Wedding day

My wedding was stress free,but my husband had been so busy ferrying out of town guests that he missed the barbers and looked very shaggy in the photos. I aren’t exactly sure that we were legally married because on receiving the wedding certificate my Dad’s name was spelled Melvyn and not Mervyn! We arranged everything with our local vicar, but my cousin actually married us.

more than 60 years ago
There was thunder and lightening during the ceremony but it just cleared up enough for us to dash to my new husband's small racing green Austin van which he liked to drive as if a Lotus racing car
As an impoverished student he had been talked by friends into buying several very cheap second hand( but smart-looking) cars which had mostly broken down soon afterwards and had to be dumped as irreparable.

He was doing it differently for me! as he had discovered he could buy a reliable work vehicle without paying purchase tax

I had changed into my 'going away dress' which I had made myself and paired with a boater type hat ( bought)

Got into his green Lotus-type A35 van.... the seats were pushed back to the maximum so that he could pretend it was a racing car and drive with his legs straight.
Brmm brmm and we were off. I was thrown from side to side
'For God's sake, take that hat off' he hissed obliquely..... 'and you don't even know how to wear it properly' and this from a bean pole of aman who had chosen ,,,, to go with his racing van.... an emerald green and brown mixture Harris tweed suit. He said later that he thought that no-one would be able to see the moth holes in it.... the tweed was so fuzzy

.......on towards the west country . It was now 5 ish and we were on some sort of moor ( as well as being unable to wear a hat I was also a pretty bum map- reader)

A hand made sign proclaimed TEAS and we drove into the small cottage yard in the middle of nowhere seemingly surrounded by bogs and tufts of grass where a thin. elderly lady showed us into their front room. Now in the West Country I anticipated a cream tea
It was all a bit like the sketch I saw on tv far more recently. She stood there very attentively with a pad.
' Two cream teas , please'
'I'm sorry we don't have any'
'An egg or cheese sandwich then?
'Yes, I think we might have sandwiches'
and tottered off to the kitchen
She reappeared several minutes later to give the same response as earlier but added that she had some lettuce

We were decisive and ordered a lettuce sandwich each and she drifted away beaming.

Several minutes later she returned
' Sorry I forgot to ask. Do you like pepper with your lettuce?

MissInterpreted your mention of spare keys reminded me of something that happened in the 1960's. Not a wedding though.
My friend who lived across the road was about to give birth at home. I saw the midwife arrive, then shortly after, my friend's husband left the house, having been sent on an errand by the midwife. Some time passed then the midwife came out to get something from her car.
The next thing I knew was a very worried Nurse Jones was at my front door. She had inadvertently let the front door close and had locked herself out of her patient's home.
Luckily I had a spare key and the baby girl waited till the nurse was back in the house to bring her safely into the world.

I always wanted to travel to and from my wedding by a carriage. I paid for and organised this one childhood dream although my Dad (a police officer at the time ) was far from keen about his forthcoming ride. On the morning of the wedding the horse box was involved in an accident which thankfully didn’t leave anyone or animals injured but delayed them until I would come out of church with my new husband. My father magicked up a black wedding car by calling in a few favours so he and I got to church. My husband and I rode in style through the small town after the wedding and thus I had my dream ride. Taught me a lot about being adaptable.

My aunt, older than most brides in the 1950's, married a fairly unappealing man and the family worried that it was desperation that made her accept him. Apparently she pulled back slightly on the path into the church and, when asked if she still wanted to go through with it, said yes.
I don't think she had a very happy marriage which I think was so sad as she was a lovely, kind person who always did her best for her children.

We got married in a register office in Scotland and they forgot to put the 'phone through to reception so halfway through the phone started ringing. I didn't dare look at my husband as I would have collapsed in giggles.

About two weeks before my wedding (now ex) husband’s aunt phoned me and said did I really want to marry into their family. I was, of course, confused.
Went ahead and discovered eventually that in laws didn’t speak to each other (lived in different houses on their farm). Six weeks later BiL who worked on the farm committed suicide. We moved up to run the farm and MiL screamed at me for hours every day. Turns out she had MH issues and the family had been involved with social workers for years. All this was hidden from me when we visited; they played happy families.
I lasted for 14 years and left with three children

I was married in a Catholic Church in the city of London on the day we won the World Cup in 1966.

As we came out of the church, everybody had their little transistor radios to their ears listening for the result. Later, after the reception at my parents house, we drove past the hotel where the England team were celebrating and saw them come out onto the balcony to greet the big crowd gathered below. It was unforgettable, and all the guests in the years after always remembered my wedding day

On my wedding day, my mum had left for the church with the two bridesmaids, so it was just myself and my uncle (who was giving me away, my dad having died a few years previously) in the house. We went out of the front door and closed it behind us, only to realise that I'd left my bouquet in the house - and my mum had the front door key! Fortunately, a neighbour had a spare key and came to the rescue.

