Blog: Lisa And Sam's Wedding

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Saturday found me heading up to NOTTINGHAM, for Lisa And Sam's Wedding Reception. I booked my train tickets well in advance, so got to go up FIRST CLASS. After spending YEARS thinking "Why would anybody pay more money for first class? All you get is a bit more space?" I now realise a) if going on your own getting a nice big Single Seat is GRATE as it means no LOONIEZ or huge crowds of lairy/shouting people are going to come and sit next to you and b) thanks to the DERANGED way tickets are sold it's often cheaper than a normal ticket anyway. This seems to be especially true since they "simplified" the ticketing structure. Now there are STILL about 20 different kinds and prices of ticket available for the each journey, but now they're all called THE SAME THING. GENIUS!

Anyway, I had a lovely journey up and toddled round the corner from the station to the HOTEL, which was also dead nice. I had a slightly WEIRD corner room which felt MASSIVE as bits of it were all over the place, struggling to fit into the space available. Anyway, I had a happy hour watching telly before getting my SUIT on and heading to the Taxi Rank, where I found a very nervous taxi driver who didn't really seem to know where he was AT ALL.

Thankfully he had lots of nice friends he could call for help, so eventually we made it to The Wellbeck Banqueting Suite, where I saw a man who looked EXACTLY like Sam, except with darker hair, LURKING outside. He seemed slightly surprised when I said "You must be Sam's Dad!" Maybe I should have said "Are you Sam's slightly younger brother?"

WITHIN the building I soon discovered that it VERY MUCH doubles up as a Masonic Lodge - the many many posters for MASONISM were a bit of a giveaway (highlighted by The Deirdres asking the more... mature members of the party "What's a Mason?"), as was the First Aiders Board, which said listed which room OR TEMPLE the duty first-aider was in.

ALSO within were LOADS of lovely people - it was like someone had SCOOPED UP half of Indietracks, given them a THOROUGH WASH and the pushed them all through a TV Makeover, everyone was SO SMART, also BRUSHED UP. There then followed an hour or two of wandering around and CHATTING, while The Deirdres set up in the main room. They were, as ever, BRILL, with loads of rather thrilling cover versions chucked in this time - they're splitting up/going into hibernation after this week, it is a RIGHT shame.

I was a bit worried about going on AFTER The Deirdres, especially as I'd rather foolishly given them my TOP WEDDING GIG TIP, which is THIS: if you feel it's going wrong at any point, simply say "Everybody - the Bride And Groom!" and EVERYBODY will have to CHEER. It never fails, and indeed it worked a TREAT when utitilised by Sophie Deirdre, even though it was going GRATE.

My NERVES were not helped by the fact that THE BUFFET opened as soon as The Deirdres had finished. I noted that NOBODY wanted to be first to ATAK it and, seeing as i needed people to get eating so that they could then come and see me, i HEROICALLY stormed the table and got FIRST CAKES. I am very BRAVE like that.

Duly fed I went and stood in front of the microphone, waiting for people to come in, and then did THIS:

It Must Be Love

Fly Me To The Moon

String Bean Jean

Sweet Child O'Mine

Back For Good

Billy Jones Is Dead

Hey Hey 16K

The Lesson Of The Smiths

Easily Impressed

Boom Shake The Room

It was LOVELY, especially when I hit the MASS SINGALONG sequence of String Bean Jean/Sweet Child O' Mine/Back For Good - how often are THOSE three played together, I wonder, and how often are they sung along with so LUSTILY? I'd actually learnt a whole SET'S worth of cover versions, but halfway through Sam requested Billy Jones Is Dead and, hey, it was his wedding, I couldn't refuse could I? Nor could I when he then asked for Hey Hey 16K, at which point I got a bit excited and did some MORE of my own.

It was all rather jolly, and I even got to invite The Bride And Groom up for The First Dance afterwards. The rest of the evening then fell into a DELIGHTFUL pattern of more BEER, more CHAT, and... er , some more BEER after that too. It was thus a slightly tiddly but HAPPY Hibbett who went for CHIPS (FAIRY CAKE was not sufficient to soak up the aforementioned BEER) and then to home.

Next morning I realised the DOWNSIDE of booking tickets in advance: things that seem a Good Idea in the afternoon, at work - like getting a train at 10 o'clock on a Sunday morning - seem distinctly LESS clever when you actually have to get up to go and catch it!

posted 6/10/2008 by MJ Hibbett

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