Tuesday 1st October 2013 – Wedding Day
A nervous awakening on the morning of our wedding. Watched the sun rise over the harbour, and crystal clear blue skies across the bay. After the constant grey and rain of yesterday a huge relief that the day was wind free, and blue, cloudless, sunny skies for the wedding.
Both showered and room service delivered our $29 each breakfast. It was enormous, 2 huge trays that took up a whole desk : 1 orange juce, 1 grapefruit juice, 1 bowl of muesli, 1 bowl of nutri grain, 2 coffees, 1 bowl of apricots, 1 bowl of pears, 1 croissant, 2 pieces of white toast, 1 marmalade and 1 honey, 1 plain yoghurt, 1 fruit yoghurt, butter and marg, 2 milks, 2 poached eggs, 2 bacon, 2 sausages 1 hash brown, 1 baked beans, 2 mushrooms, 1 tomato. When we finished (most of) that we prepared the picnic lunch for the wedding on Te Ahumairangi Hill lookout (on the Town Belt). Slicing the sandwiches, sausages, pork pies, sausage rolls, croissants, french stick and pizza bread from new world, and making up the cheese and crackers on a plate and the various sweets - then wrapping everything in cling film several times. Squeezed into our suits (Small one in grey, Tall one in brown), pinned on our white button hole roses, and Tall one tied our ties using the 'Pratt Knot' we'd googled at work.
There was then an awful lot of 'admin' work involved in the wedding. Started posting his updates, emailing various family and friends, responding to text messages and Facebook messages, making Skype calls and phone calls. Around 9am our first wedding guest (and the photographer and ring bearer) Joel arrived first. He'd sewn up the tear down the side of his grey smart trousers especially for the wedding. Alix (poem reader) and Johnny (security) arrived next, followed by Will (backup camera man). When Mark and Sara (wedding cake makers) arrived, we had Joel (who'd they'd not met before) answer the Hotel room door and ask them what they wanted. They were confused and apologised and headed off back down the hallway, until small one went running out after them. The same gag worked well for the last guests arrival, Claire & Lena (poem readers) and Arran (video camera man – dressed in jeans and lumberjack shirt).
Once we were all in, the beers (VB) were opened. At 10.15am we headed down for the 11 seater taxi bus to take us up the hill. The driver was this bit of a little old man geezer fella, who was full of questions for poor Will in the front seat. He kept telling us it was his last shift and he'd never been up to this lookout before. We suggested he drop us on the proper residential road at the turn off for the more rough, potholed, very steep road up to the actual lookout – but he insisted on driving up which had us worried, but he made it.
Taxi man came out and checked out the view with us all, then left us to it. Small one rehearsed his vows and we all stood around waiting our Celebrant, Sally's arrival. Tall and Small baking under the sun in their waistcoats and suits, did not think to bring sunglasses or suncream. Then at 11am the ceremony started. Sally started with her Maori greeting and blessing, Small one had a message to our absent families. Lena then read the first poem, Lake Isle of Innisfree by William Butler Yeats and Sally read a short story of Small one and Tall one;s adventures up till now. Clare read the 2nd poem, Love is the Greatest Gift of All (by google??). During all of this Arran was zipping around with our camera in video mode, trying his best to make Clare laugh.
After the 2nd poem, Tall one had noticed Sally had the first draft of the ceremony, and not the amended one they had sent her after the rehearsal (the one with the declaration of intention). He quietly pointed this out and we switched to one of the wedding service booklets that had been hand made. The whole ceremony went very well, and was fun and casual – so any little mistakes really didn't matter.
We moved on to our declaration of intention (“do you Michael take...” “I do”) and then the vows. The vows Tall and Small had written themselves had all the girls with tears in their eyes. Next we had Joel bring the rings forward, which were then placed on our fingers. Sally then declared us husband and husband – and Arran and Lena came forward to sign as witnesses (Arran taking an age to write his own name and address). We then finished the ceremony with Sally juggling too many folders and handouts and booklets, as Alix read the final poem, “The Ring” by Kathleen Raine, and Sally ended with a Maori blessing.
Small one then threw a small bouquet of flowers at the guests, carefully aiming for Mark's Sara – who Mark had specifically checked last week to make sure that their wasn't going to be a bouquet, so that this moment would not happen. Tall and Small then cracked open a bottle of champagne and the cork flew over the trees into the hills below. Small one then handed out cups and announced to the guests that if they took it in turns to come up that Michael would give them a mouthful. The dirty minded people of the group were gigglign for a good five minutes after, luckily Sally did not catch it – and she sung us a Maori love song about a type of tree in the area that grows it's roots deep and it's branches wide to connect. Tall and Small then saw Sally off, and gave her yet another kiss on the cheek, Sally was delighted to have been part of our day – and explained how her purple outfit was partly from Vietnam and partly from India (where we were headed next).
