Let’s do it

What was going through my mind when my wife and I exchanged vows? A lot. I was wracked with nerves. So much that I stum­bled on my words, as did the beau­ti­ful bride before me as we clutched each other’s hands so tightly we left nail marks on each other’s knuckles.

It was only two days later, as we recalled our ver­sion of the wed­ding march, made to the sounds of Ella Fitzgerald’s ‘Let’s Do It’, that my wife said to me, ‘eh? how come they throw the petals before the solem­ni­sa­tion instead of after?‘

Trust my fam­ily mem­bers to do things back to front.

I liked the pep­pery smell of the freesias on my boutonniere/corsage, which a friend who we asked, at almost the last minute, to help with my wife’s dress remarked, ‘why is it so big?’. It was a lit­tle on the large side, but I liked it like that. I unwrapped the paper from the bridal bou­quet, which com­prised more pep­pery freesias and white roses, and held together with a copper-coloured rib­bon and waited out­side for my wife to get ready — it was tak­ing a while because make-up turned out to be more com­pli­cated than expected.

If I had checked my phone then, I’d have seen fran­tic mes­sages from my best man which read ‘hey we gotta do this, we’re los­ing light’.

But no mat­ter, as another of our friends came along and told us it was time to move from our suite. The walk to the lawn was a blur, though the smell of the freesias were a com­fort, as was my wife’s arm in mine. It didn’t mat­ter that we had only ‘rehearsed’ this two hours ear­lier, nei­ther did it mat­ter that we couldn’t remem­ber how the vows were to be recited/repeated.

I think for the dura­tion of the walk and the solem­ni­sa­tion, noth­ing mat­tered in the whole wide world. Not the flo­ral arrange­ments, the food and the venue, the pho­tog­ra­phy, the wed­ding cakes and the favors. Not then.

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