Its certainly wedding season at the moment and it seems to be the year for weddings with about 5 I am going to this year.
About 2 weeks ago it was my cousin’s wedding in Cheltenham. It wasnt as far as I first thought to travel with it taking about 1hr 45mins – good traffic. It was a lovely sunny day.The wedding was in Manor by the Lake. After the ceremony there was the opportunity for photos. As I said it was a nice sunny day so some great photos. The “wedding breakfast” was next – I had pate for starter and salmon for main – I am glad I had the salmon as the chicken looked very dry! Unfortunately I was suffering from hayfever so was sneezing abit 
If you know me, you can see photos on my Facebook. After some post-meal cake and tea etc everyone headed home.
Last weekend I went away for my ex-bosses wedding near Southampton. I tried down with 2 ex-workmates and one of their girlfriends. It was a long way to travel so we decided to travel down on Friday afternoon and then travel back on Sunday morning. It took about 5hr 30mins to get there. We stopped for about 45 mins in a service station and 45 mins worth of traffic jams. We did manage to get to destination in time for meeting everyone else – time for some food and a drink.
The actual wedding was on Saturday and we were lucky with the weather. Travelling from hotel to church it was raining but stopped by the time we got to church. It was a very nice service. It was abit different to the normal “hymns” and were more like “normal songs” – if you know what I mean! The band playing the music were excellent.
After the ceremony, many photos were taken. We all then headed to the Solent Hotel were the wedding reception was being held. More photos were taken and then some drinks – I had a few “buzz fizz” type drinks. Food was served around 4pm. I had the salmon for starter and for mains chicken. It was all very nice.
After the meal was time for the speeches. The groom (my ex-boss) had not written anything down for speech and “winged it”. Thats what he said and I couldnt see if he had to few keywords to help him remember things to mention. He is an experience public speaker so he wasnt (or didnt appear) as nervous as groom’s are often. The father of the bride also gave a speech and of course the best man’s speech. It included many things as expected – very good, very funny. It even included abit of a quiz about the stag 
In between the speeches and the evenings events – a band playing – a casino was set up. It was all just for abit of fun. I managed to lose some and win some and pretty much broke-even (with the fake money!)
The band playing were a jazz band and after a few songs a few people gradually made there way onto the dancefloor – maybe after a few more drinks!! I didnt go up – didnt hear the Jazz version of Bon Jovi!! Later on in the evening, there was a finger buffet – I was a bit hungry by then some had a couple plates worth
The evening ending about 12.15am with pretty much every gone. Relatively early but it had been a long day. Got back to hotel and we ended up watching the rest of the movie on TV – I think it was The Ring. By then it was about 230.
Sunday morning and we all just about managed to get up for breakfast – before 10am. We also had to leave at a certain time as it was the same day as the British Grand Prix so we had to time things right or else get stuck by Silverstone with 100,000 fans!! On route home, we stopped of at one of my workmates “colleagues” – his wife was kind enough to make a “nice spread” with sandwiches, scotch eggs, bread, ham etc. My other ex-boss was also there with his family. The grand prix started at about 1pm and shortly after we all made a quick getaway!! We worked out the grand prix would finish at 230pm and he was about abit less than 1 and half hours away from Silverstone. Anyway, we got past Silverstone properly about 10-15 minutes before the race ended.
To break up the trip we stopped off a Stratford for about 2 hours. Total travel time to get back to Manchester was about 6 and half hours including the 2 hours at Stratford. We didnt really get stuck in jams but plenty of slow moving traffic – roadworks limiting speed to 40,50 or 60mph.
After all the driving, Monday morning I woke up with abit of a sore back!! Good excuse to not go to the gym. Once again, I have uploaded photos to Facebook.
Tomorrow I will be going to another wedding. This is my cousins wedding but the “Chinese part”. The normal Chinese wedding reception is a BIG meal in a restaurant with many courses – about 10 main courses plus the dessert courses. The dishes usually include lobster, sharks fin soup, fish and chicken. I think things like the fish and chicken are always included as they are “lucky”.
