Falling Sky

Always, Always, Always The Sea

Do you like free music? Then pop over to British Sea Power where you can download a lovely remix of Carrion/All In It by Pressbutton. It's quite a rich mix of dreamy layers, soothing and floaty - the original of Carrion is just as lush, you can watch the video for it here. I really should listen to more of that band - their most recent album is a cracker, their merchandise includes mugs ("British Tea Power") and t-shirts celebrating Scapa Flow, and last month they released a DVD/CD of the 1934 film Man of Aran with a new soundtrack by themselves. I've not bought it yet - financially rather sore after the wedding & honeymoon, especially with plans to move house soon, more on that later - but the below clip from it promises lovely things and a fine evocation of real sea power in sound and film. Click play and let yourself be swept away for a few minutes.

Saturday Wedding Night Fever

Saturday 23rd May, 7pm, and so to the evening reception. Well, 7ish - inevitably it took time to shepherd together peeps and make our way out from the Scottish Book Trust to the evening venue just up the road & down the road, Marlins Wynd...

It was just a small distance along the Royal Mile between venues, but even so I'd been fretting about us getting attention from strangers, especially given the huge number of visitors in town for the Heineken Rugby Cup Final (more of which later...). Like, duh! Of course we were noticed, but it was all good-natured and I didn't feel anxious about it the way I might on my tod - strength in numbers. As you can see, the mighty Kal* was carrying what remained of the baumkuchen with aplomb, there's Dad with the guest book (made of sheep poo, fact fans) and our mates Katie & Martin, with the rest of our peeps straggled out behind us, Best Man Dan having gone on ahead to get the music going. As we reached the turning onto Blair Street we happened to cross the path of another wedding party - cue what can only be described as (exceedingly good-natured) heckling between the two weddings, Kal leading the charge with "our cake's bigger than your cake" and "you'rrrre not vowing any more"... initially I almost exploded out of embarrassment, then from laughter. It was the kind of moment you could never plan in advance, but set the relaxed, happy tone for the rest of the night perfectly.

* That's his nom de internet, in case anyone reading this who spoke to him is getting confused about his name - it's wise to have a pseudonym when writing a successful blog.

Marlins Wynd is a fascinating place, a private-hire venue under the streets of Edinburgh that goes back centuries. Being so subterranean, complete with atmospherically low lighting and candles, meant there was no natural light coming in and thereby a bit of a bugger for anyone taking pictures. Still, there's a few crackers to show, with particular thanks to Marie-Laure, Martha, Hana and Ian for their pictures - they got some smashing snaps, but in retrospect I wish we'd hung onto Kate Brandwood for the evening as well, since I'd love to have had more pictures of all the people who were there. It's fascinating seeing family and friends from your different social circles together in one room for the first time, it's like watching a crossover episode of all your favourite TV shows together, a pleasantly odd feeling. What really made me happy was seeing these people who'd never met before talking to each other, since god knows I'd be atrocious at introducing people directly, rather than everyone staying in their own private huddles - I think that happened with some of the larger groups, but that's inevitable.

We got there at about 7:20pm and there were already quite a few people there, friends who hadn't been at the afternoon ceremony, and as we arrived into the main room they all started applauding and cheering us. It was an incredible feeling, the kind of thing that chokes you up in recollection, and I wanted to hug the lot of them. As it was, it was bizarrely difficult to actually spend time with people and catch up with them, partly as there were so many people you have to spread yourself around, partly as my brain seemed completely frazzled at this point. Just like the afternoon, the only real regret I have from the day is not spending enough time with our guests and I hope nobody took that as taking them for granted. Honestly, we were hugely grateful for every single person who was there, and thank you cards will be going out once Kate's pictures have arrived and we can get them made.

So, moments from the night. The first couple of hours feeling absolutely drained, privately reconsidering whether having an evening reception was such a good idea, we pretty much crashed out on the sofa in the reception room, utterly zonked, and wondering how the deuce we were going to stay awake for the next few hours, never mind sociable hosts.

