It was a day to remember. For different reasons.
On Saturday, both my brother-in-law and my Dad were sick. My brother-in-law particularly so, but his bug proved to have a short life, and by sunday, he was more or less ready to go. My father was a different story.
Ever since my father had a bypass operation for his heart 3 years ago, he's been a lot more careful about his health. Add to this the fact that his skills at social prioritising were never the best - to invent a random and arbitrary term that only goes someway towards describing his problem - and he has sometimes passed on attending things that really required his presence.
This wedding, believe it or not, was one of them.
He aired the notion of staying away on Saturday night, and it was met with no small amount of hostility, so he appeared to backtrack. However, on Sunday he was adamant. My sister was raging, as she was of the opinion that as he was on a course of antibiotics, going to the wedding wasn't a big risk, and that he would need to be on death's door to consider missing it anyway. Initially, he said he would go to the reception, and sleep in the room that he had booked in the hotel. He backed out of this later, and decided to stay at home. Needless to say this was not taken well. My mother was quite upset on the morning and if it wasn't for a couple of the neighbours offering moral support, she may never have gotten out of the house at all. My brother appeared to shrug it off, but as was pointed out by my sister, it was always my father he got on best with, so he had to have been disappointed.
We got on with it, asking one of the neighbours to check in on him regularly, and deciding to phone him every so often.
The church ceremony was nice, with a guy playing an acoustic guitar throughout, instead of the usual organ stuff. Having little to do other than direct people to their seats, I was able to relax after a while. Well, after I had read my prayer of the faithful, which I was given only minutes before the service started.
After the ceremony was over, we mingled outside and met a few relatives that I hadn't seen in a long time. It was nice, I hardly recognised some of them, and of course most of them didn't recognise me. After that, we headed to straight to the Silver Springs hotel in Cork and once I got in the door I descended on the free sparkling wine that was provided in the foyer. After that it was into the reception room to sit down to our meal.
It was then that things got a bit more interesting. Because our father was absent, it was decided that I would take his place at the top of the table. It was also decided, not long before the speeches were to start, that I would have to say a few words on his behalf. I was momentarily assailed by waves of terror, but I got it together. By the time my turn came, I'd had a few glasses of wine and was full of my own importance. After being handed the microphone, I started off inauspiciously, but then decided to improvise.
"Paul and Claire's relationship reminded me of Cathy and Heathcliff's in Wuthering Heights", I declared to Claire's bemusement, "but we've got a happy ending in this one". Falling in love with the sound of my own voice, I continued: "There have been quite a few contenders over the years for who would be my sister-in-law", to which the whole place gave a big 'Ooooooh!', "but I'm glad Claire has become the one".
Once I had called a toast and sat down again, I felt as if I had been a bit artless, but everyone seemed to like it, although my brother-in-law said that it was a bit like the Italian Job: I went right to the edge and then braked.
The rest of the night was a blur. The white wine that my glass was constantly being topped up with was maybe the best I've ever had, and I partook liberally. After a while I ended up buzzing around talking to loads of different people and giving one or two men the eye. One such example was my step-brother, the son of my brother's birthmother (my brother was adopted). He had acquired a beard since I saw him last, and was looking distinctly wolfish. Sample: "Matthew, as my step-brother, it would be WRONG to say that you look distinctly doable with your current look. Very wrong indeed". To which he guffawed. Then there was another bloke. He looked at me with fear in his eyes.
The night finished well. I found out that two people I had always liked were now engaged ("Catherine and Peds! Paul and Claire may have been my Cathy and Heathcliff, but ye were always my Romeo and Juliet! Oh, and make SURE you send me an invite to the wedding!") and I rang in the new year by hugging just about every one of the 300-odd people who attended. Then there was an indie disco (Gotta love that category) where we took a trip down memory lane moshing like madmen to Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana, The Sultans of Ping FC, and God knows what else.
After that, I went to see about which room I was in. It transpired that my parents hadn't booked me into one after all, even though they'd said they'd had, so I ended up having to wake up one of my cousins at about 4am and sleep on the floor in their room.
The morning rise was horrendous. My cousin woke me, saying that my mother was downstairs waiting for me and was driving home in 10 minutes. I stood up, racked with the mother of all hangovers, and staggered into the bathroom. Once it became apparent that I wasn't going to puke there and then, I put on my jacket and shuffled downstairs, shirt still open halfway down my chest. I went to the bar and met one of the tenders from the night before, with a big smirk on his face. "Orange Juice", I slurred. "Certainly", he replied. I annhilated it in under 2 seconds.
I got a drive home and once our destination was reached, I got into bed and slept for a few glorious hours.
Looking back on the whole thing, it was quite a success. I had wondered what it would be like having very few of my friends there, as they didn't really know my brother well enough to come, and had their own plans anyway, but it ended up for the best, as they ended up in different locations, scattered throughout the region. This has been as good a new year's as any I've ever had.
The one major fly in the ointment was, with the crisis of my father not coming, my mother and I forgot to bring the digital camera. The evening has been well documented, as loads of others brought theirs, it just means I don't have any decent pictures immediately to hand to put up here. It's a shame. Apart from anything else, I wanted the world to know what I looked like with a dickie bow and a tux with tails. Perhaps if they're forthcoming from other people.
On reflection, my brother's friends, a bunch I didn't always believe would be the most focussed of people, really came through for him, and I really didn't have that much involvement at all. I still have kind of mixed feelings about this. My brother was the black sheep of the family for quite some time when he was younger, and this may explain why, even now, that his friends seem to enjoy a place in his life that is at least - if not more than - of equal importance than his immediate family. My mother had asked me over Christmas if we still got on, and the truth is he can still be slightly hard to take sometimes. Having said that, I was still paying attention to how much our immediate family was involved over the day. It shouldn't have bothered me, it certainly didn't when my sister got married 10 years ago, maybe I'm just being a bit paranoid. He asked one of his long-term friends to be the best man (thank God his speech came after mine, so he could put my Wuthering Heights reference into context), and I never heard anything about his stag party in Hamburg. But that may have been because I think I once said that I wouldn't be able to afford it, studying in Brighton as I am.
He and his wife are now en route to their honeymoon. They flew to Gatwick today. They had no idea where they were going after that, they were just going to jump on a cheap flight and head somewhere warm. Not a bad idea at all...
So that's it. Major event of the year over for us. Back down to earth with a bang. Bah!
It looks sort of ropey - I still don't know what I'm doing when it comes to my parent's digital camera - but it's the first we've got of them all in a while so it has sentimental value. 