Cleverly I had left preparing my speech until the last possible moment (ie the day of the wedding) so I had something to keep me occupied in the morning. Once that was done I was feeling a bit nervous but not too bad.

The groomsmen rocked up to my place about 1pm and they plied me with alcohol to help me relax. Jameson's Irish Whiskey did the trick. My mum arrived about 1:30 to help us get ready, and the photographer shortly after to take a few pre-wedding photos.

We got dressed and were ready to go right on time despite a minor flower disaster. It's amazing how flowers can be reassembled with pins.

Got to the ceremony venue about 2:50pm, and shortly after guests started to arrive so there were people to talk to. Still reasonably relaxed. With about 10 minutes to go we moved up to the front to stand around feeling nervous.

The ceremony

When the limo pulled up I started to feel really nervous. Stupid I know since there's not much that can go wrong at this point, but perhaps several weeks of people asking are you nervous yet? had caught up with me. My fiancée looked amazing as expected.

The ceremony was over really fast. Some of the guests commented that it seemed short, so perhaps it wasn't just our perception. There weren't any major stuff-ups from either of us, though at one point I almost got lost in the moment as we were putting the rings on and briefly forgot I was meant to be repeating what the celebrant was saying.

We signed the registry. The funny thing is we signed someone else's registry as well - the celebrant had opened the book on the wrong page and we didn't read it before signing. Luckily she suggested checking the details, otherwise we might not have noticed.

And then it was all over. We walked back down the aisle, had lots of photos with family and friends, and then headed off to have photos taken.

photo by daz

The weather

I guess it's fading from my memory since I hadn't mentioned it up until now, but it was pretty damned hot - 34 or there abouts. That's hot if you've got a suit on. The air-conditioning in the limo was shit.

The photos

We drove into East Perth and had the majority of our photos there. It was quite fun actually. It will be interesting to see how they turn out. We were meant to go out to Caversham to have more photos in the vineyards out there but we ran out of time. As an alternative we stopped off at Olive Farm in Guildford (another winery) on the way back. Not sure how those photos will turn out.

The reception

The little room for the bridal party was small and hot. Our table was in the hottest part of the room as well for a couple of hours until they finally managed to fix it. I barely drank at all, my wife had nothing alcoholic and still was adversely affected by the heat. The rediculously tight clothing wouldn't have helped her. We didn't eat much either. Luckily the air-con worked much better in other parts of the room.

The speeches were fairly early in the proceedings (between soup and main course). I was surprised at how well my speech went given the last-minute preparation. Lots of people commented on how good it was, so I was pleased. I just talked about important moments in our relationship so it was simple enough.

My best man said some nice things about us and did a great job. My new father-in-law was really nervous about his speech but did reasonably well regardless. My dad hadn't prepared at all, but did an excellent job of making it up on the spot. It was all good really.

We had main course. Didn't eat much because the air-con still wasn't fixed and it was hot.

There was dancing. My wife had choreographed our first dance and I didn't screw it up too badly. Her enormous dress made it much more difficult than it was when we practiced.

We ended up leaving a bit late. It turned out that it was partly my fault; I realised the next morning that my watch was 15 minutes late. It must have stopped at some point. The limo driver was grumpy at our lateness. The goodbyes were a little rushed in the end but it was all very nice.

Final thoughts

It was a really nice day. Someone commented that it was one of the most genuine weddings they had been to, which I thought was great. I think they were right too - everything was pretty relaxed all things considered, and it was an excellent celebration.