What pulled us around? Not the drink - I had a couple of bottles of beer over the whole night, mostly sticking to water - but a mix of company and music. The playlist for the night was of my making and playing through the (surprisingly impressive) music system in the venue via the iBook, and for the first couple of hours it was pretty standard easy-going stuff. Highlights including seeing 2-year-old Callum getting his groove on to Adam Buxton's The Hours...

Sticking with Adam & Joe, having their Pirate Radio Classical interruption lead straight into Hey Ya! was the absolute business, even if Missus & I were the only ones who heard it. Watching Abigail and Hattie dancing away while all the adults milled at the edges early on the evening was class, a classic example of why people who ban children from coming to their wedding are seriously missing out. It was great to hear some of my favourite songs booming out, reliving that 90's indie disco vibe with Carter USM's Rubbish, Inspiral Carpets' Saturn 5, Kenickie's In Your Car and the dreamy Twisterella from Ride. Jah Wobble's Visions Of You sounded particularly good with the deep bass rumbling on the Richter scale through the venue, while there was a lovely sense of "holy shit, is that...?" when Where's Me Jumper? came on.

But the real turning point came while we were out on the sofa again and a run of comparatively rocking songs (Immigrant Song, Paint It Black, 20th Century Boy) gave way to Take On Me, Lay All Your Love On Me and Freak Like Me. We could hear the ladies singing even from where we were sitting, all the more impressive given the volume the music boomed at, and we just had to come through - that's when the photo shown was taken, the smile on my face basically from me thinking: "it's coming together... everything's going to be fine." We were encouraged to join the dancing, and very briefly attempted to do so until my leg shrieked with indignation and I had to retire back to the sofa briefly with a tube of Biofreeze. But soon enough we were back downstairs as the singing and dancing continued, tasty nosh was served up by the staff and the night swum by like a dream...

It was Lucien that got me to start dancing proper, just like all those years ago in Bournemouth, while the Missus wisely kept to a safe distance. I quickly realised that as long as I didn't move my legs at all, I wouldn't feel any pain from dancing, resulting in hours of successful grooving from the waist-up. Couldn't swear on it, but I'm pretty sure it was the B-52's Rock Lobster that I started dancing/flailing-wildly (depending on your point of view) to, followed joyfully by Junior Senior's Move Your Feet - hope you all joined in on that one - and then the sublime funk genius of Curtis Mayfield's Move On Up (the extended album version, mind) that really kicked things off, metaphorically speaking, as the dancing spread from Lucien to my other college friends to our sisters and relatives. Honestly, how can you not move to that song? I was happy up until that point, but from thereon I was almost giddily blissful.

Around then, Kal said he was leaving, which was a shame as he was such excellent company and everybody loved him, but I understood and gave him a goodbye hug. Then he came back, having decided it was more fun to stay, which made us very happy indeed.

Wonderful memories from the rest of the night attached to particular songs. Fatboy Slim's Praise You inspiring Marie-Laure to try and recreate the famous video that had soundtracked our time in Dublin a decade ago.

At the end of the song, a pre-arranged conspiracy amongst sisters to get some Girls Aloud into the night came to light as they started singing a Girls Aloud track, then graciously admitting defeat as the next track kicked in with that DUH DUH-DUH, DUH DUH-DUH - Come On Eileen, thangyewverymuch.

The Missus getting into the groove, leading to us unexpectedly having our First Dance to Tom Jones' staggering rendition of Kiss, complete with a quick snog in the chorus. I can't hear the song now without laughing like a drain - it was completely unplanned (neither of us likes to dance, so we'd assumed we wouldn't even have a dance together) but an absolutely perfect moment.

