Saturday, March 22, 2008

Putting the witz in switzerland

Off to Switzerland for a friend’s wedding. An all expenses paid, beautiful wedding set in the mountains with nothing but snow snow snow. Suddenly the woes of actually getting there (from that train ride to the flight getting cancelled) seem a distant memory.

For the wedding itself, we had to take three cable cars to 9000ft, to a revolving restaurant at the highest point in the Swiss Alps.

The view was breathtaking. Everything was breathtaking at that height. Going upstairs was breathtaking. I felt as unfit as a big fat smoker.

The wedding was understated – there was no first dance, no cake cutting, no bouquet throwing. Just good honest, simple love. The bride looked beautiful in her not-white dress. And why should she wear white? So much importance is put on those wanky traditions and this wedding proved you don’t need any of them to show your friends and family you love each other and want to spend the rest of your lives together.

On the morning of her wedding, instead of spending it in hair and make up, the bride joined us for a toboggan race through the mountains and spent it with her arse in the snow.

I got a lot of ideas for my own wedding – should it ever happen. Which, I found out, my parents don’t think it will. I always thought doting dads have a secret fund ready for the day their daughter comes home and says ‘daddy! I’m engaged!’ but it transpired my parents haven’t put away anything like the amount of pennies needed for this kind of spectacle.

Sadly not only did my Mum insist that if the day ever comes, ‘your father’s paying the lot, I’m having nothing to do with it,’ but also that there was no such fund.

But, I protested, you have four children - three daughters – surely by the law of averages you expected one of us to get married? (I even hoped as I was the most likely to want some kind of celebration one day, I’d get a budget X 4)

Fireworks to the theme of James Bond? I’ll be lucky if the give me a sparkler.

But it was a beautiful experience and I felt blessed to be a part of it.

On the first evening, I accidentally said both the F word and the C word in front of the father of the bride – the man paying for me to be there. I recoiled in horror. He went to bed. I spent all weekend trying to chum up to him and make things right but he was too quiet for the charms of my articulation to work and I’m pretty sure he left wondering where his daughter finds her friends.

After all, ladies don’t swear.

Consequently I have decided to give up swearing. The C word has been replaced in my vocabulary by ‘heavens’.

So far, so good, although I haven’t had to face the Great British Public Transport System again yet.

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