A wedding like no other

It is eight o’clock in the evening, on Saturday 23^rd June. Inside the marquee, nearly seventy people are dancing, chatting, drinking, laughing. 
The meal, a feast of seafood, pizzas and salad, has finished. The speeches (amazingly witty) have been delivered. The entertainers have received rapturous applause. And now the little dance floor is full.  I look towards the sea. The wedding arch, where the ceremony took place earlier, is still there, still framing Church Rock. This so different and so special wedding day, designed planned and organised by Kathy and Mark themselves, really is the joyous celebration they had hoped for. 

     But twenty-four hours earlier the mood had been very different. The plan had been to erect the marquee on Thursday morning, leaving all day Friday to arrange the tables, the decorations, the flowers, and to tap the beer. However by Thursday the rain had arrived. The marquee owner said we would have to wait until Friday as the wind was too strong. On Friday he said it was still too strong and he left, to rescue another marquee blown down in Cardiff.

     ‘We can get it up early tomorrow morning’, said Mark that night in the St Govan’s Inn ‘No problem. It’ll be fine.’

     There were quick recalculations. The wedding guests included a dozen strong dinghy sailors; and if you can sail a B14 in a gale you can certainly help to erect a marquee. Linn could do the flowers on Saturday before having her hair done. Mark knew exactly how Kathy had planned to decorate the tables, so she could still spend the morning getting ready. Warren had already sorted out the beer.  And at least everyone was here, even those flying in from Spain, Switzerland, Italy; all happily settled at the campsite, the St Govan’s Inn, or in Bosherston cottages.

 By early Saturday morning the rain had stopped. The marquee was up and decorated and  the tables set out , each one with its centrepiece of polished pebbles and driftwood label.      

 Kathy, Emily, Leanne, Laura and Gillian, with the hairdresser, had taken took over the upstairs of the cottage .    

 Chris had gone for the bread and the ice. I had made up the nine bowls of salad. (Yes it had grown, and was supplemented by the samphire that Anna had picked the day before). And we were nicely on time to head down to the bottom field for our picnic lunch and to wait for the bride.

 She came down from the cliff top, over the top field, a tiny white figure on her father’s arm, two bridesmaids walking ahead of her. And, as they approached the avenue of pebbles, the third bridesmaid, three year old Gabi, in an identical cream and blue dress, ran to take their hands. They all walked together to the arch.

                                      

     Could anyone ask for a better place to make their vows? It was a simple ceremony, conducted by Kathy’s aunt, Sue, with readings by Chris, Gillian and Anna.

Then we all left the arch, standing once more alone above the sea, and headed into the marquee for the start of the partying.
                                                             
                                                              

There were many heroes, many stars that day. And the next day too. For by the time Kathy and Mark got back to the field the next morning the marquee had been cleared.  The camping guests had been up early and were now sitting in a row, in the sunshine, enjoying hot bacon rolls.  

    And what of the arch, which had started as driftwood on an almost inaccessible beach by Stack Rocks? It is now safely back,       once again leaning against Trefalen Cottage wall, and waiting to be transported to Kathy and Mark’s garden in Winchester.

In case you want to know more

The readings were ‘Flowers’ by Wendy Cope, ‘The owl and the pussy cat went to sea,’ and selections from AA Milne (you can guess which ones!)

Mal and Alex at St Govan’s Inn provided the seafood starter. (They had collected the clam shell containers themselves a few weeks earlier.)

The never ending supply of perfect pizzas was produced just outside the marquee by Pizzadora

 Tim and Jenny provided the brilliant entertainment

The valiant ‘marquee man’ was Nick from itscovered. (His Capri model, which really was stunning.)

Equally perfect for the occasion was the cake by Jacqueline of Felicitamos.

Linn did the beautiful flowers arrangements (and I hope she has forgiven me for using Chris's button hole to decorate my shoe)

And, last but not least, the campsite was of course Trefalen Farm campsite and we owe enormous thanks to Marcia and Lawrence for letting us use the bottom field and for providing so much support in the weeks beforehand

Jubilee weekend at Trefalen

 The Jubilee long weekend is over. I was too busy to think much about it on the Saturday. The salad crops, which I have sown to feed seventy two people for the wedding in three weeks time, are still only two inches high. So I spent the day thinning, transplanting, watering, even talking to them. It is a crop I have grown many time before, Thomson and Morgan’s ‘spicy salad mix’, which usually produces a mass of leaves about six weeks after sowing. But not this year.

     Even as I transplanted and watered (and planted my cucumbers and courgettes, and weeded the beetroot, and did the million others things that need doing at this time of year) I could hear  holiday makers heading down to the beach. I enjoy bank holidays here. I enjoy the visitors. So I promised myself that, once the last lettuce was in place, I would go and join them. And then the rain came. And  stayed with us for most of Sunday.

     This meant it was not until late on Sunday afternoon that I eventually headed for what I expected to be an empty desolate beach. But of course I had forgotten the surfers. I met the first as I headed down the steps, stepping aside to let him run past to his car. They always run, down the steps to the sea, up the steps back to their cars. Only once have I seen a surfer walking slowly up the steps.  It was dark and he was looking for the car keys  which he had hidden in the bushes at the side of the path. We had helped him for perhaps half an hour, shining our torch hopefully into the mass of greenery. Then had driven him, bare footed and still in his wet suit, to the pub, where he would be able to choose between a bed for the night or calling out his wife, over a hundred miles away.

     Leaving the surfers, I returned to the cottage via the campsite. The rain had really stopped now and campers were emerging from their tents and caravans, and looking up at the sky. The fields came alive; small figures chasing after balls, kites heading into the sky, barbecues lighting up. Like all bank holidays here. However this was a bank holiday with a difference. Down at the bottom end of the bottom field sat the Queen, in a tent covered with Union jacks, surrounded by crowned princesses. The diamond jubilee was alive and well had reached Trefalen. I greeted the Queen  and she gave me a paper hat with streamers..

      Then finally, on Monday, the sun shone again. Holidaymakers poured into the carpark, down the steps. There were swimmers and kayakers in the sea, games of cricket and rounders on the sand, and sunbathers lying in the shelter of windbreaks, beside older people on chairs, rugs covering their knees. There were dogs and wet suits and picnics and sand castles. A glorious British beach. 

 

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