(LONG!) Rather than start a new thread I thought I'd do you all a wedding report on this one...SP used your Captain Corelli's Mandolin piece, coddy, and it was beautifully read in both English and Spanish by her friend Helen (who had been holding SP's DS on her lap up to that point and suddenly realised she couldn't do the reading with him, looked panic-struck, leapt up and handed him to the chap sitting next to her ).
When we woke up on the morning of the wedding it was just like an English summer's day - torrential rain and heavy black clouds . Luckily, Spanish weather being a bit more volatile than ours, by the time we arrived at SP's Town Hall, there was a clear blue sky overhead - huge relief all round!
SP looked absolutely gorgeous, with long twirly hair and her ebay wedding dress - creamy-white satiny stuff with some small bits of gold and green embroidery on the front and a huge skirt (can you tell from the description I'm not a clothes person!), with the gold head-dress lent by the ebay vendor (have you sent it back yet, SP?) and pointy gold shoes. The 3 little bridesmaids, including her DD (who kept everybody waiting at the start as she walked down the stairs BY HERSELF!) wore lilac sleeveless dresses and the 2 big ones, SP's sisters, wore a bluer lilac; her flowers and theirs had been made up from a bouquet someone had sent plus some more, in whites/purples/lilacs (???) and they all matched beautifully. (Thousands of digital pictures were taken, I'm hoping SP might put some of them up...???)
The wedding ceremony itself, conducted on a stage in a little auditorium by the mayor in a smart jacket and blue jeans , was short and friendly and quite informal; the groom and best man had got there very very early and sat on the stage for ages in their smart suits and ponytails, smiling self-consciously and looking as if they would love a drink!
After the ceremony and milling about outside for photos and chat for a bit the wedding party left for the reception in the back of their own Land Rover - SP aimed her bouquet at her sisters but missed and landed it in a fountain, a proper girlie throw! The rest of us eventually wished we had driven too as the reception venue was a long long uphill walk away - one of SP's aunts was in front of us pushing SP's DS in his buggy, much to the relief of SP and her mother when we got to the top as each of them thought the other had him and when they got there they realised neither of them did! He is a sunny little chap and didn't realise he was "lost" - both her children were absolute stars all day.
SP's dad was the official photographer which meant he had to hand over the camera to someone else to take family groups which included him; when it came to the team picture he said cheerfully never mind, he'd add himself in on the computer later!
We had about an hour in the restaurant courtyard with tapas and drinks and a view of the mountains with some distant snow on top; my DS2 distinguished himself by first spitting out (literally) a tapas which looked like cake but turned out to be a fishy sandwich and then dropping the glass of coke which he had been twirling between his hands and drenching SP's aunt (pink trousers), me (black trousers phew) and himself (beige trousers but at least he missed his lap); fortunately he behaved a bit better after that!
SP had arranged for a SMALL flamenco group (only 4, sometimes there are about a dozen but it was quite a small room!) to play during the meal, including a dancer, which was brill as we'd never seen it before; the food was excellent and there was lots of wine - best joke of the day: SP's friend Angela, who also made the English wedding cake, had been involved with dealing with the restaurant and when they printed the labels for the wine bottles they had put Angela's name instead of SP's so correction strips had to be stuck on top, but some of them missed and the labels showed both pairs of names - SP's old friends thought this was hysterical and all of them kept empties as souvenirs!
SP's DH read his speech earlier, standing on the steps leading up from the courtyard to the reception room before we all went in, so we only had SP's Dad's little speech (very sweet!), SP's Pam Ayres poem (the translation of which made the Spaniards laugh too!) and a very short speech by the best man who didn't tell us any scandal at all, curses.
There were 2 wedding cakes - Angela's English traditional tiered one which was very impressive, especially as she'd never made one before, and a fantastic Spanish creation which looked as if it could have been assembled by a reception class , with mounds of bright pink icing and hundreds of coloured decorations.
We had been supposed to spend the night in the village but a combination of DS2's tendency to get antsy at social events and the killer effects on me of wine at lunchtime meant we ended up going back to our holiday villa at the end of the afternoon instead - but we had the most wonderful day, SP, it was the highlight of