We married on a cold, windy day at the end of April which meant all the guests were huddled in coats in all the outside photos, looking frozen.
The following Sat, the first one in May was glorious sunshine but we hadn't chosen that date (could have) because of well meaning family saying "Marry in May and rue the day", when we planned the wedding.

As husband & I walked back down the aisle after the service, a church warden pressed £10 into my husbands hand and muttered something I didn't hear, but I thought "how kind, the church has given us money as a wedding present"
Turned out the bell ringers hadn't turned up so that tenner was our money back.
I'd arranged for the wedding photos to be delivered to my parents home while we were on honeymoon, with the very strict instructions they were NOT to be shown to anyone and to wait for our return.
Got home, only to find that practically everyone who'd been at our wedding had been treated to a visit by my parents during our fortnight away and shown our wedding photos before we had.
I was NOT amused.

I was a little too early for arriving at the church (I know, it’s usually the other way round 😁), so the driver drove me and my Father to the local supermarket car park to kill a bit of time. I was a bit like royalty, giving a “royal wave” to bemused Saturday morning shoppers. 😂😂.
After the ceremony, there was some time before the reception, so we came home (which was very close to the church), and enjoyed a bowl of sugar puffs, kitted out in our wedding regalia, before it was soon time to head off to the reception.
Here we are, though, 37 years later, and still happy.

For the first night of our honeymoon, we went to a rather expensive hotel in the New Forest. After dinner, we were having coffee in the lounge when a dull middle-aged couple struck up conversation. My husband was well-mannered and engaged in some small-talk, but I, being a brazen hussey, cut in with:
"We got married this afternoon. I do hope you will excuse us now." And I took my lovely new husband by the hand, and off we went to where we really wanted to be.

The organ at the church was not working so they imported a little keyboard style organ - a bit crude in 1970! They did not ask me what music I wanted and, whilst signing the register, I heard the strains of Moonlight and Roses wafting my way! As a singer and classical music buff it did not really float my boat.

Splendid stories!

Our wedding was very hastily organised - and not for the reason most people in my family thought! We married 5 months after we met, Registry Office with a little "do" afterwards at Mum and Dad's all on the cheap.

The "hiccup" was that my future husband had forgotten that we had to pay the licence fee at the time of the wedding, and he mistakenly thought that he had to have the exact right amount of money and that they did not give "change" (before the days of online banking, it was cash only or a cheque and he did not have his cheque book with him.) He had to come back out to our waiting guests and ask if anyone had any spare coins with them, and a quick whip-round was taken so that he could pay the exact amount. I think we still owe my Uncle 50p, and he died about 20 years ago!

I got married in 1982 and my dear husband died one week short of our 40th Anniversary.
I remember our wedding day with fondness but it didn’t all go to plan. It was a very hot August day.
I am not sure why but my father did all the organisation, the reception venue, the food, drinks, cars, cake and flowers.
My best friend who was to be bridesmaid told me 6 months before that she couldn’t be bridesmaid as on the wedding day she would be almost 9 months pregnant. So another good friend agreed to be bridesmaid but on the day of the wedding her father died. Bless her she went through with the day and insisted she wouldn’t let me down.
My husband was a catholic so we married in a Catholic Church, a few months before the wedding the priest was sacked for being an IRA sympathiser. Then we had a very young priest who couldn’t cope with the anti Irish/IRA backlash and was moved somewhere else. A week before the wedding we had no one to marry us but a Monsignor from a nearby city came to marry us.
We had a coach to take everyone from the church to the reception but it didn’t turn up so everybody had to try and get home to get cars and give people lifts.
The men in my husbands family left the church and went to a local pub so are not in any photographs.
People didn’t usually have evening parties so we left the reception about 6pm to go to our house, we sat on the floor as we didn’t have any chairs and had champagne and cheese and crackers and danced to records on our new HiFi system.
Unbeknown to us all the guests went back to my parents house and everyone said what a great evening it was.
But that all being said we had a very happy marriage and I wouldn’t have changed the day and how we felt for each other.
Good memories

The only mishap on the day was on the way to the registry office, Dad and I passed DH and his family, going in the oppposite direction in the oncoming lane of a dual carriageway, as his BinL was lost and wouldn’t listen to instructions!
However, prior to that we’d been let down by a local hotel in Durham City, where we were supposed to be the first wedding reception there after a major refurbishment. They didn’t inform us, so I only found out when I booked to see the manager about the menu - he was very dismissive and unhelpful. In hindsight, had I been more assertive/aggressive, I’d have kicked up a stink! We rescued the day by booking at a much smaller, less expensive hotel.
The wedding cars also fell flat, due to a ‘mix-up in the book’.
Luckily, I found cars (black Rolls Royces) from a funeral director in Hartlepool! Unfortunately, my Mum ended up leaving her hat in hers and never saw it again!
That was 1972 and DH died in 2021, so we didn’t quite make it to 50years.