The sisters were awesome, belting out the singalong songs, and I was so happy to dance with my sister to Born To Run, which reportedly also saw some supreme grooving from Al & Carrie. I regretted not having more well-known disco songs towards midnight, with MARRS' Pump Up The Volume and The KLF's What Time Is Love possibly too abrasive for that time, but sod it - they sounded ace.

Throughout the afternoon and evening our guests wrote in the aforementioned sheep poo guest book - we finally read it the next day and nearly blubbed, such was the absolute loveliness it contained. The thought and care that went into some of the entries still blows my mind and we really should stick some of them up online to share their excellence. There's poetry, artwork, foreign languages and page after page of such kindness towards The Missus & I that we must be doing something right to have such wonderful people in our lives.

Inevitably, numbers dwindled as the hours went by, and although I'd playlisted the soundtrack to end at 1am we wrapped things up at 12:30am, ending the night with a hardcore remainder bellowing along melodiously to Abba's Thank You For The Music, much to the amusement of the remaining staff. As we said goodbye to those who stayed to the end, one of the staff said they'd enjoyed the music that evening - much more varied and interesting than what normally gets played at wedding receptions, apparently - and asked who picked the music. How good do you think I felt?

Now, here's where things take a turn for the shit. We hadn't booked a taxi home in advance - we certainly didn't book a wedding car for the day, one of the boons of having it in the city we live in meant there was no need for wedding cars or staying in hotels - figuring we could just book one through the Citycabs automated phone system when we needed it. However, this way of thinking didn't take into consideration that a) it was Saturday, around chucking out time, and therefore a busy time for taxis normally and b) it was the Heineken Rugby Cup Final that weekend, with 10,000s of visitors in the city, described as "busier than Hogmanay". We called the automated line and got put into a queue but with no indication when or even if a car would turn up, so I tried calling human-answered numbers but kept being told there were no cars available in the city centre. By now it was past 1am and with no idea if a car was coming for us I went out to the nearest taxi rank while the Missus waited at the Wynd. Standing in that taxi rank queue, stretching right down the Royal Mile with so many people that even if a taxi had arrived every minute it would've taken half an hour to get a car, and taxis were arriving every five minutes is that, I was feeling profoundly miserable and increasingly anxious - what the hell were we going to do? Any other day, we'd get a nightbus or even walk back... but with the Missus still in her wedding dress? Absolutely goddamn not. The attention we'd be getting at that time of day might still be good-hearted, but it'd be beered-up, lairy, coarse, pissed - I would do whatever I could to ensure she didn't have to walk more than a few steps out in Edinburgh city centre that night. Problem was, what could I do? After twenty minutes, during which two different ambulances turned up to cart people out of pubs, I gave up and headed back to the Wynd - after all, Missus didn't have her mobile with her and I was getting worried the staff there would want to turf us out so they could go home, and then what would we do? Fucked if I knew...

Thankfully, the remaining staff were just as reliant on a taxi to get home as we were, so they were perfectly fine with us being there waiting for a car to become available. Just as I was walking back to the Wynd I could hear some people queuing to get into Cabaret Voltaire - there were more people waiting outside than you could even fit inside the place - looking down into the Wynd, seeing the Missus and saying "there's a bride... ah, she's on her own, something's gone wroooong" and I wanted to punch their faces off and bellow "FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU! WE'D BE HOME BY NOW IF THE STREETS WEREN'T FILLED WITH PISSED TWATS LIKE YOU WHO NEED A TAXI TO CROSS THE STREET, YOU FUCK! HOW DARE YOU?!" However, I didn't, weaving back into the venue to give her a hug and wait. The staff at Marlins Wynd, bless them, were hugely understanding and accommodating, but my mind still raced trying to find another way out and failing. Theoretically I could have called any of the guests who had come and had cars with them... but it was 1:30am by then and we would have felt like absolute shits for doing so. Walking - no way. Bus - no way. Even calling Mum who was staying in the city centre and asking to stay at hers would've meant walking through a vomit strewn Royal Mile with pissed-up berks with pint-shaped hats hooting in our direction - I wouldn't have that happen to my wife.

