A park wedding in Adelaide

[stephbg]

The purpose of our recent trip over East was to be present for the wedding of niece C and her partner D in Adelaide. C is Husband’s Brother’s Daughter. (Last year’s wedding was for Husband’s Sister’s Daughter.) This is a rather lopsided account of my attendance and limited impressions.

The wedding ceremony was held in a park that was walking distance from the bride’s family home, with the reception in a frankly enormous marquee in the large backyard of their lovely large old house. I believe the large lawn was once meant to be a tennis court, but in recent years has become a serious croquet lawn. We were staying at this house as part of the effort to manage the spoon costs for me, which is why this post is something of a behind-the-scenes affair.

Husband was called to duty on the big day to help lay the tables for the 145 or so reception guests, helped by Chris, another uncle of the bride on her mother’s side.

This shows only about a quarter of the tables; it took the both of them several hours hard work in very hot and humid conditions to lay everything out. For yes, it was hot, and humid. And while on the night of the wedding itself it felt a bit cooler because of a gully breeze, the wind brought with it startling amounts of dirt. Some people coughed and some eyes burned, but it wasn’t until the next day when we were clearing the tables and saw the white circles on the tablecloth where abandoned glassware had protected it from the contrasting greyish-brown surrounds.

Enjoy a rather nice close-up of the lovely lads, who seemed to get along like a house on fire:

The colour scheme for the whole affair was very nice. Baseline white with black-and-white striped table runners and other details such as chair cushions on the garden furniture. My sole contribution to the whole affair was to tie these cushions to the chairs. I think there were about 10 of them to do, so I tied 40 bows. Go me. Better than nothing I suppose, and the family are all very nice about my limitations. Perhaps that’s why they sweated twice the work out of Husband!

Further to the colour scheme were highlights in soft blue/green, yellow, and purple: the water bottles, glasses for the head table, the potted succulents that doubled as name tag holders and bonbonniere, ribbons, and various bits of trim. All very soothing and subtle; a restful palette.

The cake was similarly charming and elegant, featuring little birds and some beautifully-wrought succulents for decoration:

This rather magnificent creation was built by the fair hands of the Mother of the Groom, whom I was surprised to discover was not a professional cake decorator, but a decorated amateur cake decorator. She was also responsible for the chocolate mud cake that was served for dessert, which had the most astonishing perfect texture throughout (not that my sample size was particularly significant but still…).  Sadly being gluten-intolerant, the cook was unable to enjoy her own creations, so I fangirled at her for a bit.

The cake deserves some close-ups, the first in somewhat moody lighting:

And this, the detail of the top tier, featuring the little birds which also decorated the tables and which we were encouraged (I hope) to bring home:

We certainly brought a couple of them home. Even the bridesmaids’ dresses were made from prints featuring birds and flowers – very refreshing and springlike for an otherwise sweltering Summer’s afternoon.

The table centrepieces were collections of objects and images that represented the couple’s life together. They both love their dogs and are well-travelled, so origami dogs were folded from pages taken from an old atlas. Snowflakes represented their shared and keen interests in snow sports. Even little bicycles.

A lot of effort had been put into making the property look nice for the event, with little sitting nooks here and there, and a general tidy of the property. One of the major efforts involved covering the two water tanks with screens woven by A, the bride’s sister who is an artist. The effect was colourful and festive:

I loved the textures:

The preparations for the bride and her bridesmaids went as you might expect. Hair, makeup, nails, champagne, emergency packs etc. The photographer was late though, and she was eventually contacted and found to be lost, so was guided through the admittedly confusing streets of suburbia to the right house. I thought she seemed a bit disorganised, and was always borrowing people to hold things for her. Later when it got to the group photos after the ceremony she really struggled with the admittedly monumental task of people herding. Nor was she much of a shouter. With only one camera to hand I thought perhaps she was a friend offering her services as a gift. But no, she was indeed a professional, but one cruelly deprived of her assistant at the last minute. Perhaps the assistant normally performed the navigating, people herding, and extra gear carrying duties.

Those of us not  in the bridal party but who’d gathered at the house made our way by foot to the local park, which has been a family playground for at least two generations. The service itself was on the other side. The walk was not a long one by normal measures, but it was very hot and humid, and I was limping on my stick from the very start. We got there reasonably intact and so I claimed a seat with territorial ferocity, and fell upon the bottles of water that had been provided.

We arrived a healthy 5-10 minutes before the advised service time, but the bride arrived 20 minutes after that time, and it took a little while to wrangle the mob to let her through. While we were waiting a fairly large branch fell out of  gum tree not far away, fortunately falling between two cars rather than on top of one. Sometime in the previous night after the rehearsal a much more massive branch had come down, quite capable of thoroughly squashing cars or people. Maybe Adelaide isn’t full of serial killers after all – It’s The TREES!

The service itself was short and sweet, featuring the rather unusual spoken recital of the lyrics of the Huey Lewis And The News version of “The Power of Love” (“Don’t take money, don’t take fame. Don’t need no credit card to ride this train…”)

Special shout out to the folks (friends) who arranged the PA system – it was the best outdoor sound I’ve heard in a long time. Clear as a bell, perfect volume, no crackles, wind roar, or feedback. Nice.

After the service the rellies milled about ready to be called into action for various family shots with bride, groom, or happy couple. At first I went to the marshalling area without my cane as I didn’t want it in the photos. After a while, Husband brought it back for me. He had to also hijack a chair and a bottle of water to help me survive the wait. I’d been up and around for quite a while by this point and was feeling dizzy.

I don’t have much in the way of photos of the actual bridal party, but here’s one of the bride and bridesmaids:

We made our way back to the house/reception and my beautiful bed where I could collapse properly for a brief while before the reception proper began. Bliss. But then it was out in the garden chatting to family mostly, then in to the marquee for sustenance and speeches. A photo booth was set up out the back so people could take silly photos with picture frames , masks, and feather boas. A box of (new, colour-coordinated) thongs (of the footwear variety) was supplied for guests who wished to kick off their heels but not come to grief on the prickly lawn underfoot. Very practical.

My favourite speeches were those delivered by the bride and groom themselves. She spoke of meeting a man who checked all her boxes; he spoke of meeting a woman who checked all his boxes and some he didn’t even know he had. Naaaaaaaw. The Best Man’s speech was something of an art performance piece supported by PowerPoint, and inspired by revenge for the groom’s efforts at his own wedding some years previously when their roles were reversed.

I needed another collapse after the talking so went to my room to stretch everything and lie flat for a while. I missed most of the dancing but the die-hards were still at it when I came out later.

It was a damned fine wedding. I was glad to see my SIL S’s expression transform through the evening from tension to pleasure as she was able to see it all come together.

Comments

[redbraids.livejournal.com]

Glad you hd a good time.
Those woven water tank wrappers are amazing!