June 30th 2012

Today was the day of the wedding. My family usually attend weddings of people who we have never ever met so this one was no different. My dad's auntie's brother-in-law's 3rd daughter was getting married. We attended the wedding of her older sister 3 years before. We were looking forward to the wedding. My mam woke me up at about 7 or 8am and did my tan for me. All of the lads were still asleep so my mam had me standing in the middle of the room turning around and making sure that there was no streaks or white patches. When everybody was awake we all started to get ready and by about 12.20 we all went downstairs and got a taxi to the church which was about a 10 minute drive. We made our way into the church and sat with my dad's cousin Ann and her husband Colin. Lilly, Berni and Phillip. The ceremony was lovely and loads of people were crying. The bride (Alison) wore a beautiful dress and she had an up-do which was very elegant. The bridesmaids dresses were black; which is not a colour that I would have at a wedding  but they looked beautiful with a big bun on the side of their hair. The ceremony was about an hour long and it was disappointing because it was raining really heavily. After there was a long wait because the photographer  wanted to take loads of pictures. 

When we were at the last wedding the reception was right beside the church so we assumed it would be the same at this wedding. It wasn't because it was in a different venue about 20 minutes up the road and my feet killed. I was really happy that I brought flat shoes in my bag. I really liked my outfit, I was wearing a one-shoulder, black and silver, sparkly, knee-length dress, a pair of open-toed, black and silver wedges which were really high. The rest of my family were dressed up too, my mam was wearing a summery top and white trousers and my dad and Dean were in suits. 

When we got to the venue, we had assigned seats which was good because we were all sitting with Berni, Lilly, Ann, Colin and their daughter Megan. We were surprised  because we were sitting at the table closest to the top table. Everybody was starving but the speeches were yet to come. There was loads of people making speeches including the bride, groom, best-man and father of the bride (Alf). When about an hour had passed the food was served. Usually at a wedding there's a set menu but at this wedding there was a buffet. I think that is better because people can just get what they like. There was loads of chicken tikka, hotpot and cakes and bread and loads of food that I didn't really what it was. We were delighted when our table was called to go up and help ourselves. I got a bit of everything and started tucking in. 

As day turned into night Alison and Michael had their first dance. Most people started getting up to dance with them. I was really enjoying myself and then my family got up to dance. I generally don't mind them dancing but this time my mam and dad were pissed. My mam and dad were dancing weird and embarrassing and then when my dad sat back down my mam kept going and she was dancing with this guy who was about 20 years old. It was funny to watch until she had he leg up around him. I just thought that was cringey. Coming up to about 11pm I was getting really tired. Everybody at my table were having a good time taking pictures and telling stories.


It was a unusual wedding because there was a raffle during the meal and if you had the same tickets as the ones that Alf pulled out you got to keep the flower display in the middle of the table you were sitting at. When Alf looked at our table, he laughed and my mam spat out wine from her mouth because she was laughing so much. Before the raffle had started, we took the flowers out of the vase and put them in our hair. All of the girls on the table were messing with them and we sort of ruined the table display. We didn't know that they were going to be raffled off so we ruined them instead. The whole table was chuckling for about 20 minutes and the English people were looking and staring and only us being Irish would laugh off our heads and make the whole situation a joke.


It was coming up to about 12am when most people were going home and the newly married couple; Alison and Michael were gone to spend their first night together as a married couple. We made out way over to the taxi office that was right beside the wedding venue. There was loads of drunk young people there so when we went inside  the man who worked there told us it would be about 30 minutes until a taxi was available. About 5 minutes later the man came over to us and put us in a taxi, I was confused but my mam said that because of all the drunk people then man probably wanted to get rid of us sooner because maybe he didn't want children (me and Dean) to see drunk people getting into fights. We were all tired and my mam was drunk so when we got back we all just went to bed.