And then, at about 1:45am, the door to the venue opened up and to the sound of heavenly choirs a leather-jacketed angel walked in and asked if we'd ordered a cab. Note - I may have imagined the choir of angels, such was the immense, intense relief that washed over the Missus & me, I swear we both damn near fainted. The staff at the Wynd, bless them, let us take the taxi, so we piled out of the venue with baumkuchen, presents, laptop and all, receiving plenty of stares and a few whistles from the Cabaret Voltaire crowd, straight into the cab. Honestly, I have never ever ever been so relieved to see a taxi driver, we were both so grateful that we'd have happily paid crazy amounts for that ride, rather than the tenner it cost (including a generous tip, naturally). That extreme relief, the release of tension as we sat in the cab and it tried to weave its way through a Grassmarket stuffed with more drunk pint hatters, bizarrely made the perfect end to a day that I'd initially been so anxious about, yet where everything ultimately worked out perfect.

You'd perhaps expect that hour of waiting and worry to be a shadow over the day, but it really isn't - sure, it would've been better if we'd booked a taxi well in advance and had none of that, but by 2am we were home and very, very happy. A rollercoaster ride of a day and night, to be savoured for the rest of our lives. And a hell of a good start to married life!

Photographs by Marie-Laure Guisset and Ian Ingoldsby.  Good work!

How I Got Married

The Missus has shared hers, so here's my vague recollections of the wedding day (evening to come later, once more photos online) as a starter before a few posts on the nitty-gritty of it all get written and the final photo album is uploaded. Bear in mind a) my memory is godawful at the best of times, never mind on the most emotionally dazzling, time-space-warping day of me life and b) we're likely to share a few of the same memories from the day, what with us being at the same wedding and all...

The first emotional wallop came when I was setting up the music system at the venue for the ceremony, the Scottish Book Trust, on the Friday afternoon (wiring stuff up, no heavy lifting thanks to throbbing muscle gristle), then testing out the volume by playing the first piece of music to be played after the ceremony, La Vie En Rose performed by Louis Armstrong, used to such swoony effect in Wall-E. As the trumpet echoed around the hall, I came very very very close to all-out blubbing like an eejit with joy, and a few tears still managed to sneak out.

I spent the night before the wedding curled up with my fiancee watching the always-adorable Studio Ghibli classic Whisper Of The Heart.  It was pretty much the perfect antidote to the inevitable jumbled mass of anxious anticipation we were feeling that evening, a film that manages to be charming, funny, evocative and ultimately romantic.

My chums Hana and Dan (the latter being the best man) popped over to our flat on the Saturday morning to keep me company while the Lass went to have her hair twiddled about. Disgracefully filthy & bloody two-player action on House Of The Dead: Overkill was the perfect way to stop my head from bursting with nerves.  After they left, there was a period of silent (relative) calm as I got all suited-and-booted before the Lass got back, looking in the mirror and feeling pretty damn pleased with myself, then giving my mirror-self a wee pep talk. Not sure if he listened though.

Mind you, it's worth noting that before this I came to the terrible conclusion that I didn't know how to do a really decent necktie, which is pretty bally pathetic for a 32 year old male and is surely an indictment of our broken society.  Only YouTube could save me...

Seeing the Lass in her dress for the first time that day was always going to be a stunning moment - although I'd already seen her in it beforehand (superstition be damned!) the sight still knocked me for six. Just see the picture to the right there, taken just as we were getting ready to leave for the ceremony - fantastic! I silently congratulated myself on being a jammy so-and-so, and continued to do so for the rest of the day.  Still do, really.

