The Big Day Part 2: The ceremony

So there I left you in Part 1 waiting at the doors to the church.

The ceremony was held at my parish church in my home town.  I attended this church up until the age of 7 from birth and though I was never one of those children that had planned my wedding from childhood (indeed, aged 12, I declared to myself, that I was sure I would never get married!), if I ever visualised a wedding ceremony, for anyone, it was always this church.  My older sister said this too- she always visualised All Saints.  We spent many of our Saturday afternoons singing in the church choir for weddings during our childhood, so we had witnessed many there!

As I walked up the cracked paved path with new rose bushes on either side of the arched door, planted lovingly by the vicar, the sound of the first music began.  CBC and I, both being musicians, had taken great pains to find unusual music choices, which we loved and wanted to avoid any of the traditional or usual subjects like the plague.  No Wagner or Mendelsohn Wedding marches, Queen of Sheba or Widor's Toccata.



The pre-ceremony music was Thomas Arne's The Morning:  it was played by five friends: Voice, sopranino recorder, violin, viola, cello and harpsichord.  As I stood there with my two sisters, niece and Father, I held the beautiful tones of Hermione soaring above the throbbing string parts and I stood with my eyes shut, saying a silent prayer to my Father in Heaven to bless this marriage.

The piece finished and CBC left his cello and took his position at the head of the aisle and Anne, recorder player hurried to the back of the church to take her place playing flute for the wind quintet.



The music of choice was movements 3 and 2 of Ligeti's Bagatelles for wind quintet (flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, french horn).  The first one is very unconventional for a wedding as it is in 7/4 time and is quite clashy and modern sounding.  I loved it for this fact!  My one Uni friend who was there absolutely loved that I chose a piece by Ligeti who we'd studied at University and said our Professor would have been proud of me!

They finished the fast movement and began the slow, dreamy movement in 3/4.  My beautiful niece started walking down the aisle.  BUT, the clarinettist had forgotten to change to his A clarinet and began playing on his B flat clarinet.  To the lay-man, this basically means that every note he was playing was one note higher than it should have been and would make it sound dreadful!!!! I was peeping through the door at the back of the church and realised in one note and tried to hiss a warning!!!  Luckily, the oboist stopped and pointed out! They began again.  The dreamy flute and burbling clarinet began and my niece continued.  Check out my Mum's face as they were SURE she wouldn't walk alone!

My beautiful sisters followed a minute later, billowing gracefully along the long aisle.

Finally, after our vicar greeted me at the bottom of the aisle, I walked up the aisle- it was a perfect dreamy flute moment. I could not contain my delight and grinned at all insundry, Cheshire car-style!  Finally, I fixed eyes with CBC as I proceeded up the last part.

I have to confess at this moment, that CBC's thoughts on me reaching him were sheer-delight that I was wearing a long-dress as my Mum and I instigated a successful- long-term red herring on CBC that meant he thought I was wearing a short 60's style dress!
He in turn, looked stunningly handsome in a navy blue Jaeger suit with Kalla lilly boutoniere, Canadian turquoise cravat to match the bridesmaids, brown brogues and turquoise socks.

My current vicar welcomed everyone, along with our previous Vicar, a dear-friend, who had travelled from Whitby to help take the service.

CBC and I sang lustily to Love Divine all love's excelling (the Welsh one, not the Stainer version).  I sang my heart out and to my horror, as we sang the third verse, I felt myself welling up and promptly burst into tear (you know how you try to stop it, but that makes it worse and a huge howl erupts out of you!  Luckily, the sound of my dear friend playing the organ meant that only CBC, my Dad, vicars and choir saw!

We had the welcome and declarations, upon which, a suspicious glance was given to the congregation, who luckily had no legal objections!

Our next hymn was Stuart Townend's The Lord's my shepherd, I'll not want, which a sweet teenage friend from church sang a solo for.  The church worship band played a folk style accompaniment

The beautiful flower arrangements were done by a lovely team of men and women at the church.

The church was soaring from the lusty singing from everyone!  Tis luckily that the majority of the congregation are either church goers or musicians!

Our readings were read by the two mothers and also the family friend who was like an aunt to me (incidently, who supervised my Dalek dress-making):
1 Corinthians 15, Ephesians 5, Mark and Romans and were all read beautifully.


Our vows were lovely though I couldn't help but giggle at the most serious moment of the service!  It was so lovely to say these things to each other before God and before all those who love us. CBC struggled to get my ring on and I put his on in an instant!


Another song followed: John Rutter's All things bright and beautiful and Chris, the previous vicar came to give his sermon.  It was heartfelt, honest, sincere and memorable as I knew it would be and short.  He really has a gift for sermons.  The next day, two non-Christian friends were quoting it at each other, in a positive way: it was based on 1 Corinthians 15 and involved a tramp who smelt of wee!

The blessing was a beautiful moment as P, the vicar, invited all to come forward and lay hands on us and pray for our marriage which was unexpected and beautiful. I certainly felt loved and nurtured here.

During the signing of the register, my lovely friend and his mother played a Mozart piano duet that CBC and I love playing together.

Finally, Handel's Thine be the glory was our last triumphant chorus and we really really raised the roof-tops for this one!  I don't think I have ever sung with as much heart and effusion.


Our recessional was Komm, heiliche Geist (Come Holy Spirit) by Bach and we proceeded outside for some time in the vicarage garden where we were able to chat with guests who had come for the service but were not proceeding to the reception (the reception venue had a strict limit of 100 people in the building) including two of my lovely pupils from school who came along with their Mum. The weather was lovely, everyone smiled and bridesmaids bounced on trampolines!



This was perhaps the most joyful and wonderful part of the day for me.  For that brief time, my headache abated and all felt wonderful with the world.