Wedding Goodness!

The Invitation

On Saturday afternoon at about 3pm I arrived at my cousin's wedding at a BIG fuckoff house in the suburb of Centennial Park. Not surprisingly it was within spitting distance of Centennial Park. I was greeted at the gate by some of her (now)inlaws and was ushered down to the backyard where I was handed a glass of champagne (none of this sparkling wine crap). I downed that pretty quickly and helped myself to another one as I did the whole "hi how's it going" thing with my family.

My brother travelled down from Queensland for the wedding and he and I seemed to be the only ones not wearing a tie. He didn't seem to care as he was already drunk. after another glass of champagne we were invited down onto the tennis court where the ceremony was to take place. All the guests took their seats and the celebrant crapped on for a while before announcing the bride and groom would state their vows (which they had written themselves). Not a moment later there was a grumble in the sky as the clouds that had been blowing over for the last hour decided to say, "hi".

My cuz in her hot Akira dress (which was reversible - totally hot)

The 2 vows which really stuck in my mind were "May I have integrity in my words" and, "May I have love in my heart". It even brought a tear to my eye. As the couple kissed a few light spots of rain dropped on the 100 or so guests. It was quite beautiful... almost a blessing.

We all made our way into the marquee and the heavens opened up like they had been dying to do it all afternoon. Another glass of champagne and I was feeling quite pissed. The food started to come out. Seafood platters for entree, and every other kind of lebanese cuisine followed. I couldn't stop eating. the food was magnificant.. and there was so much of it.

The centrepiece was huge, the pic doesn't really do it justice

The cake was a tower of baklava. I'm not normally a fan of baklava but this was so fucking good, not that syruppy, sacharine-sweet crap you get at petrol stations.

The speeches were short and sweet and even though the groom mentioned his dead brother, to whom he made a toast, it was all very love filled, genuine, and personal... Unlike my brother-in-law who mentioned his dead father at his 40th and stunned a room of 50 silent people when he proceeded to say "he won't be here tonight" (I don't know why I didn't elaborate on the terrible speeches in my original post - this shit is GOLD) I didn't know if I was supposed to laugh or not when he said that. I'm glad I didn't (even though it would seem pretty obvious that a dead person wouldn't be attending a party).

Where was I? Yeah, so the bride and groom had their first dance and then 12 x 1L bottles of Johnny Walker Black Label hit the tables. My parents fucked off and my bro from QLD got stuck into the good shit. As I waited to use the bathroom in the house I noticed an artwork on the wall that would make a good wallpaper on my phone. I turned around and discovered an original John Brack on the wall. Venturing further into the house I also found an Arthur Boyd, 2 x Jeffrey Smarts and a Brett Whiteley.

It looks like my cousin married up. This people were way out of my league. After being politely asked to leave (along with everyone else - we weren't being trouble or anything), my brother and I decided we needed more beer.

Me and my cuz

We walked to the Bat and Ball... which was closed (it must have been 1am or so). We jumped in a cab and headed to Newtown. They wouldn't let us in to Zanzibar or the Townhall, but we got into the Imperial for a few more bevvies.

I don't know exactly what time I got to bed but I felt pretty fucking crook the next day. A $10 roast lunch at the Erko made me feel a bit better... I highly recommend them.