Over a year ago before the COVID-19 outbreak, my daughter announced she was marrying her partner with whom she had purchased a house with just over two years ago. The wedding was booked at a popular location in Staffordshire.
Fastforward to 2020 and with the wedding booked for 10th August the UK Government cracked down on all public gatherings including Weddings. The venue, abiding by the government guidelines, informed my daughter that the wedding was off but that she could either move it to 2021 with a, wait for it, "Surcharge of 18% to cover inflation" or take the value, less the deposit of course, in vouchers. Vouchers! It would take two years of meals and every other weekend staying the night to use up these so-called vouchers and what if they went bust? Thes vouchers wouldn't be worth the paper they were printed on. The family decide to grit their teeth and see how things developed.
Hooray! The wedding is back on. True we were only allowed a few guests and there was to be no reception but they could now get married at the venue, phew, kind of. Then a few weeks down the line: "You can have 30 guests at a wedding" Excellent! I wonder if 'Receptions will also be allowed soon? Sure enough, as the death rate decreased, wedding receptions were back on so it looked like we were going to get the wedding we hoped for although scaled back to meet the 30 attendees limit that was still in place. Little did we know that combined with the good weather and the government relaxing the rules about visiting seasides and holiday destinations things would start going downhill again, wedding receptions were now off again and even though the now-famous "Bubbles" were being promoted all the guests were supposed to wear a mask.
The registrar is booked, we're going ahead!
The plan was to get married. It didn't matter where or how they were determined to get married on that day. Now I had already a month or so prior said to my daughter: "The thing is, the registrar is booked by you, they are responsible to you, not the venue so in theory you could ask them to marry you anywhere, we find somewhere that will let us have a family meal and hey presto you have your wedding. Not the wedding you wanted but a wedding."What's in a name?
Throughout this whole COVID experience there has been so many inconsistencies such as "You can drive 100 miles for a walk so long as you walked for 150 miles", so in other words, you couldn't drive 10 miles down the road for a quick jaunt around the park but you could drive to the Peak District if you said: "It's OK officer, were going to walk from Ilam to Uppermill (It's a long way to walk folks). What am I waffling on about? So you cannot hold a Reception but you can have a family meal for as many as you like! So we booked the upstairs room of a second venue and had a family meal, not a reception because those are not allowed. 🤦
The father and the bride
Dad and The Twins!
Will that car get there?
The deed is done'
The happy couple
I know it's Social Distancing but that tables a bit far away?
My actual name is Pete
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