I suppose as parents to seven children it was inevitable that eventually, one of them might get married. Finally, almost 32 years after I first became a mum I earned the title, “Mother of the Groom.”
Not that Mother of the Groom is really a thing, but with the cost of weddings and the diminishing importance of a wedding it seems to many couples I decided I’d embrace it in case this was my only chance to be part of the immediate wedding party.
My eldest delighted me still further by announcing that he and his fiancé (now wife) would like to get married in our village church where my husband, all my children (and my grandson) were baptized.
My children grew up, like I did as “church kids.” My parents were actually not church goers had me christened and allowed me to attend church with my cousins and join the church choir.
Like me, my children are very comfortable in a church environment and have played, worshipped, volunteered (and been volunteered) throughout their lives and I have vivid memories of them from baptism through toddler worship, messy church and first communion/confirmation.
This made it quite surreal to see my son in our church, waiting for his bride, all grown up.
Actually the whole day was a little surreal. One silly thing -regular church goers may understand when I say I felt slightly odd sitting on the “grooms side” – traditionally the right hand side of church. No matter which church I am in I tend to sit on the left hand side, maybe harking back to my childhood when I was in the choir pews on the left hand side of the church I attended in the Black Country.
I was pleased that the bride's family were happy to join in enthusiastically with the classic hymns they had chosen. We sang Amazing Grace, Love Divine and Lord of all Hopefulness.
Both her mum and I were invited to read. The bride's mum read “Blessing for Marriage” by James Billet Freeman and for me they chose a slightly unusual but very appropriate reading, Tobit 8:5-8.
After the wedding we stayed in and around church for drinks and canapes. I love that we didn’t race off to the reception as it gave us and our visitors chance to enjoy our beautiful church and grounds. I also love that it was a good opportunity to show non church goers that church is not a place where everyone including children must always be quiet and formal.
We actually started one of the wedding games at the drinks reception in church . Everyone had a wooden peg attached to their glass which they had to peg onto someone while others tried to attach pegs to them. The aim of the game was to end up with no pegs – the person with most pegs at the end of the evening was the loser. A friend wearing traditional Scottish attire found his outfit was all too easy to attach pegs to.
The main reception was at the picturesque local country pub with a hog roast, wedding cake made by the bride and a cake made of piles of cheese for my cheese loving son!
There was lots of dancing and quite a lot of celebratory toasts which led to more dancing and some dubious selfies.
All that’s left now after all the clearing up is sore feet, a slightly sore head and the question, “Which one will be next to wed?”