We were struggling to buy a flat at the time house prices were rocketing week by week, so as we would not have been allowed to 'Live in sin' the wedding was a huge rush. I made my dress for £5 and the two bridesmaids for £11. We went to a florist and chose flowers, then when the cost was revealed we just said 'what is the cheapest you can do?'. We ended up with bits of carnations wired together. The only extravagance was a car, my father insisted 'I am not taking my daughter to the church in a taxi' and paid for a silver Rolls Royce!

Oh I loved reading these stories about wedding days. Some of you had very eventful days.
On my wedding day it rained all day, none stop. It ruined the pictures because my beautiful floppy hat became very damp and just flopped down over my face, so I took it off. The photographer, obviously wanting to get away quickly, shut the church doors and locked everyone in the church while he took the wedding party photos. It finally stopped raining when we arrive at the reception venue, so the only picture with the sun shining was at the reception venue. The photographer then made us go and cut the cake before anyone even sat down to eat, so he could get away quickly. Needless to say, when I saw the photos I was disappointed, they were so poor.
We went camping for our honeymoon. We couldn’t afford anything else. We went to Devon and Cornwall and needless to say, it rained, and rained, and rained. We decided to move across country to Kent because we heard on our transistor radio (remember those) that the cricket was playing over there and we deduced that it must be fine in Kent. We packed everything up and drove in our very old A40 across the country and set up camp in Kent. I have no idea where, but it must have been somewhere near Canterbury because we bumped into my parents there! They were on holiday in Kent too.
We’re still together though and about to celebrate our Golden Wedding in August.

Married in the heatwave of July ‘76. I made and iced my own cake and due to the heat it started to tilt due to the icing beginning to melt.
We were flying to Minorca the following day and we did not have an evening reception. We booked a hotel overnight intending to have a quiet evening meal there but never thought to book it.
We ended up at a Chinese restaurant in the middle of Hemel Hempstead along with a large office party .

Crikey Seadragon a very eventful day.
Rounded off with cup of cocoa!! Are you sure?

We married in Aberdeen on a windy day in August 1971. My veil blowing one way and dress in the other in all the photos. My dad and husband looked great thoughout, though. I'd arrived at the hairdresser at 9.30 but she kept asking me to 'let others go ahead' so my long hair wasn't cut and styled till 11.30 with wedding at 2pm with a half hour bus journey home and then out again to factor in. I had told the hairdresser that I had a Juliet cap for my headdress but she had back combed my hair and it kept popping off my head so you can clearly see the large brown kirbies my mum found to secure it. Both she and one of my chief bridesmaid had been 'calming their nerves'. as they waited for me and my bridesmaid looks tipsy in all the pics. Her hat is also on squint....Before we left for the church, my dad said it would be OK if I didn't want to go through with the marriage and my father in law hissed at me to 'SMILE' as I solemnly walked down the aisle towards my fate. My grandma kept following me around the dance floor at the reception ensuring I lifted the hem of my floor length dress as she wanted me to sell it 'as new' afterwards as it was her gift to me- I bought a fabulous cream leather fur trimmed ballerina length coat with the cash later... I insisted we stopped at a local cafe on the way back to our flat to get milk for our cocoa!! The taxi driver laughed his head off... Our land lord had put a pine tree branch in our bed.... The bed collapsed in the caravan in Ullapool where we honeymooned - clearly a set up by the land lord when we went to report the damage...... He came round on the 4th day with 2 enormous turkey legs as I had borrowed the cheese greater a second time to make Mac and cheese and he felt sorry for my new DH... miraculously our marriage is still going strong....

Ours was chaotic! My parents came down to London by train on the day and thanks to my dad wanting to have “a wander round” they nearly didn’t make it to the ceremony! The best man came down with flu, so DH’s brother in law stepped in instead. We got to the register office and there was the old joke “I hope you’ve got the ring!” No, he hadn’t got the ring. He thought DH had the ring. My new mother in law was the only one whose ring could be parted from her finger so I got married with her ring! Then to cap it all off halfway through the afternoon, I ended up with the same inconvenience as Luckygirl. I was devastated. We had decided to get married in a tearing hurry but at least all the guests knew it wasn’t a shotgun wedding! For all we got off to a shaky start, we had a long and happy marriage!

I married into an Italian family and my husband's uncle drove my dad and I to the church in his big white car. He drove like a lunatic, blaring on the horn which apparently is a tradition in Italy. We were flung from one side to the other. We were not amused! Still never forgot it.

I was being picked up by my future in-laws to be taken to the registry office, but they were late, so I was 20 minutes late for my wedding. After the "ceremony", the registrar leaned over his desk to shake hands with us, and said, "Congratulations, that will be 7/6 please"! Very romantic, NOT.