The Wedding Quickstep
I love weddings. I look forward to them. But lately, due to the increasing number of “I do’s”, I’ve dropped the ball somewhat in terms of organisation.
Recently, I had three weddings in one weekend: a Friday evening celebration, a Saturday evening one in the Winelands, and a Jewish wedding on the Sunday. I landed in Cape Town overexcited about what was in store for me and headed straight to the first wedding. Well aware that I had a big weekend ahead of me, I made a conscious decision to pace myself. I reminded myself of this at 04h00 the next morning when I fell into bed.
Waking up on Saturday morning clutching what I assume was the bride’s veil and what was once a bouquet but was now a pillow of petals, I hauled myself out of bed and beautified myself as best I could in anticipation for the upcoming Winelands wedding. Having incorrectly read the invite, I was pushed for time and had a small panic attack when I realised I had an hour to get to the church. That was going to be tricky, as I was two hours away. With the wedding invite and much needed map forgotten at home and me halfway down the highway, I had to rely on the road signs and my GPS, which was clearly still drunk from the night before because it was directing me to Zimbabwe.
Finally arriving at the little town of wine, I followed the stream of cars and headed to the reception practising my “I promise I was in the church with you – didn’t you see me?” speech. I got out of the car and followed the crowds of people heading towards the drinks table. Strangely, I didn’t recognise anyone. Must be the family, I thought. Then it started to dawn on me that either my friends had a hell of a lot of family that I hadn’t met, or yours truly had walked into the wrong wedding reception. In a town with one cafe, one-and-a-half churches and one horse, how many wedding receptions could there be? Two, apparently. And I went to both.
Intent on attending the third and final wedding without getting hammered, stealing veils or going to the wrong reception, I gave myself hours to get ready, got a lift to ensure correct venue attendance and gave myself a lecture on the art of pacing oneself. All went well. I didn’t try and make a speech, I didn’t wear the same dress as the bridesmaids and I was enjoying the Jewish wedding traditions so much that I was considering a change of faith. I was perhaps overdoing it slightly by shouting “mazel tov” 40 times, but I was enjoying myself immensely. However, when I picked up a plate and smashed it on the floor, I didn’t get quite the reaction I was hoping for. My table went quiet and stared at me as if I had just taken all my clothes off.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“It’s a Jewish tradition to smash plates at a wedding!”
“That’s a Greek wedding, you idiot.”
“Whoops.”
Story by Baglett
Who is Baglett?
She’s a 20-something girl who doesn’t like to take life too seriously. Read her blog at http://www.baglett.co.za/.
