Outside the town hall yesterday, a black-suited photographer with his camera trained on a large wedding party grouped together on the steps. Right, on the count of three I want you all to say 'Champagne!' Okay? 1--2--3
Champagne!!
Again? 1--2--3
Champagne!!
He takes pictures that freeze this moment in time.
The bride at the centre of the party really blushes. Only one little girl isn't smiling. Her eyes follow mine as I circle behind the photographer. She's feeling self-conscious about being made to participate in all of this rubbish.
Further on, there's an old cream limo with ribbons tied to the silver lady dancing on the grille. A chauffeur in a black cap waits with his back straight and gloved hands clasped behind his back. This is how to get married in style.
1 comment:
That sounds like a hell of a bash, Janey. And I like the idea of quoting Page and Plant. That's different...
When I saw the one in town it made me think of my Uncle Richard's wedding reception, which I attended as a child. I can still remember running around in the hall--presumably chasing or being chased by one of my brothers--and noticing only the legs and the feet of the adults sitting there. I was curious as to what it meant that they tapped their feet up and down to the rhythm of the music. A peculiarly adult habit, it seemed to me then. (I've always had these strange, alienated observations.)
I can also remember running around in the dark, hating the tie my parents made me wear, and something happening out there, someone getting hurt, though I don't know how or why. We were hanging out with some kids who must have been offspring of friends of my Uncle. Suffolk kids they were, and tough...I felt weak, actually more like a girl, in their company.
There was a picture of the wedding that survived, though most of the pictures from my past were destroyed. It's in black-&-white, which is bad enough, and my brothers and I are standing in front of a bar with boxes of crisps piled up behind us. The boxes have the price per crisp packet marked on in OLD MONEY, that's pre-1971...You can know you are an old fart intellectually, but boy does it threaten the delicate balance of your self-image when you see physical evidence of the fact!
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