Standing in the garden around the braai while the neighbours are poisoning beehives and hacking down swallows' nests, we watch as a woodpecker beats himself senseless against their faux-treetrunk, cement letterbox. (Aah, the birds and the bees, Sethefriken style!) Sorry I've neglected you, dear web surfers, but I do have an excuse...
See, I've just married my girlfriend of two and a half years. Now those of you who may think that a two and a half year old has no business marrying anybody, can relax, this is South Africa, not South Carolina. Anyway, as a cynic once said, I've been lucky enough to find the one person I want to irritate for the rest of my life and I highly recommend the noble estate of matrimony to you all.
A small word of caution, though, arranging even the smallest wedding (mine) is like stapling your ball-bag to a Joburg taxi; guaranteed to induce rapid personality change. Maybe the woodpecker next door has just realised how much his wedding designer is charging. Yes, folks, wedding coordinators/designers really do exist and they're a strain of thieves that would make a televangelist blush. Or else our bird is sick of arguing about colour-coordinated tablecloths with his sweetest angel, lady woodpecker, the one with the mother that resembles an enraged fruit bat.
This is one complicated piss-up to organise! It's impossible to accommodate everyone who'll be ticked off if they don't get an invitation, but don't worry, I found that including the little sentence, "There will be a cash bar", radically cuts down on the number of positive RSVP's from freeloading dickheads ...err... esteemed colleagues. However, just making the seating plan for the reception resembles drawing the cease-fire lines in Gaza. We had an irate cousin threaten to suicide bomb the chocolate cake, because she was too far from the sexy, single comedians table. Mostly though, there's Zen comfort in the realisation that everyone you like in the world loathes everyone else you like.
My magnificent bride and I got married outside, next to a river, under a willow tree as a spring thunderstorm brewed. A friend remarked that, as the lightning began striking, he thought we were all candidates for a Darwin award, but we got through it all right. Afterwards, the rain came bucketing down for about twenty minutes and, when it cleared, the priest declared us married according to the Duckworth-Lewis system. Then we had a spring evening of tears, laughter, dancing and more food than we had expected thanks to the wedding coordinator who thoughtfully collected all the rice that had been thrown and made some sort of deal with the caterer.
There was a champagne toast... OOPS! ...a sparkling wine made in Cape Town according to the "methode Cap Classique" toast. I would beg your pardon, but I struggle to give a shit about wine snobbery. It tasted great anyway. So, connoisseurs take note. Here follows a letter to France, Portugal, Italy and every other swankpot that insists on prohibiting the use of terms like champagne, port and camembert that entered the language ages ago, because they "invented" these "completely unique and inimitable" products that every sod and his dog has since copied and mass produced (not because we're philistines, but because watching milk curdle is NOT THAT FUCKING DIFFICULT).
To whom it may irk,
As a citizen of Gauteng, South Africa, which includes the Sterkfontein caves, generally acknowledged as the cradle of humanity and declared by the United Nations a world heritage site, I forbid you to call yourselves human. The first and only authentic "humans" were born right here, several of them conceived in the back seat of a 1974 VW beetle. With immediate effect, you are hereby ordered to cease and desist using the term "human" or any translation thereof. The closest approximation that we will accept is "tool making bipedal hominids in the method of Australopithecus africanus." Should you refuse, we reserve the right to call our versions of your bubbly plonk, overpriced sweet poeswyn, smelly cheese and any other of your national treasures by whatever name we bloody well please.
Love,
Al
But, I digress. The evening turned out wonderfully thanks to love, good friends and abovementioned booze. Looking back in soft focus, I'm tempted to forget the designer's quaint way with an invoice and the fuckwit dj's addiction to "Mambo no. 5". Just a pity we didn't install a detector at the exit for picking up relatives sneaking out with floral décor and napkin wrapped leftovers.
So why did I do it in the first place? I'm all for traditions and rites of passage, but bollocks to all that! Those clichés don't get anywhere close to describing the feeling. I'm in love with the woman of my dreams and I want to be with her forever. I hope it works... because I'm NEVER going to do it again.
Cheers!
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