. I pointed it out to her and she started a whole routine, pulling shapes and waving at the camera. Then she fell off her heels and nearly took me with her. And that was when Er Indoors spoke:

"FOR EFF'S SAKE! THIS IS MY WEDDING!!!!"

There it was. The voice. Somewhere, furniture was moving.

But we got through the rest of the ceremony with no further mishap other than when we left the chapel. "Sexbomb! Sexbomb!" begged Feefs.

So we left to the strains of "Sexbomb". A song which Er Indoors hates. To this day.

Our wedding night was spent in our luxurious room at the Venetian Hotel. Check that. Er Indoors and Lisa's night was spent in the room. Mine was spent chasing Feefs around the casino. She was DETERMINED to lose her life savings on the Wheel O' Fortune. I managed to convince Feefs that her ATM card was broken, but it took a couple of hours and a lot of coffee.

I suppose what I'm trying to say is that it's not possible to avoid wedding-stress. And maybe it's a mistake to even try. Now that I look back, the parts I've related here are the bits that make me laugh the most.

Even today, celebrating our 10th wedding anniversary, things didn't go quite right. I bought Er Indoors a big chocolate cake but forgot I also needed to pick up the dry cleaning. Carrying all those bags was not easy and the cake got a bit squished. But Er Indoors didn't mind. The cake tasted yum anyway. 

Some things can stand a bit of squish. Is I think what I'm trying to say. Happy Anniversary Er Indoors.

S.