We then took some group photos on the hill using a camera timer, ending with bizarre results as we all leapt in to the air to try and time it with the end photo. We also had some more serious group photos, but then realized that Clare had somehow muscled in to the front to stand next to small one (unbeknown to us) as if she was the bride. We then had a few beers and a picnic, before traipsing down the hill roads down to the Botanical Gardens. Photos were taken in the Duck Pond pagoda, whilst we were surround by small children on half term stuffing the ducks with whole loaves of bread the ducks were by now ignoring it and the duck pond was coated with soggy floating bread).
Started making our way along the harbour to the hotel, stopping for photos at the Beehive building. Foxglove we sat upstairs for drinks, and noticed how sun burnt Will and Arran were with their bright cherry red faces. Joel said that he also had a red nose, and small one and tall one pointed out he's had a red nose since the day they met him in Newfoundland last year. Further up the harbour for a drink in St John's bar, where we discovered that Will's fly had broken on his trousers, but he seemed content enough to spend the rest of the day with it gaping open. Back to the wharf and on the bridge by the night markets (near to where the blue penguins have been seen) Small one gathered everyone around and gave a small speech how we love New Zealand and how we love this harbour walk along Wellington, then he held up an engraved padlock and went to “lock in our love” on the bridge, though he dropped the padlock. Thankfully it did not go in the water and he picked it up and it was locked on the bridge and the keys thrown into the ocean. This surprise stop was seconded by young Joel stripping off his clothes and running along the diving plank and diving into the water. People weren't quite sure what was going on, but we all gathered around as he came dripping wet out of the water and tried to find his shirt which Lena had hidden.
In the hotel Mark and Sara presented the wedding cake they had home made for the occasion, complete with cake topper figures which we provided (a small Blue Penguin and a tall Emperor penguin). Tall one and Small one then cut the cake and handed some pieces around, the cake turned out fantastic. After the cake we headed up town for our 5pm meal at The Grand. The group of 11 of us was joined by 'Adam Chown' from the office (from here forward always known as 'Adam Chown' and not Adam). Adam surprised Tall and Small with two bottles of champagne and some cash in a wedding card, as did Clare and Alix who had 2500 Thai Baht. Clare and Alix had also arrived before us and spread thousands of small red heart sequins across the table. Small one hugged the girls and thanked them for their gift, and on the table was two mini bottles of champagne and two glasses, small one jumped to the conclusion that the girls had also brought Tall and Small these and so grabbed one bottle and glass and took it to his seat. He then prompted tall one to take the other one, but tall one looked back and forth at small one and the girls (who were saying nothing), “that's not yours” tall one told him. Small one was embarrassed and said he couldn't even drink Champagnge he just took it to be polite. Though the best gift of all was opening our final payslips on small one's phone – which showed the 97 accured holiday pay for tall one was paid out at $2200 net, which was a good $700 more than expected. Small one also got a similar holiday payment, woo-hoo!.
We had a heap of cheesy related starters, and then the stonebake steaks for the maiin – which are always amazing. Joel being the only vegan was asked to pick something off the menu that would suit, and bearing in mind small and tall were paying for everyone's food (and everyone's food being stonebake steak meals for $15 each) Joel chose some $30 mushroom dinner... the bastard!
After we left the Grand we headed for the Public bar to meet other fellow office workers for drink sat 7pm. On the street Adam Chown said he wanted a photo with tall one and small one, small one said why don't we stand infront of those (outside) fires from the Bangaldesh Restaurant, Adam agreed, but took this to mean he wanted a photo inside. Adam marched inside the restaurant with us in tow, and positioned us infront o the inside fire under the many deers heads. Some poor waitress looked at us confused and asked, “are you here for food, or ....er...just passing through”. We told her we were fine and took the photo and then left.
In Public Bar we met with others from the office, Andy Murrary, Alex, Inge, Bonnie, Melanie and Wei-Nung (later Aidan and that annoying fella he knows). People kept offering to buy us drinks, but so far Public Bar had either given us happy hour prices, or said it was free for us.
Tall one had been given a glass of champagne and a glass of beer to get rid of. Everyone was feeling painfully bloated from eating and drinking since 9am, and the enormous meal at The Grand. We soon left Public Bar to go the Electric Avenue. Soon we had the place near empty as Arran insisted of dancing like a drunken uncle. The dance floor descended into some aggressive madness with a bizarre array of dance moves from all the guests. Arran grabbed poor Mark by his arm and started doing some erratic dancing, forgetting that Mark had been off work with an operation on that arm. The barman refused to except money for tall and small's drinks (though tall one could not physically drink anything else). The chilean bar man then tried looking up songs of our choice on the computer system, but findign the correct name, but with a mismatch of the artist (So “All I want is You” by U2 – instead of Barry something that we had requested). Johnny also raved about the pizzas in that place, and we promised we'd come back the next day to try one. By Midnight small and tall had said many many goodbyes to their guests, and stumbled home very tired. Into the hotel room they found that someone (Arran and Lena) had covered their bed with thousands of little red sequins, and had to spend the next 15 minutes trying to scoop them up. But was the end of an amazing day, surprising weather, sun burn, food, drink and friends.
