The hotel fire alarm went off at half past midnight on Sunday morning, just after
most people had left the wedding party and gone to bed. Left standing were the bride and groom, the bride's family, and many of the younger groovier lot, who I'd left jiving on the dance floor, taking selfies and drinking the remains of the champagne (cava) from the magnum bottles. So who would you expect to have let the fire alarm off?
The wedding took place in lovely surrounds in the
Gilstrap Registration Office at Lincoln, next to the ruins of the castle. The groom was white with nerves before the ceremony, but you can see from this photo that now the vows have been made, the registrar's mispronunciation of his surname corrected, and the deed done, he's smiling proudly. His bride, who avows she does not want to be the centre of attention, quietly took the visual attention for the day, looking beautiful, - see her happy smile - but saying little.
The best man did my son proud, racing round the country to fetch the last-minute arrived bridesmaids' dresses, which all fitted each bridesmaid perfectly. The best man also ran around getting people to sign a memory book against the polaroid pictures that a pair of friends had been taking of everyone. And he made a great speech starting from how he first noticed my son at school in maths class, when one poked the other. He described how he'd introduced the couple, and in explaining the couple's gradual revelation to their friends of their relationship, apologised to me that I was the last to know, for which he proposed a toast to
me! Well that's a first - a somewhat untraditional toast, but this best man has endeared himself to me for some time. He was the one a few years ago who helped my son to
buy a new car.
At the reception, I met the bride's family at last. I'd met her maternal grandparents, and her little brother, but now I had the pleasure of meeting her other, rather older grandparents, and her lively younger sisters. Her grandparents had stalwartly remained in the dancing room despite the deafening music, whilst my siblings and I had removed ourselves to a place where we could talk and tease each other. Every now and again, I'd go back in for a dance. At midnight, most of us retired, including the bride's grandfather and grandmother. They decided to have a shower before bed, but the shower would not turn off. They had to call
the hotel staff, who also could not turn it off. The water got hotter and hotter, until eventually the steam set the fire alarm off and woke most of those who had just gone to bed (not my sleepy husband who admitted that he'd only thought he'd heard it). Fortunately, it went off again almost immediately and we did not have to leave our rooms, except the bride's grandparents. They had to change bedrooms because the hotel staff could not sort it out. It was not the bride or the groom or the best man who set the fire alarm off. Nor her lively sisters. It was the oldest guest - her grandfather!
