James and Rox got engaged in January 2010. He’s a 6ft 3in Brummie, and she’s a Yorkshire lass who tops out at 5ft 2in on a good day. They were together for seven whole years before James proposed, so either Rox has the patience of a saint, or he was well worth the wait. Sadly, it’s the former. James will be representing the boys every week up until the big day in August.
Last weekend was our final free one before we get married in six weeks time, so we had a list as long as my arm of wedding chores. Unfortunately, this gave us a bit of a dilemma, because our rule is that whenever the sun is out we don’t do wedding stuff. It was 30 degrees on Sunday, even in The Midlands believe it or not, so we compromised. We fed an extension cable out into the garden and set my laptop up outside.
We did manage to tick off a couple of outstanding jobs. Decisions were finally made on what gifts to buy the bridesmaids, ushers and mothers. It should come as no surprise to you that my ushers don’t regularly follow my blog on Y&YW, so it’s perfectly safe for me to reveal their gifts here. If I was blogging for Nuts or Zoo it’d be a different matter. I’ve found some really nice cuff links on eBay that you can subtly personalise by engraving the edges, so six sets are winging their way to me right now.
Another one of my jobs was to devise the church order of service. It’s really rare for Rox and me to disagree on anything. Generally we’re pretty much in sync, which is rather handy because we’re planning on spending quite a bit of time together over the next few years. But on Sunday we hit a real difference of opinion.
I believe that church services shouldn’t be taken too seriously. I’m not suggesting that we should leave whoopee cushions on the pews, but I think the ceremony should be light-hearted and enjoyable. So on the inside page of the order of service where the main players are listed (bridesmaids, ushers, flower girl etc.), I added one extra listing at the bottom: “Wedding Planner – Fronk." Now if you’ve never seen the film Father of The Bride, this will mean nothing to you.
But if you have, you’ll definitely remember Franck (pronounced “Fronk”). He’s the wonderfully camp, completely hysterical wedding planner that drives Steve Martin insane.
Rox loves Father of the Bride, but she doesn’t think everyone will get the reference. So we chatted it through reasonably and weighed up the pros and cons, until we eventually arrived at the only logical way to settle the matter – flip for it. Lovers of Franck will be thrilled to hear that I won, so it stays.
And therein lies the problem when you build your relationship on foundations of fairness and equality – you win some and you lose some. I did my best to remain gracious in victory, but I couldn’t help speaking like Franck for most of the weekend, “Mr. Bonks, I assumed you’d be wearing a black tuxado."
W Day: 39 days and counting
Catch up on James’ 35th week of wedding planning (and links to earlier weeks) here
