That's Amore!

My Dear Princess and Dear Fellow,

THE BIG DAY IS FINALLY HERE!

It really HAD become a big day by this point. So much preparation and so much work and so much stress had gone into it. 

And I'll be honest here and say I had a mini-meltdown on Wednesday. I felt let down by a lot of people - they were dropping out in droves. But Caro did her best to keep my spirits up and offered to help.

But obviously I couldn't accept her help because SURPRISE. 

We rode the train into Wellington and DISASTER.

It was ABSO-[very bad word]-LUTELY RAMMED with rugby fans. Nowhere to stand, let alone SIT. 

But Caro put a brave face on it. And then things shifted into gear. We checked into our hotel and it was BEAUTIFUL. I had very carefully booked a King Suite with harbour views and it looked great. Caro made herself beautiful and I surreptitiously texted because SURPRISE. 

When we got to the venue, we found Ellie and Mo there already. They were in high spirits and I felt myself starting to relax. I found out that the venue had kind of lied to me about being able to show my slide show and play my music but we MUDDLED THROUGH. I showed my slide show on one tiny screen but the playlist started to play and I had whisky and I no longer cared. 

Jeff and Manda arrived. Manda was dressed as Avril Lavigne because millennium era. I had told her it wasn't a costume party, but she is not a lady to be put off easily. 

Then Loulou and Tiger, Shenee and Craig, Luke and Alicia and Briar arrived. 

And Karlie. 

Who is Karlie, you may ask. 

Well, she's Fiona's best friend. She just happened to be in town for a couple of weeks so we had invited her along. 

AND

Secretly. Sneakily. Surreptitiously, I had also invited....

FIONA!!!!!

So Fiona sneaked in behind Karlie and CARO'S FACE WAS A PICTURE!

There were big hugs and lots of laughs and I was so happy! Because Caro was so happy!

The playlist kicked in and we all had fun drinking and laughing and to be honest, I didn't see a whole lot of Caro. She was too busy having fun and chatting to everyone and just feeling special. I talked a lot to Luke and Alicia and we tried to get Briar to dance.

It turns out Briar does not dance. 

We danced around Briar.

The pizzas arrived and then the playlist reached its first carefully-timed climax. I played the videos from you all and Caro LOVED it! Just loved it! She clapped along and even whooped at certain points. Princess, your bit made everyone laugh and Caro was delighted. 

I'll post a video of her reaction to it, if you want to watch. 

The video ended with a speech from me, revealing how on that first date I had sung Dean Martin to Caro in a karaoke bar. And I finished thus:

ME: Now 'scusa-me but you see, it's time to return to Old Napoli to serenade Caro as she deserves...

And the playlist started again and we ALL sang Dean Martin to Caro as we waltzed in the middle of all of our friends!

And all of the stress and all the angst and all of the chasing people for videos and harassing people to show up and feeling grumpy just slipped away. 

Most of our guests faded away early - they tend to do this. In the end it was just the hard-core of me, Caro, Karlie, Fiona and Mo. Our playlist got turned off and the venue was turned over to the general public. 

For some reason though, we stayed and stayed and drank and drank. Caro has discovered she can drink again and she was on the vodkas. 

I was just drinking everything anyone gave me. 

Uh-oh.

We danced and drank until 3am and somehow (Mo) got us back to our hotel. There we got hopelessly confused by the lifts. Some of which go to the sixth floor and some which stop at the fourth. 

We were on the sixth, but couldn't figure out how to get past the fourth. 

(Despite having had this explained to us earlier in the day).

So we drunkenly wobbled to and fro until a guy with a vacuum cleaner pushed us into the right lifts and pressed the button for us. 

I'm not sure how we got back into our room. Caro says she remembers scrabbling about on the floor for her pills and wondering aloud if she should just sleep there. 

I remember nothing until 5am when it all hit me like a truck.

But now I'm straying into tomorrow territory. Let's end our story on a happy note. 

It was a HUGE DRUNKEN NIGHT OF SINGING AND DANCING AND DEAN MARTIN.

And entirely appropriate for the 25th anniversary of our first date. 

S.