Time Flies When You're Having Fun

It hardly seems possible, but tomorrow Amy and I will have been married for three weeks. All the evocative mental images of that day -- the tears, the sweat-soaked groom melting in late afternoon sun, Puba stealing the show and that speech -- are now but fading memories. [And, though we missed much, we did notice a few of you were enjoying yourselves - above.] Perhaps even hazier are our memories of the glorious week leading up to the wedding, during which pantegrulian quantities of beer and wine were quaffed by you wedding guests as you warmed up your drinking muscles and livers for the final onslaught on June 28th. So it is with great anticipation that we await the delivery of our wedding photographs which we hope will fill us in on some of what actually happened in that 6-8 hour period. Of course, that photographic story will be far from complete and because of that we'd love it if you could either send us or e-mail us a link to your best and worst pics of the week and the wedding.
We've uploaded our pictures of the wedding week to Snapfish so we invite you to check them out here
[Note: If you'd like to share you pictures with other wedding guests but don't have their e-mail address, please feel free to post links to your pics in the comments section of this post.]

We're sure most brides and grooms feel the discomfort of being so in focus with everyone snapping away, and while we did too -- particularly for the first dance, as we did our utmost to shuffle around without stacking-it on the uneven parquet while being blinded by the videographers' light -- we got used to it in the end, as the image to the right, i think, shows. [We thank Mrs. Louise Culshaw for capturing this beautiful, romantic nuptial scene.] Anyway, we encourage you to share your pictures with us and each other through whichever medium you prefer. We can't wait to see them!

Dancing Under the Stars

Vicky Pollard showing us all how it's done...

Many of us dream, we're sure, of whirling around a highly polished dance floor with aplomb, completely in step with a partner who is fleet of foot, erect of posture and minty of breath. Indeed, if you're like us, this may only ever be a dream, as the likelihood of straining knee or ankle ligaments, and/or head butting ones partner in the face, is far greater than the chance of successfully completing even the briefest of waltzes.

This should not dissuade you from shaking a leg come June 28th - quite the opposite in fact. For not only are all styles and ability levels welcome on the parquet, they are demanded. In submitting a request to have your fave tunes played at the reception, you, perhaps unwittingly, entered into an unwritten contract, committing yourself to abandoning any normal sense of decency and inhibition you might feel when bad music is playing. Maybe we should have made that clear when asking you for musical suggestions, but we didn't.

Some of you may be interested then, in working on your fancy footwork ahead of time and for those who do, we humbly submit this remarkable piece of footage for your consideration. We suggest you study this child's moves, they will come in handy should the music of a certain recently-divorced, serial-flasher, Louisiana-native, mother of two ring out during the reception...

You have been warned.

Getting Your Groove On, Literally

Coming to a wedding near you...
So, with the day fast approaching and most of the other details figured out, we're starting to address the conundrum that is the event's aural pleasure. What music will work in the peaceful surroundings of Lupinari? (Slayer?) What tunes will our guests enjoy listening to the string quartet play as they wait, expectantly, for Amy to walz down the isle? (Hall & Oates' Maneater, perhaps?) And which dancefloor classics are going to get you all on your feet, cutting a rug, after dinner? Regular readers will know that dancing at the reception is compulsory, and rest assured that all dancefloor antics -- the best and worst moves, and the most "in to it" facial expressions -- will be faithfully captured on video for our subsequent entertainment. You might not know, though, that the music for the reception will be played on an iPod instead of by a DJ.

With these things in mind, we thought the least we could do was to request that guests suggest their favorite songs - i.e. ones they'll dance to - so that when they're caught, eyes closed, lips-pursed a la Mick Jagger, and body contorted like spaghetti in a wind-tunnel on celuloid, they'll have the excuse that they really love the song. So, please send us your ideas on music for the post-dinner reception and we'll do our best to accommodate as many tastes as possible. Do bear in mind though, that the international nature of the wedding might mean that at any time, half the people in the room might be throwing themselves around with reckless abandon, hands in the air, to a "classic" that the other half of the room has never heard of. This, i'm sure you'll agree, is infinitely preferable to taking a risk with a local, Tuscan DJ playing all manner of crazy-sexy-Euro-disco-dance-party tunes from the early 90s, not to stereotype our Italian cousins as having poor taste, of course...

Anyway, get all ideas to us asap so we can collect all the songs together in time. You now have no excuses for not dancing!