Music: ‘Xibom bombom’ / As Meninas [br][br]So…I’m married now! Say hello to the new Mrs Pendred.  I’m currently in the difficult and tedious process of changing my name with every organisation in the universe, it seems, but otherwise…things are quite nice! [br][br]For anyone who’s interested, I thought I’d put a write-up of the wedding here, and I’ll put photos up as soon as I have some.  Between the professional photos taken, the digital cameras guests brought and promised to e-mail me shots from, and then the disposable cameras we put on everyone’s tables at the reception, we are seriously looking at around 1,000 pictures to sort through. [br][br]My cousin Julia arrived on Wednesday. She is unbelievable – I spoke to her on the phone on the Monday, I believe, and she was saying she’d changed her mind about table centrepieces and had all these ideas and would pay for it all herself.  She was in Columbia at the time. Then she flew back to America for a day, then Wednesday she was in London and she had these ENORMOUS suitcases plus extra bags, all massively heavy, FILLED with all the stuff for the decorations and cake, bought in the US and dragged over all by herself.  I was shocked, to say the least. It was hilarious trying to bring them up to Stevenage.  We basically had no sleep the next few days, because her step-father was in the airforce so they were moving around so much, and never lived in Arizona, so we really didn’t get to see each other much growing up, but we always got on so well when we did.  So this was actually the longest consecutive time I’d ever spent with her – which is such a shame, because in essence we really are such similar people.  I finally turned to her and said, ‘I wish we’d grown up closer to each other; where were you all that time I wanted someone around who actually understood??’ And of course it’s nice to be able to say that about a family member…especially in my family….[br][br]My hen night was the night before the wedding.  We went out to my friend Maria’s flat and she had it decorated with balloons and a ‘congratulations’ banner and lots of candy, chocolates and cake.  We went out to eat at this Spanish restaurant, La Tasca, and had such a good time we wound up staying there for over three hours and not ending up back at my house until 1am, which was 2 hours more than we’d planned, and Julia hadn’t finished making the cake so she and Maria stayed up until 5am making this thing, and we all had to wake up at 7am for the wedding.  My other bridesmaid Veronica and I went to sleep and at about 3am we were woken by her phone ringing.  She went and answered it, then muttered something, hung up and went back to sleep.  Then I heard the doorbell ringing and, when I asked what on earth that was, Veronica sleepily mumbled, ‘Oh yeah…Julia and Maria are locked outside the house….’ !?  I went downstairs and there they were holding plastic carrier bags like they’d just gone to the shops.  I just figured I wouldn’t ask until the morning – apparently they got a Diet Coke craving and got a taxi to the 24-hour store, and wound up buying the cab driver chocolates ?? and then realised of course they didn’t have a key to get back in.  This really set the tone for the next 48 hours – by the end of the wedding, I was opening my freezer and wondering where one of the drawers had gone, and then I found it in the hall holding people’s handbags, it was just strange!  Not to mention all the food for the reception had to be stored in the shed, because there wasn’t room in the fridge for it all, which sounded pretty funny when George’s dad came to collect it the next day, rushing after him saying, ‘Wait, don’t forget to get the food from the shed!’, oh and um…my hair and make-up people both, separately, froze and said, ‘What the HELL is that???’ to my three-headed clown mask sitting on a bookcase in the lounge….[br][br]I only got to sleep around 2am myself, because I was so keyed up with excitement about the wedding, I must admit.  I was in a manic frenzy and playing George’s copy of ‘Reggae Gold’ and trying to do ‘the butt dance’.  In the morning, I was still running on adrenaline thankfully, or else I don’t know how I would have made it through the day.  My bridesmaids looked absolutely beautiful, and I think I came out looking quite nice myself : ) The dress was so hard to manoeuvre in, and I just don’t do ‘graceful’ I realised.  I was so nervous, too, that I was munching Haribo sweeties and the photographer got a lot of shots of that; I’m sure I look totally classy in those.  There were also some random statues of C3P0 and R2D2 in the County Hall library and we had pictures taken of me posing with them.  And some odd man kept snapping pictures of me and I just thought it was the weirdest thing until I realised later he was one of George’s distant family members I’d never met (thank goodness!). [br][br]Our only mishap: I left my bouquet on the washing machine at home, but my dad drove back and got it for me just in time.  And as soon as I saw Percy running around in his little suit I just started crying.  I suppressed it enough so my mascara didn’t run haha, but it was very difficult.  And throughout the ceremony I was shaking and trying so hard not to cry there too.  