Tag Archives: Friends

Photography

Irish Wedding

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This was the first wedding that I’ve been to in a while where I have not been the photographer in some capacity. It was nice to avoid the pressure! The disadvantage of course is that I was not always — not often — in the right place for the best shot.

Carol and Stephen get married

It still didn’t stop my trying.

Carol and Stephen get married

Over the last few years I have been to an Anglican church wedding, a civil partnership, a couple of registry office weddings, a Jewish wedding but never a Catholic one.

Carol and Stephen get married

As anyone who knows me will realise, I’m not a man of faith, but it’s always interesting to see the differences.

The memorable feature of this wedding (in terms of the wedding service rather than what it meant to me to see a good friend get married!) was its obsession with the creation of new offsprings. Little mention was made of their one year old daughter…

Carol and Stephen get married

As you might imagine of an Irish wedding, the service was only the start. The reception went on for… well, longer that I stayed awake in any case. All I can say is that at midnight, only a couple of hours after a huge meal, they were bringing out burgers for a snack.

Carol and Stephen get married

One last thing that I wanted to mention, though it’s not strictly about the wedding. I got back to the hotel in the early hours of the morning and didn’t rush up the next day. It got to nearly ten and I realised that I had missed the breakfast. I wasn’t too concerned, since Tipperary town was only a five minute drive away, and continued to lay in bed for a little longer.

Just before ten thirty, the phone rang. Would I like breakfast? She wouldn’t take no for an answer. I love service in Ireland…

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September Wedding

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Rose and TomaszIt seems like only last week that I was at a friends wedding (in fact it was just over two weeks), but on Tuesday two more friends tied the knot.

I’ve known R since my time in Norway. We met up a few times in Oslo and continued when we both returned to London. She had dreams of travelling, going back to Norway or Paris, or, generally, elsewhere. But she drifted back to her home-town, Bristol. Later, T, a Polish tree surgeon, moved into the flat-share she was living in. She jokes that while I tried internet- and speed-dating, she just stayed at home but had greater success.

They exchanged vows in Camden Town Hall, confusingly located opposite St Pancras station rather than in Camden as one would naively expect. It was a good service, and it was good that so many people made it, including both mothers. T’s didn’t speak much English but seemed to enjoy herself.

Afterwards we retired to a local pub for the reception.

A good day was had by all. R and T are currently in Morocco on their Honeymoon and we all wish them all the best. Congratulations!

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A Very Civil Partnership

Phil and IhsanIt turns out that 2006 is a big year for weddings. I got married in April, a friend of my wife got married in May and my friends P and I had a Civil Partnership Ceremony yesterday.

Despite the poor weather, it was a great day for everyone. They tied the knot in Wandsworth Registry Office with nearly twenty people present. It was a short but touching ceremony. They said their vows and exchanged rings.

As I’s Best Man said, in general they’ve had a fairly private relationship which made such a public occasion all the more special. It was great to see so many people there in the evening helping to celebrate their commitment to one another.

Congratulations to both of them!

Oh, we were slightly amused (or is that bemused?) to see a sign behind the registrar defining that a wedding is between a man and a woman. We weren’t sure whether some people in the council objected to same-sex marriages or that they’ve just not moved it since it became legal last year.

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Geocaching

Unsuccessful geocachingI was introduced to the strange world of Geocaching over Christmas last year.

For the uninitiated, geocaching is, basically, a high-tech scavenger hunt. People hide things all over the world, typically Tupperware boxes containing various goodies, and post the co-ordinates on a website. Other people then enter the details into their GPS systems and try to find them. It sounds simple, silly even, but it can give you a good excuse to look around an old and familiar area with a new perspective.

As the above picture shows, some caches are more tricky to find than others. Here we tried a “multi-cache,” which has various clues pointing to the real location. We found all the clues but couldn’t find the actual box.

The next day, after lunch in a pub, we decided to look for another geocache. Things were not looking good for a while but just as we were about to give up and go home — two failures in as many days — we found it!

Successful geocache find

Here B and D celebrate our find. It’s the first time D has been and she got quite into it!