Anyway, fast-forward several years and she's now married to the man she met when she was working on the checkout in Asda. It's not quite the story of coincidence and fate it might seem -- with him coming through her checkout and asking her out, since it was revealed in the best man's speech that the groom would deliberately choose the checkout of a good looking girl. He chose Ruth that one day, and on a second visit he asked her out. And I guess it went from there -- and Ruth landed on her feet with a guy that is not only good-looking and wealthy, but also one of the nicest people I've ever met.
So last Friday I'd taken the day off work for the wedding. Ruth had arranged the hire of a minibus from our town for her local friends to all get to and from the wedding -- so I met Jon, and we met with Austin and his girlfriend, before meeting the rest of our friends in the pub for a swift pint before the bus. I was dressed in my smart black suit and my favourite patterned white shirt, and had decided to leave off a tie. I quickly regretted this when I met everyone else and I was the only one who wasn't wearing one. Luckily for me, my Dad was at home and I got him to grab the red one I'd worn for an interview the day before and bring it into town for me. I like red ties. A lot of people wear blue -- and I have a couple of blue ties I'm particularly fond of -- but red is more unusual, you stand out and the colour red has connotations of confidence.
I'm very contradictory, I will wear the same pair of distressed blue jeans for perhaps a week, paired with perhaps a long sleeved white shirt and some band shirt or another. I like shaving my head now as I never have to bother trying to make my hair look vaguely presentable, and I'll only shave perhaps a few times a week. And yet at the same time, I also like looking smart. I really like how I look in a smart black suit, and I like to stand out -- I don't want to wear the same as everyone else. I'm not a novelty tie person, but as I mentioned I like to carefully choose a colour to suit my mood and to look confident. I like a pair of fashionable shoes and wearing red when everyone else is wearing blue. I go from scruffy and looking a bit 90's alternative in skate shoes with holes in the soles, to looking smart and well-dressed.
Anyway. We all caught the bus and the wedding was being held on some country estate not far from where I used to work in a call centre. If there's one good thing about where we live in Essex it's that in no time at all you can be out of the town and into the countryside. Granted, there might not be any of the hills or breathtaking scenery that you get in some other parts of this green and pleasant land, but it's still nice. Despite heavy rains earlier in the week and dark threatening clouds in the morning, by the time we were standing around before the wedding the sun was beating down. The groom's dad came and spoke to us all, we introduced ourselves and he asked me if I thought the nice weather was a good omen. I told him definitely, I thought the sunshine after a week of miserable weather was certainly a blessing. He agreed. I don't remember much of what we spoke about, it was the usual polite conversation about how we knew other people and where he'd come from -- many of the groom's family had come from Dubai. Slightly further than we had.
While I was talking with my friends I noticed a cute photographer girl walking about, trying to get pictures of the guests looking natural while they were talking and not noticing her. Cute photographer girl looked familiar to me, but I couldn't be sure if I knew her or not -- she certainly didn't seem to have noticed me. I figured that being a cute photographer girl was as good a reason as any to talk to her, whether I knew her or not -- so when she wasn't busy, I walked over to her. I realised she was the girl I thought she was -- we'd worked together in the pub several years ago, and I'd liked her at the time, even though she liked one of my colleagues and besides any of that she'd already had a boyfriend. She didn't notice me at first as I stood next to her, until I said to her "Hey, Fluff". She'd been nicknamed "Fluff" at work, naturally enough, for being "fluffy" -- endearing and a little bit ditzy at times.
I've known for years she was a photographer, but hadn't remembered she knew Ruth's brother -- whom was actually one of the people I'd camped at Reading festival with last year. She was enthusiastic and pleased to see me and we chatted a little about nothing in particular. "I'm the photographer" she told me -- bearing in mind she was carrying an SLR that was almost as big as her, and she'd been walking about taking pictures, it was a pretty fluffy comment to make. "No kidding?" I said, and she realised how silly she'd sounded. She said she was friends with Ruth's brother and knowing how talented she was, she'd been invited to be the official photographer. Not a bad gig. After a little while I let her get back on with her work, and hoped I'd see more of her at the reception later. Which I never did, but that's how it goes.
My friends had thought I was just being my usual self and trying to charm a cute photographer girl -- which obviously would make sense, that would be exactly the kind of person I would likely be trying to charm, but I explained who she was and some of them remembered her.
The wedding itself was a fairly short civil ceremony -- which we were all quite pleased with, being largely irreligious, but as we were sat at the very back of the room I, at least, was unable to really see anything. As we were waiting to leave the hall, Jon asked me what song I would have played at my wedding. Despite not being a fan of the Beatles, I said I quite liked the idea of "I wanna hold your hand". Jon turned his back on me in disgust. I asked him what he would choose, he said despite it being about something completely different, he was thinking "Today" by Smashing Pumpkins. Although in the song Billy Corgan is suicidal and being sarcastic when he says "Today is the greatest day I've ever known" he said most people wouldn't realise that. I wasn't sure I agreed with Jon's choice, even if he intended the song to be positive rather than literal -- and I told him if you were going to be using inappropriate songs out of context, he could also use "Better man" by Pearl Jam, especially since you always see couples being all...couple-y at gigs when they play that song, despite it being about an abusive relationship.
Following the ceremony we were led to a garden area, where waiters were continuously circulating, carrying trays of champagne -- every time we finished one glass, a waiter or waitress would be offering another. Someone commented that it was funny, since we'd been instructed not to get drunk that we should be left standing around in the sun, with nothing to do but drink. But it was a warm, bright and sunny afternoon and there was place in the world we'd rather have been.
Our table for dinner was placed -- probably deliberately -- as far away as possible from the head table. But the evening was very civilised, with the meals being a kind of buffet of some Arabian influenced dishes and I made the most of the jugs of cold water to rehydrate following the afternoon's drinking in the sun. It was interesting looking at my friends and wondering who out of them will marry -- it like Austin will probably be the next to marry, he's just bought a house with his girlfriend and I think it's probably already being mentioned. Who the last will be, I don't know...
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