At half past one we reached the afternoon ceremony venue, the Scottish Book Trust, and saw the wedding cake - a metre-high baumkuchen from the mighty Falko Konditormeister - for the first time, along with all the catering, plants and decorations, and the feeling of unstoppable momentum was startling.  I'd seen the baumkuchen in individual slices before, and had seen a full-size cake made by Falko on television thanks to Rachel Allen, but to see it in person - and to know it was for us - was quite amazing.  I'd never seen anything else like it, and it was a pleasure to see the reaction of our guests to it - initially at the appearance, then later in the afternoon when it was served up and they were able to taste it for the first time.

Things started to move very quickly at this point - there must have been some local distortion of the fabric of spacetime.  In those 30 minutes before the ceremony was due to start, people arrived (well, duh!). Slowly at first, then they seemed to cascade in and I felt more and more overwhelmed as I wanted to welcome and speak to everyone. Had we stuck to tradition and the Lass not arrived until the ceremony, leaving me to deal with all these people, I probably would have fainted.  As it was, I came ludicrously close in the 10 minutes before kick-off. A mix of dehydration, social anxiety (I'm not great around large groups of people at the best of times) and a physical reaction to the gallons of adrenaline that seemed to be gushing through my body sent my pulse and breathing racing. It was horrible. I managed to get to my asthma inhaler and took a couple of puffs, but didn't seem to make much difference. What made it worse was the desire to be welcoming people as they were arriving, yet my body was stopping me, and I hated the thought that people might think this was me being deliberately antisocial or out of nerves about getting married. Not in the slightest - it was the fact there were people there watching it that brought the Fear. Which is ludicrous, especially in retrospect, but at the time it was bringing me to a halt.  With less than 10 minutes to go and dizziness wrapping itself around my head, things were getting fuzzy and although I wasn't yet seeing stars I could sense they were in the post. Best Man Dan spotted this quickly and got me out into the fresh air, led me through some breathing exercises that really helped and waited as I splashed my face with cold water, glugged back a few cups of water and Got My Shit Together. I just regret that I couldn't have spent all this time greeting our guests and hope that nobody interpreted it as some weird commitment-phobe cold feet behaviour. Anyway, for that alone Dan proved himself to be the best Best Man I could've hope for.  So from my wonky memory, let's see what can be recovered.

I remember the principal players - Lass, me, Best Man, Bridesmaids, Ushers, Celebrant - meeting in the foyer before walking into the hall and up the aisle... then it all goes vague. That local spacetime distortion reached critical mass at this point. I do recall a near-continuous refrain in my head - DON'T FAINT! DON'T FAINT! BREATHE! DON'T FAINT! DON'T FAINT! BREATHE! - that ran for pretty much the whole ceremony. The upside to this is that while I had been bound to burst into horrible tears during the ceremony because the whole thing was so bloody lovely, I didn't cry a bit as I was too busy willing myself to stay conscious and grasping the Lass's hand with both of mine as we sat listening to the celebrant and the readers.

I remember us getting everyone waving to Emily during the introduction of the ceremony, which was an immensely cool moment and went a long way to make my anxiety go away - it reminded me that, surprise, this is actually happy, good, fun.  As for Emily, she owned the rest of the afternoon, charmed everyone she met and worked her usual magic in photographs - this is definitely one of our favourite pictures of the whole day, taken as she demonstrated her mastery of bipedal locomotion.

I remember the celebrant, Juliet Wilson (another internet find!) bringing the ceremony together perfectly, striking the right tone at every step.  I remember the readers, and what a wonderful job all three did. The readings were A Birthday by Christina Rossetti (apologies for the purpleness of the linked page), Journey by Christine de Luca (scroll down to see it) and the following, taken from the end of Who Will Comfort Toffle? by Tove Jansson, she of the Moomins:

Now Toffle looks at Miffle. They exchange a timid smile
That says as much as words, perhaps, but only for a while
Since there are certain things that even smiles cannot express
"I'll write to you instead," says Toffle, "That's the answer. Yes!"
When Miffle reads the letter, which she finds a little tough;
Toffle's peculiar signature is difficult enough;
Her roses turn from white to red, right before Miffle's eyes.
Miffle falls into Toffle's arms, gives him a hug and cries,
"Forget the past and all your fears. Think of the super fun
That we can have. I'd love to see the beach, a shell, the sun."
So off they sail, two special guests on Fillyjonk's red boat.
The whompses wave and cheer to see the happy pair afloat,
And Miffle knows, and Toffle knows, that both have seen the end
Of fear and fright and long, dark night, now each has found a friend.

