A Wedding

I found out a few months ago that one of my old co-workers had just gotten engaged, and I was lucky enough to be invited to watch the celebration yesterday!

First things first, I had to get my hat sorted. It's tradition here that a woman keeps her head and her shoulders covered at a wedding, but I'm not quite sure how much that's observed these days. In any case, I thought a fascinator would be a good way to go, and my British girl friends recommended either going to Accessorize, John Lewis or Debenhams to see the selection. They're always surprised when I tell them that no one wears hats to weddings in the US, and I'm always surprised when they tell me that they hardly ever wear hats to weddings.

Anyway, I hopped over to John Lewis on Friday after work and ended up with two fascinators nicely tucked away in hatboxes. The morning of the wedding, I back-combed the spot where the clip would fasten and sprayed a little hairspray (or lacquer as they call it) and stuck the fascinator in and hoped it would stay put for the rest of the day.

 It was an incredibly muggy day, and the thought of going on the tube while all dressed up was not appealing at all so J and I hailed a cab to Islington Town Hall to watch Yuliya and Alex get married. The town halls here in London are much more beautiful than the city halls back in the US, and I could see why so many weddings are booked there.

In any case, the ceremony was short and sweet, and we stood outside to throw rose petals and confetti at the newlyweds as they exited the building.

I also got the chance to catch up with my old co-workers and get the latest news on what was going on with the case I was working on while I was there.

After the obligatory photographs, we all piled into the cabs that were waiting to take us to the reception at The Chapel Bar, which turned out to be just down the street. The reception was a low-key affair, and we all imbibed in lots of champagne and Prosecco before digging into a delicious buffet. We couldn't stay long since J was anticipating some work emails, but we got a chance to chat with the bride and groom before we left.

All in all, it was a very sweet and low-key affair - a wonderful wedding and a great rehearsal wedding for the newlyweds who have another wedding in two weeks time in the Ukraine.