A Whole New World

Well, it's already two days in the past and I'm still getting my head around it. I remember in primary school I had an English reading text-book called A Whole New World (it was part of a series with titles and covers themed around space exploration). That is how I feel now. I imagine my first impressions of marriage will be about as accurate as the "discovery" of nineteenth century astronomers that there were canals on the moon, or the reports of headless men and Amazonian warriors in South America by early European explorers.

The ceremony was just too huge to take in, a sense of surreality (or maybe hyper-reality) hanging over all of it. It was not a blur, but just the opposite, every little detail standing out in crystal clarity.

But by the time we reached the reception in the Maples House Hotel, Glasnevin (and I intend to plug them as much as I possibly can), both myself and Michelle began to enjoy things. I made a long speech thanking everybody (there were about sixty people there) in rather florid terms, and then read a poem about Michelle (which I published on this blog as "A Poem for Michelle" a good few weeks back). Then the dreaded first dance, for which we had a routine worked out but which, let us say, deviated from it. So much fretting about that first dance and in the end....nobody gave two hoots what went wrong. Soon everybody was up and dancing to the golden oldies we had lined up, and the Irish folk musicians who had kindly volunteered to play, led by my sister's boyfriend.

It was a joy to see all the work Michelle put into the ceremony and reception-- and it was untold hours and weeks and months-- coming together so well. Everybody was in love with all the little details like place-holder cup-cakes (you took the cup-cake with your name on it and went to wherever you wanted to sit) and the little welcome packs including cow-bells for ringing. Every time someone rang a cow-bell I had to kiss the bride. That was a pleasant task.

Thanks be to God for a wonderful bride, a wonderful day, and may always keep us in the palm of His hand. Off on honeymoon now!