I don't remember getting up to read the vows - a miniature black hole swallowed that up - but I do remember finding myself standing there, beaming with genuine joy as the Lass read her vows, then reading mine, looking into her eyes as often as I could while doing so, marveling at the power of the words, the strength of speaking these vows out loud, and I loved how they sounded, how absolute, unequivocal, utterly binding. Who says men don't like commitment?  Here's what I said:

Katherine, you are the best thing that ever happened to me. You’ve brought so much to my life and I want to spend the rest of my life together with you. I promise to be there for you, always and forever, to support, to hold, to hug and to love. I promise to be the very best husband I can be, to make you as happy as you make me, to share in whatever life throws at us, good or bad. In front of our family and friends here today, I swear my devotion, my commitment, my love for you.

Fragments now. Putting the ring on the Lass's finger - after requiring some subtle direction on which finger to aim for...

Signing the register, embarrassed by my shaking hand as I signed my name. Thankfully my signature is an indecipherable squiggle at all times, so the over-adrenalised scrawl was perfectly acceptable.

I don't remember the kiss. I do remember the hug.

Quoting the League Of Gentlemen, just as I'd been planning all year. And the photographer caught it!

The ceremony ending, the sound of our guests reading the blessing, the first I'd been aware of their presence since the ceremony started - the world had seemed to contract into a small bubble.

Finding ourselves outside, giddy with relief. It's done! It's really done! We're married! EEEEEEE!  A bit like the end of Return of the King when Frodo's got rid of the Ring, only the complete opposite really.

Memory begins to revert back to normal at this point, as we rocketed away from the emotional singularity of the ceremony.  Next came photos and photos and photos and photos and photos and photos and photos, as expected. I hoped I didn't look too zonked, relieved, giddy or increasingly-bored-with-the-same-smile, and as our collective memory is so frazzled thank goodness we have photographs to prove that, yep, it really did happen. Our photographer, Kate Brandwood, did a superb job both in taking the obligatory mountain of portraits and in capturing people unawares throughout the afternoon.  Thankfully I managed to throw in a few... unorthodox poses - one! two! three!  I particularly enjoyed showing off my cufflinks - more on where they came from later.

The music was always going to be very important for our wedding and I'd been working on the playlist since, oh, January 2008.  There was even live music at the ceremony courtesy of two clarsach players playing adaptations of the Orkney Wedding With Sunrise at the start of the ceremony, then Always With Me by Yumi Kimura (the song that plays at the end of Spirited Away) during the signing of the register.  Infuriatingly, I don't actually remember any of this - filming weddings doesn't seem quite so silly in retrospect.

Also, I'd lined up some of our favourite songs to play in the hour after the ceremony - tracks like Lemon Jelly's The Staunton Lick, Loudon Wainwright III's Passion Play, Bjork's Unison - but with all the photographs being taken outside and the music playing inside, nobody heard a thing!  I had bought a rather splendid outdoor iPod speaker unit that looked like a bucket, but in all the faff of photos didn't get the chance to bring it out until later.  However, there was a rather special moment when, photographs over, I went back into the venue to get said speaker, sync the iPod playlist up with where the indoor one was and bring it outside.  The playlist at that point was at a session recording of Daniel Johnston and friends playing 'Go' on the Mark Riley 6Music show (a recording I'd 'taped' off the radio, and I sat down and listened to it.  Maybe it's best it wasn't played to everyone, I suspect some would've found it too darn odd even by our standards,, but sitting in the empty venue as Johnston cooed the following seemed like the perfect coda to my single life:

So you think you've found the one

And she knows just how you feel

And you say that she's for real and she's fun

Well, that's all well and good

That's just the way it should be

To understand and be understood is to be free

So I think that you should go

Go on ahead

Take her in your arms and be wed

Go go go go you restless soul, you're going to find it

Go go go go you restless soul, you're going to find it

Oh, yes you did, you found it.

