What Can You Spot at a Family Wedding?

IT’STHE HAPPIEST DAY of any couple’s life, as their friends and family gather together in the sight of God to witness them being joined together in holy matrimony. For the vast majority of us, it’s the only time we ever step into a church unless someone’s carked it, and as a result we dread being invited, for we know only too well what misery and torment lies ahead. Two hours of repeatedly standing up and sitting down, mouthing our way through hymns we’ve never heard before while trying to stop our arse cheeks going numb.

It’s a painful duty that we must all endure from time to time, but it needn’t be such a chore. For the seasonedobserver, thosetwohours can feel like a mere one hour fifty minutes, as the marriage service flies by in a whirl of interesting people, fascinating happenings, and remarkable situations. So let’s step inside a typical British parish church and ask…

What Can You Spot at a Family Wedding?

THE GROOM, eyeing up the bride’s sister’s arse, and realising that he may have gone for the wrong one.

SOMEONE who hasn’t said the Lord’s Prayer since he was at Primary School, mouthing the words like John Redwood singing the Welsh National Anthem.

THE BRIDE’S uncle with an earpiece connected to his phone, attempting to listen to the football.

THE WEDDING CAR - an open-topped, “vintage”-style fibreglass tourer built on the chassis of a Ford Granada, that looks like Cruella de Ville’s car as half-remembered by someone who can’t draw and has no sense of proportion.

THE GROOM, eyeing up the bride’s mother, and realising he may possibly have made an error of judgement.

THE BEST MAN doing a final readthrough of his speech, which is a mishmash of jokes and one-liners lifted from a Chubby Brown video.

THE VICAR, delivering a delightfully witty, yet wise and thought-provoking lesson, giving the congregation the impression that he’s given the task some thought, even though he’s just printed it off from Sermons.com.

AN OWL with the wedding ring tied round its neck on a ribbon, up in the church rafters where it has seen a bat.

A BLOKE from the local bird of prey sanctuary, attempting to lure the owl down from the rafters by swinging a dead rat round on a piece of string.

THE GROOM, eyeing up the bride’s grandmother, and deciding he has made the biggest mistake of his life.

THE BRIDE’S mother’s brother stood behind the vicar in order to video the ceremony on his ipad.

THE GROOM’S younger brother, still worse for wear from the stag night, being sick into his rented top hat.

THE VICAR bollocking the groom’s grandmother for throwing a handful of confetti at the happy couple, demanding an extra £150 on top of the £500 church-hire fee to pay for the verger to sweep the steps.

THE BRIDE’S mother’s sister staring like a hawk at the bride’s stomach, trying to work out whether she’s pregnant or not.

THE USHERS looking uncomfortable in their rented morning suits, gold flock wallpaper waistcoats, cravats and top hats that might have momentarily looked fashionable at a premiership footballer’s wedding in OK! magazine twenty years ago.

THE PHOTOGRAPHER, with his top button undone to show that - whilst his job is mainly to get a reasonably well-exposed picture of more or less everyone smiling with their eyes open - he’s actually a bit of a Bohemian artist.

THE GROOM with his top hat brim carefully angled to disguise the fact that his mates shaved off one of his eyebrows while he was passed out in a strip club last night.

THE BRIDE’S father ruefully calculating what model of Porsche he could have bought brand new for the what this wedding is costing him.

THE BRIDE’S mother looking daggers at the groom’s mother because she’s turned up in a bigger hat.

THE BRIDESMAIDS, chosen not because they are the bride’s best friends, but because she deems them fatter and less attractive than herself so as not to outshine her on her big day.

A DISTANT COUSIN checking the order of service for the fiftieth time, trying to work out how many more bits there are to go before they can go to the reception and start getting hammered ONE OF THE GUESTS showing his mates pictures of the groom with his face pushed into a lapdancer’s tits on his stag night.

ONE OF THE BRIDESMAIDS showing her mates pictures of the bride pulling off a male stripper on her hen-do.

THE GROOM’S younger brother being sick into his rented top hat again.

THE BRIDE, breathing a sigh of relief that she has performed oral sex for the very last time. Next Week: What Can You Spot at the Fucking Reception?