The Wedding - part II

Sheila’s mum Cleonice arrived with her aunt, Cleusa and brother, Rafael, shortly before the wedding.  I prepared a cd with the Beatles (for Cleonice and Cleusa) and Oasis (for Rafael, my new brother-in-law.)  The rest of Sheila’s family would arrive a few days before the wedding, but for the time being we had 5 in the flat.  We took one air bed, Rafael another in the living room and the sisters took the bed.  I was working in until a few days before the wedding, but I was able to take my guests to London and Brighton during the weekend.  I can’t tell you how happy they were to experience all the new sights and sounds!

We drove to Forres a few days before the wedding to finalise the last minute plans.  Cleonice and Cleusa accompanied us on the 10-hour journey, while Rafael stayed in London to meet their cousins in London.  

They would fly to Forres on Thursday 15^th April, arriving in time for the stag night.  We had recommended hiring a people car and driving earlier, but they preferred to spend more time in London.

Everything was going well until Thursday morning...

My phone woke me up, a text message, my brother, something about a volcano...  ‘I can’t deal with this,’ I thought, and went back to sleep.  When I awoke (again), I remembered a dream where my brother texted me about a volcano.  Laughing, I reached for my phone: “Have you heard about the volcano?  Is anyone flying up?”  Bloody hell!  Volcano?  All I could think of was the extinct volcano on which Edinburgh castle is built, but if that’s gone up...  I eloquently replied “what volcano?”  Luckily, someone was clearly awake, he replied “there’s a volcano that’s erupted in Iceland.  It’s thrown a lot of ash into the air and the planes can’t fly.”  Expecting to see some kind of apocalyptic dark scene, I opened the curtains and was met by a sight even more unusual than that: sunshine and blue sky! In North East Scotland!

Northern Europe showing the high altitude ash on 16th April

Then my phone rang, Rafael, from London.   I can’t remember his exact words, mainly because they were Portuguese and I was very much a beginner at that time, but one word does stick in my mind: “cancelado.”  You don’t need to be a linguist to understand the meaning of that word.  I repeated, “cancelado?”  At which point Sheila woke up, wondering what was cancelled?  The wedding?  I passed her the phone and Rafael explained that they had arrived at the airport and all flights were cancelled.

We spent the morning trying to find a car hire company that had cars available, no mean feat as everyone on a UK domestic flight was now making alternative arrangements. We eventually found something and made a provisional booking, but the guys had second thoughts.  They had never driven on the left hand side of the road, let alone through London and along British motorways.  With the stress of last-minute arrangements, that was fair enough, so they went for plan B.  Or was it plan C? 

They found a train and piled on board.  Given the transport chaos and a line that is busy at the best of times, there were no seats available so they were left standing and sitting on the floor all the way to Edinburgh.  The changed trains in Edinburgh and were finally able to sit, but the train would only go as far as Inverness, 25 miles from Forres.  I spent my stage night sober, waiting until 11pm, at which time my dad and I each drove to Inverness, filled our cars with excited Brazilians and delivered them to Forres.  In spite of it all, they enjoyed the train journey and seeing much more of the country than they would have otherwise seen, had they flown.

Of course there were several other disruptions and changes to travel plans.  My Gran made the 8-hour train journey from Leeds with my cousin while others drove.  The friends and colleagues that could only fly up for the wedding, spend a couple of nights and return spent the Thursday and Friday on the phone and watching the news, hoping the ban on flying would be lifted so they would be able to attend.  The only one of my colleagues had driven to Glasgow for work then drove up the A9 to make the wedding.

Sheila and I

Finally, Sheila’s best woman, Taisa (she didn’t want to be a maid, but knowing about the tradition of the best man decided to create a role!) was due to arrive later with her sister, mum and friend, but it was beginning to look as though she wouldn’t be able to make it.  Sheila’s friend Pati, who had travelled up by train with the cousins, agreed to be the best woman in her place.  It wasn’t until the day of the wedding, that we heard that Taisa was on a train, heading to Forres.  With this incredible news, we continued the last minute preparations (I honestly can’t remember what I was doing, except that it involved driving backwards and forwards across Forres all morning) hoping that she would make it in time.

In the end, she didn’t make it to the wedding and we were unable to postpone the ceremony.  I have to admit to a tear when Sheila entered the room, and my mother-in-law was crying her eyes out.  The ceremony itself was simple, but beautiful.  It was a bit difficult for Sheila to understand the registrar’s Scottish accent and I seemed to forget how to speak English!

Left to right: me, Sheila, Pati, Taisa, Chris

After the photographs, we returned the function room for the speeches and then dinner when there was a commotion at the reception.  Taisa and her family had arrived, just in time for the wedding breakfast!  The hotel staff set the extra places at the table and they went to get changed while Rafael and I discovered the joys of bilingual speeches.  We appear to have survived intact!  My youngest brother Chris delivered his best man speech along with the obligatory embarrassing story from my youth.

We had planned a “mini-moon” instead of a honeymoon, a few nights in the Lake District before returning home.  With the Brazilian family being unable to continue with their plans of exploring Europe, we decided to return early and only spent one night in the Lake District.  In anticipation of a few extra house guests, our first job on returning home was bed shopping.  My old bed was miraculously still standing, but no one knew for how long and besides, all air beds would soon be put to use.  At one point, there were 8 people in our not-as-spacious-as-I-thought two-bedroom flat.  Pre-workday breakfast consisted of a careful tiptoe balancing act between sleeping bodies to reach the kitchen, quietly make a cup of tea and sneak out.  I hadn’t just married Sheila, I’d married the family!