Staggeringly cheesy though this sounds, it felt like music, the great consoler in all those teenage and twentysomething years, an ever-present companion through all the cliched confusion, melancholy and mistakes that came with them, was waving me off - job done.  This is nonsense of course, I still listen to music just as much as before, but anyone who's clung to music in the past, who knows just how much it can matter, should be able to understand what I'm clumsily trying to explain.  I adore music as much as ever, but it's no longer the support, the crutch, the reassuring hand that it had to be in those younger years on my tod.  Hearing 'Go' at that particular moment felt like the perfect acknowledgement of how music had helped get me to where I was, make me the person I am, the person my love wanted to spend the rest of her life with - hell, we only first made contact across the internet thanks to music!  Ach, enough of my confused babbling, just listen to the song yourself:

Download Go (Marc Riley Session)

Once finished, I brought the musical bucket outside to serenade the guests (all enjoying the SBT's secret garden and the barbecue reception) with some supreme reggae and lovers rock - a full playlist will be published soon, just in case there's a single person out there remotely interested in what was on.  As for the barbecue, that went down an absolute treat - there'll be a post about the food & drink of the wedding a little bit later (full of teases, this post).  It was around this point I really felt relaxed, that everything was going to be fine with this wedding day, and really enjoyed myself, the luckiest groom in the world.

From there, everything swam along splendidly.  I tried - and probably failed - to spend a decent amount of time catching up with friends and introducing myself to people I'd never met before, but the time flew by so quickly, so sudden.  It's a cliche that married couples warn you of, but you never expect that hours could hurtle past like that.  Must've been that spacetime distortion again.  But I do remember a definite atmosphere of fun, of relaxation amongst our guests, that was exactly what the Missus & I had wanted from the wedding, and it seemed to end far too early.  Some guests left, but most stayed as we marched on to the second part of the day - the evening reception.  And that, my friends, deserves a post all of its very own...

Still, even if the day had ended at that point it would've been a perfect day - as it was, it just got even more perfect with the evening.  The ceremony, which essentially was all that really mattered, was wonderful and heartfelt and true, as good a reflection of the staggeringly brilliant relationship I have with Katherine as could be made.  We made our vows to each other, witnessed by those who matter most to us, in doing so closing the book on one part of our lives and starting a brand new one together.  To have all those people there, to share it with them and to see them enjoy the food, drink and music we'd prepared for them - that's the blissful icing on an already glorious cake.  Thanks, then, to the photographer, the celebrant, the readers, the best man, the ushers, the bridesmaids, the parents, the guests... and to the bride for making me officially (I can prove this with charts and graphs) the happiest groom in the world.  Cheers wifey!

The Nagls Are Back!

Two weeks on, I'm back from a glorious honeymoon spent with my beautiful wife down in a particularly sunny Cornwall following an absolutely fantastic wedding day, gently readjusting to normality with the added pleasantness of a shiny gold ring on my left hand.  There's so bloody much to be said about the last 16 days which has probably set up enough blogging material for the rest of 2009, but for now this is a little post to say a) hello, we're back b) thanks again to everyone and c) although there's going to be a definitive set of wedding photos online in the next few weeks containing the best of all the pictures taken, if you fancy seeing the snaps taken by the professional photographer (Kate Brandwood, who we can't recommend enough) just clicky here.  There's a couple of hundred photos there, probably of little interest to those who weren't there, but even so I think they're absolutely splendid.  I'll comment more on them once the final gallery is uploaded, but this'll do nicely for now.