I was ably assisted by Sarah my niece for a couple of days leading up to the wedding. She contributed so much of her time and expertise, she became my beauty therapist and my therapist all wrapped in one. She helped Rachel get the table settings and table names perfectly set. Each table was assigned the name of a beach so there was no confusion as to where everyone was sitting.
The flowers for the tables and chapel were loosly arranged and were grown by Chloe Plester from www.bareblooms.co.uk. Chloe interpreted the brief perfectly, Rachel and I visited her home earlier in the year and both knew her flowers would be perfect. She grows her flowers ethically no imports and they looked as if we had just walked into the garden and picked them. The men's button holes were amazing, she used some of the hop flowers with blackberries and seed heads just what Richard had asked for, I would certainly recommend her to anyone. We had pre ordered some hops from Kent to be used to cover the window sills of the chapel and to use as garlands in the marquee, they looked great and their fragrance gave a lovely warm feeling of calm. We had amazing food provided by www.thefourcooks.co.uk they interpreted the brief perfectly. Amazing canapes, beef to die for and a fabulous wine to complement it all. Richard bought a Salamzer of wine and that took many hands to decant but tasted terrific.
It was a day to remember for all my family, people made such an effort to get here, they really wished to share this great day with us and they all showed their appreciation in many different ways. My 93 year old Mum travelled the Irish Sea with my lovely sister Ann and shared the journey with my nephew and brother in law. My brother and all his family in Canada and northern Ireland made huge efforts to get to this wonderful event. It was a gathering of people who love to party and boy did they party.
The purpose of starting this blog was to share my thoughts on growing some of the flowers for the wedding. I grew some of them, but the summer we had was difficult. I was thrilled to be able to provide the Myrtle in flower for Rachel's bouquet that was something very important to her. The Myrtle tree I grew from a tiny seedling it is now at least 30 feet tall. It was growing the tree that ignited my enthusiasim for gardening, I realise gardening offers freedom, it offers forgiveness even when we inadvertantly chop something down it will try to survive, surely this is a lesson about life.
A little more than a week has passed since we attended a family wedding in Pembrokeshire, South Wales. Relatives from far and near made their way to Manorbier Castle on Friday September 14th to meet the family and look at the castle where the wedding ceremony would take place the following day. We were most impressed by the narrowness of the roads on the way to Manorbier. The castle was quite an impressive building, hundreds of years old. It was beautifully adorned with flowers and plants and bunting and there was a huge marquee already in place to house the 80 odd people, mostly relatives, who would attend the wedding ceremony and festivities the following day. The piano was already in place primed for the ceremony. I’m sure this was the first time a piano was played inside these castle walls and it took quite a bit of effort to get the piano there and back up many steps.
ReplyDeleteWe then retired to our lodgings in Lamphey village and surroundings and slowly but surely relatives from Canada, England, Wales, Ireland, both North and South began to gather in the lounge of Lamphey Hall. Mothers and fathers brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts, nephews and nieces, cousins and grandchildren all met some for the first time and the atmosphere was magical that evening.
The wedding ceremony the following day went off without a hitch. The bride and groom, Rachel and Richard looked fantastic and radiated joy and happiness to all in the room. Even the babies co-operated. Young Seth chose a good moment to have a nap and healthy snores were heard by a few in the back of the ceremonial hall. The music was provided by Tim, the bride’s brother playing well know wedding songs with style and grace throughout.
The weather co-operated and there were many wonderful photo ops after the ceremony. One of the great moments after the ceremony was the uncorking and decanting of the Salmanazar of outstanding ten year old Claret. It took about 4 strong men to uncork this mammoth bottle and they did so with the precision of a surgeon and the cork, about two inches in diameter, was completely intact following extraction. We all had an opportunity to share this nectar at dinner.
The speeches were eloquently delivered with wit and charm and were never boring and did not go on too long. The roast beef meal itself was superb and there was nothing but clean plates left at the end.
The accompanying music was outstanding and the dance floor was always jammed. The first dance with Richard and Rachel was interrupted by a little boy, who waltzed around with them seemingly oblivious to their presence. The Tie dance was very popular. Richard started this trend and by the end of the evening a number of older men were participating in this new ritual dance!!
Few of us remember the journey back to our hotels and many of us slept in, that morning. We had a most wonderful luncheon in The Old King’s Arms Hotel in Pembroke. The meal was outstanding- slow cooked lamb- ‘to die for’. Three significant birthdays were celebrated with a cake. The combined age of the three participants was 160 years. The icing on the cake was the visit to Tinkersfold in Cosh where we saw firsthand ‘Hoe does your garden grow?’.
Once again a cadre retired to Lamphey Hall to wind down the evening and tell and retell many family stories from days gone by keeping alive the oral history of our clan.
The following morning we all had to disperse to our various destinations. We were all reluctant to leave so we lingered for quite some time outside Lamphey Hall. There are few things more special than a family wedding but ‘parting is such sweet sorrow’ (Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet)
What a lovely rendition of a wonderful memorable weekend.The icing on the cake for us was having you all share the wedding with us.
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