It was about 45 mins of trying not to cry, basically. George was totally in his element, emphatically pronouncing his words – it was sweet, but amusing too : ) [br][br]Afterwards, we posed for pictures, and I must admit I got really into that.  I don’t know what it was…I don’t really like everyone staring at me, etc. usually, but I think it’s because of the context…it was my WEDDING, and that’s the whole point, blah blah blah, so I had a lot of fun with it for the day.  Then we had the reception, and I was just amazed at what everyone had done with the box of decorations – the place was gorgeous, and those centrepieces and the cake turned out so well.  I mingled as best I could – and at one point I was talking to someone from work, Belinda and Greg, and Belinda looked surprised and pointed out that I’d accidentally set a napkin on fire with one of the candles, and I picked up the napkin and the flame got bigger, and in a panic Belinda threw her glass of water on it – and Greg pointed out it was lucky she hadn’t picked up a glass of alcohol – and then after that, during the toasts, I just randomly knocked over my entire glass, so I’d destroyed two tablecloths (luckily they were paper!), I couldn’t believe how clumsy I was being – then Percy helped destroy more! [br][br]In the toasts, the speeches were lovely, although my mom got quite drunk and I was in the corner looking at Julia and whispering, ‘Oh God where is this speech going?’ then when it finished we were relieved because it was quite nice…although a bit…intense…and really did she need to tell everyone we had no family??  It was…unusual haha. Then we cut the cake, and George told me my dad apparently was crying through that (Julia said he was crying through the ceremony too), which is incredible – my father NEVER CRIES.  And he always casts off things like holidays and weddings as ‘too sentimental’ and therefore somehow beneath him.  I was really shocked by his response to everything. When he left, in fact, he gave me the biggest hug and kept telling me how proud he is of me for so many reasons and how much he loves me.  I have to say: I think that made the whole day, for me. [br][br]We had our first dance – we were doing ‘forro’ this Brasilian dance (look it up on youtube, it’s incredible when done well), and we did quite well, although we were both so nervous we were shaking a little.  What is SUCH a tragedy, in my opinion, is that later the forro band we’d hired looked at us and said, ‘This one’s for you two,’ and started up this lovely little song…and then winked at us and suddenly launched into the fastest thing you can imagine – and they are a really outrageous band, called Zeu Azevedo and Forrodaki Band (again, youtube), and they turned it into this forro-style ‘Mission Impossible’ theme, they were going crazy with it, duelling accordions and everything – and we had no choice but to keep dancing…and somehow we nailed it, we were really, really good!  And……………………….NO ONE FILMED IT!!! There’s like 10 seconds of it and then it cuts off, I just can’t believe it!  I wish I’d told someone in advance to just film the whole band set.  The youtube clips don’t even do it justice, and we had a different line-up anyway, they brought in a dumbek player and a second accordionist and everything.  Oh well…the memory is definitely amazing. And afterwards Julia said she was shocked at how good we were, and I was like…so are we!! [br][br]Later, I wound up washing a zillion dishes to speed up the cleaning process (that’s what I’m like: I clean), and I heard my iPod being hijacked and the music being shuffled around, and then I heard everyone saying, ‘Look at Edward and Felix!’ (two of George’s friends) and I looked and they and a couple others were dancing around as if it were a nightclub…except no one else was there, it was a big empty hall, so it looked pretty hilarious.  It also looked so much fun, I joined in, and somehow the evening closed with us all singing along with the Backstreet Boys at the tops of our lungs??  Oh and don’t forget the grinding around to ‘Mr Boombastic’ (George got in on that one and he knows allll the words, it was hysterical). [br][br]We got home around 10pm, which was great because everyone was shattered.  Julia wound up sleeping for 16 hours – I woke up the next day with a cold.  So we spent the day vegging in pyjamas, playing cars with Percy, ordering pizza, that sort of thing.  And she’s gone up to see our grandmother up North this week; she gets back on Friday to watch Percy for us while we go away to a spa hotel for our honeymoon this weekend – it’s going to be our first time away from Percy for a proper break, ever.  I’m going to miss him so much…and then I also am so looking forward to this. [br][br]So that’s the summary of the wedding – Greg from work said he’d never seen a happier bride than me, and I looked like I was totally loving it.  I really was. That was definitely one of the best days of my life. [br][br]And I’ve also got some psychiatry stuff to talk about at some point, because I had an appt with the psychologist a couple days later and that was fascinating, but I thought I’d just talk wedding first before I launch into that! Thanks so much to everyone who sent me well wishes for the wedding!!!