The British Wedding of the Year

What an exceedingly clever title eh?

Guaranteed to please the discerning Mr and Mrs Lynch, without offending the perpetrators of the familial weddings in November. Gosh sometimes my own political correctness astounds me.

Anyway thats not what this is about.

This weekend just been was all about the celebration of Love between Daryl and Lorna. Hosted in the town of Ilkley, Yorkshire. Toasted by people from across the globe and no doubt a good few in heaven as well. A great weekend was had by all i think too!!!

Our weekend began with Paul arriving on thursday night (he was catching a ride north with us). Friday morning was hairdressers for Mez for colouring and straightening, a brief kitten or two were hatched when the rental car company stated they had lost our booking, and then we were on the road only half an hour behind schedule... which had us into Ilkley at around 2.30pm.

Quick check of the attire... Very styley cream shirt, exceedingly styley kiwifruit cufflinks, smart casual tan linen pants, brown shoes, and a matching brown belt - looked a lot like the picture really. Why the detail? Because Daryl is a detail man, hence my... exposition of our weekend must include detail to reflect that. And, well, lets be honest, I like details too.

Highlight of the afternoon would have to be a great game of hacky sack 'pig' with Paul. Needless to say i got my butt kicked, but it was good fun.

Downer of the day was getting a prickle in the end of my finger. Cos it hurt. And it took me two days to get it out!

Friday night was to be poker with the Lads... Amanda and Dan joined us in the early evening, however we also learned that Daryls Neice's and Nephew had been diagnosed with bronchitis post long haul flights and yound kevin had been coughing for a couple of days so there was a minor panic to get the wee man to a doctor late on friday, which he did, which was good for everyone's nerves i think. The young fella has some scarring on his lungs from early life problems and surgery so a chest infection would be very serious indeed. Anyway a healthy baby means happy parents and the last pre-wedding potential disaster averted. (there were a number of pre-wedding disasters including Daryl's dad, Danny getting off the plane and into hospital for a short stay up till the night before the wedding - stressful for the family and without wanting to make light of a serious situation, i thought an exceedingly good way to get over Jet lag!!!) So we (Amanda, Dan, Paul, Mez and I) sat around, ate pizza, drank coke, chatted, did some dishes, did the evening prayer of the church (as you do), then had an early night. Mez and I were at the B & B across the road with the Lynch mob which was nice for the bed, not so for all the coughing.

Saturday morning was a brief sleep in, then a duck into town for breakfast with Daryl as he wrote his speech on a bit of receipt!!! Betty's tearoom is home to the worlds most expensive case of tea, bought for around 18,000 pounds!!! Dan tried the tea. Apparrently it wasn't too bad! Ambience was fantastic, including a dude in a pennguin suit playing classical piano (over breakfast!!!) this is an aspect of British culture i'd be happy to take home!!! Got to go buy a dummy for young Kevin, prompting some interesting commentary from the checkout chick in Boots! (cos being three men and a baby we forgot the dummy). We were joined by Amanda, Dan and Mez though so Mez soon had the wee man quiet... that woman will make an exceedingly good mother some day!!! Then it was home, change and off to get Daryl wedded!

A beautiful, simple ceremony, traditional vows, great readings from Ecclesiastes, Collosians and one of the gospels! (can't remember which one!) Don't think there was a lot of room for individual stamps on the ceremony itself, or Lorna would have walked in to U2's 'All I want is you', but Pachabel's canon was nice. And everyone looked strapping.

Beautiful photo's and then onwards to the reception, an informal BBQ which was preceded by speeches of which there was only three, Kevin (Lorna's dad - Very funny), Daryl (sweet, with very loving and beautiful words for his wife), and Me (which i can't really comment on except to say it was short, sweet and intended at being edifying). Then dancing, drinking, eating (the best BBQ I have ever eaten no less), a cake flown all the way from NZ. A wonderful day of celebration.

And then sunday was just a bit lazy - we hung about in Ilkley for the morning, caught Daryl and Lorna to say goodbye, went to church, then headed for the peak district (near Notts) with Amanda and Dan. Stopped in a wee town called Bakewell which had a music festival ongoing - got to listen to some heavy metal. Yeah to be fair, Bakewell was a bit of a disappointment. BUt we stopped at a great country pub for dinner, called 'the Excavator!'

Then Amanda and Dan stayed with us Sunday night and left after a big breakfast on Monday morning. Great weekend. Another one to add to the list.

Words to describe the weekend:
Love
Friends
Fun
Family
Prayerful
Laughter
Thriving (Daryl and Lorna)
Second (the gear we used most in the traffic in the peaks!!)

Hope yours was stunning also.