How not to run a wedding

About 25 years ago, I used to be married to someone else. We were only together for a couple of years, and this is the story of our wedding day. Perhaps we should have paid more attention to the omens before we went through with it.

My then girlfriend and I lived together in a small one-bedroomed flat. We had been together for about 9 months and we were about 26 years old, and much more naive than we knew. We thought we could organise a wedding. We were wrong.

My girlfriend's Mother was a reasonably famous actress in the UK in the 1960's. She had appeared in hit TV serials and was still a featured name on West-End billboards. Her Dad was a former Hollywood B-movie actor but they had divorced some years before and were not on good terms.

Now, I understand that it is usually the bride's mother who is responsible for making the arrangements, but I don't really think she wanted to be at the same event as her former husband and so she told us that she was sorry but she would be on stage in Hull on the day of our wedding and couldn't come.

This was probably related to the manner of her falling out with her former husband, who she had come home to find dressed up in her clothes. I think she feared how he might turn up on the day and with whom.

So, the day was left to us to organise and boy, were we incompetent! On the night before the wedding I was ironing my suit and I casually asked my girlfriend about the three things that I had given her to accomplish. She said that she had bought her outfit, but she had completely forgotten to book a photographer or organise the wedding cake!

A panicked shuffle through the Yellow Pages ensued and I was at last able to secure the services of a photographer who was available the next day. My girlfriend assured me she would find a wedding cake and have it delivered to the reception.

And so the big day dawned. My girlfriend had spent the night elsewhere and my brother turned up in his beautifully restored Singer Sunbeam, and he pressed a large amount of cash into my hand "for expenses", and then it was off to the Registry Office in Hammersmith.

My soon-to-be-wife's father had turned up (dressed as a man, thank goodness), with his new wife and a large collection of his theatrical friends. When the ceremony started, these people started to flash their cameras, to which the female Registrar objected. "I'm sorry", she said, "I must not appear in any photos". Remorselessly the thespians flashed, and we giggled as the ceremony was delayed. At last order was restored and we were married.

Outside the Registry Office with my new bride we were met by the photographer, a bald man in his 60s. He fussed and flashed away and then we had the traditional shot of the bride in the car with the open door, about to be whisked away to her new life. At this point, the photographer accosted me and demanded full payment in cash for his services. He then proceeded to take a picture of me staring at the receipt he'd just given me. I should have suspected there and then that the photos he took would be crap. And they were.

From Greg Wedding

However, what I had failed to notice was that in paying him, I had inadvertently dropped the cash that my brother had given me on the floor, and although we returned to the scene later, it was nowhere to be found. So much for several hundred pounds, a lot of money in those days!

Anyway, as we left, I told the assembled throng where the wedding reception was to be held. The Roebuck Pub near Hammersmith Bridge". Which was a shame, as we had booked the Roebuck pub near Putney Bridge. I don't know what made me say "Hammersmith", but it did turn out to be something of an unintended blessing.

For when we turned up at the right Roebuck, we learned that since booking the venue, the pub had changed hands and no-one appeared to know anything about us. Worse, the function room upstairs had not been prepared at all, and in the middle of it were the remains of two old fridges and an oven.

At least the cake had miraculously turned up, as well as some close relatives, and we scrambled to make the room seem a bit more welcoming before the diverted throng who I had sent on a magical mystery tour eventually arrived.

And when they did, what a treat awaited them! Firstly, because the pub would not honour the ten pounds-a-bottle deal for champagne that we had arranged with the former owners and now wanted 20 quid a pop, and because I had squandered all my extra cash on the grounds of Hammersmith Registry Office, we had to ask the guests for a whip-round to pay for the drink! Memorable hospitality I think you will agree,

Secondly, it should be apparent to most that bakers do tend to need some notice to whip up wedding cakes, not produce them at a moment's notice. So it should have come as little surprise to us that the cake my wife had bought that morning had been sitting in the baker's window for about six months and had the consistency of concrete, and no-one was able to get a slice of it it because they couldn't break through the icing!

Anyway, after the first reception, the close family were invited to join us at the flash Waldorf Hotel in the Aldwych, which held delightful old-fashioned harpist-accompanied tea dances in their Palm Court room. We had arranged to stay there as we were too poor to afford a foreign holiday and they had a special deal for a very nice honeymoon suite for the weekend. We took some of our close friends up to show them the room and they were suitably impressed.

After our close friends and family departed, it was time for dinner at the Waldorf, but even this was not to go smoothly, for it seemed that my new shoes had completely rubbed the flesh from my heels which were now pouring blood, and I had to ask the waiter if he would kindly get me some plasters. After the meal in this highly flash famous restaurant, I had to leave regaled in my wedding suit without shoes or socks on with plasters on my ankles.

So, at last, I took my beautiful bride up to our honeymoon suite to consummate our marriage but, in truth, we were both too tired so we resolved to do the deed the following morning. But as we prepared to go to bed, we noticed that the bathroom in our en-suite had an interesting new feature. The walls were a cascading torrent of water as a pipe had burst in the ceiling above.

Putting my clothes back on, I trudged down to confront the management. "Of course sir, we'll put it right as soon as we can." "But I want it fixed now, or another honeymoon suite", I pleaded. "Sorry sir, we only have 4 honeymoon suites, and they are all booked, but we can give you a room of equal value."

Well, we looked, but it seemed that the honeymoon sites were the only ones with double beds (funny that!) so we resolved that if they could turn off the flood in the bathroom and get it fixed first thing next morning we would stay in our suite.

So we went back to bed, exhausted.

The following morning we woke, refreshed. I turned to my new wife and with love in our eyes and hearts we embraced, to do what needed to be done. Just then, the door opened and an Italian plumber entered to fix the leak.

Really, as we signed the divorce papers two years later, we should have read the signs.