A wonderful wedding

Had a wonderful wedding yesterday which quite restored my faith in human nature. The bride looked stunning and was attended by a ‘best woman’ rather than any bridesmaids.

The bride’s family live in the big manor house right next door to the church, so can walk through the garden to the churchyard. Apparently, when they were small, the bride and her sister used to play at weddings and decided exactly how their future weddings would be. Each of them was going to have the other as bridesmaid. But the bride’s sister was killed last year in a horrific bus crash in Africa.

She had just qualified as a doctor and went out to Africa for a year to give something back to society following her training. While over there she used public transport to get about and was thrown from this particular bus when it crashed. She died immediately. I took the funeral, which is how I became acquainted with yesterday’s bride.

So it was a big occasion yesterday for all sorts of reasons. It needed to be a really happy occasion, but obviously there was sadness and regret in everybody’s mind, so that had to be addressed too.

In the end, I opted for a bit of fun – rehearsing the congregation for their one-liner in the service can be quite a fun time so I do that before the wedding starts, to set the mood – and included a rather good and very humorous wedding story in the short talk during the service. All went down well and got everyone really relaxed and laughing. Then, towards the end of the service, I included a prayer for ‘all those we love but see no longer, knowing that they are still with us.’ It seemed to be OK – at least, they all thanked me for a ‘lovely service’ on the way out.

They’d invited me back for a glass of champagne after the service, but since we’re in the middle of packing up the Rectory in order to move on, I declined. The bride’s father (whom I know quite well as he’s our Deanery treasurer) said he’d bring me over a glass instead. And sure enough, when they walked across the garden to the church for the start of the service, he was carrying a glass of champagne for me! I left it in the porch until after the service (well, I did have a quick slurp first, but don’t tell anyone) wondering whether it would still be there by the time everyone had departed.

It was! So I drank it all and then drove home – along very quiet back roads. Honestly.

I do hope this will be a new beginning for this lovely and tragic family.

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