My cousin's wedding

A Recount of Randomness

Last weekend my parents and I flew up to Brisbane for my cousin's wedding. (This is sounding like a highschool English homework assignment.) This cousin being my dad's oldest brother's daughter, my only cousin on my dad's side, who I hadn't seen in eleven years. (Shocking, I know.) Was originally quite disgruntled that it was going to be on the weekend before exams started, but it's a family happy happy joy joy occasion, and my dad's family rarely all get together, so what can you do.

The ceremony was held late in the afternoon at Customs House, outside, overlooking the river. Just as well it wasn't raining. It was the first ever "non-Christian" wedding ceremony I've ever been to. It was quite short, and informal, almost to the point of being disorganised, but maybe that was just this one. I say that because there were only enough chairs set out for about a quarter of the people there, and everyone else just stood around randomly. And people were still standing around talking, with their backs to the red carpet, when the string quartet started playing and first bridesmaid began walking down the aisle! I was like, what the?...but oh well.

Anyway, the view was very nice, especially later on when the sun had set and all the lights on the bridge over the river lit up. After the ceremony the professional photos were taken (yay, first time in "bride's family"!), and then had to stand around for about two hours before the reception, and my shoes were killing me (cos they took away all the chairs!). Oh but I got to watch a tea pouring ceremony for the first time! (Actually not very interesting, but at least now I've seen one.)

The reception was held inside at the same location after cocktails and stuff was over. Lovely red/pink theme to the wedding. I thought I was going to be seated with my parents and relatives since I didn't know anyone else there, but to my utter mortification (at least initially), I was to sit at a table, all by myself, with......people. Which meant that I would have to......talk. To complete strangers. Noooooooo! (OK, keep in mind at this stage I was kinda tired with hurting feet and stressed about my upcoming OSCE. Socialising with random people, who all looked at least five years older than me, was not on my list of top priorities at that time.)

Well, it didn't turn out to be that bad in the end. It was really awkward at first, but got to meet the people at my end of the table...a guy from Auckland called Campbell, who kept going outside at random intervals to have a smoke; someone called Mark I thought didn't look like a Mark at all; Lorraine (also a Kiwi, a nurse from Christchurch, who at first I thought was late 20s - early 30s, later on I asked her how long she had been working as a nurse for, and she said, longer than the groom has been alive, and considering the groom is in his late 20s....crap she looks young for her age!!)...anyway, all these people met the bride and groom in the UK, where they all worked for a few years. Also met my cousin's godbrother, who's sister and mother are pharmacists (save me), and one of my cousin's highschool friends....This was all rather weird for me as I still haven't met the groom in person and don't know my cousin at all having not seen her since I was eight.

This post is getting rather long. Let's have an intermission. Get up and stretch, go to the bathroom, get something to drink...

***********INTERMISSION************


OK, now where was I? Oh yeah, sitting at the table having dinner at the reception, talking to random people. Speaking of the table...it was the one right next to the jazz band! =D =D =D Which made conversation rather difficult (almost yelling). But boy were they good. (Not that I would know if they were really good or not, since I haven't seen that many jazz bands and don't know anything about jazz.) But the best thing was every time Mark got out of his seat (not that I made him get out of his seat or anything, he just happened to be out of his seat all of the time), I got to see what the pianist was doing...who I might mention for someone's benefit, looked like what I think Jonathan Rhys Meyers (the dude from Bend it Like Beckham) looks like. (Or at least, what I think I remember him as looking like. Which may mean that he could not look like him at all. I mean, I might not even be close. But he was blonde. Is JRM even blonde?)

Anyway, for a few minutes I got the crazy idea into my head that after I'm done with pharmacy, I might do jazz piano. Cos it just looks fully sick.

The funny thing was at the end of the night when we were about to leave, my dad commented that the band was really noisy, and I was like, no, they sound great! And then I realised that everywhere else in the room besides at our table, you couldn't hear the piano at all over the brass/bass/drums. Which indeed, sounded noisy. Yay for sitting with a table of random people next to the band!

So that was my adventure in Brisbane. Oh and something else, we got a free fireworks show from the balcony, cos it was November 5th, Guy Fawkes night, and someone put on fireworks over the river! Wasn't my cousin lucky? Also, during the ceremony, at the very moment they were married, church bells from across the road rang out, it seemed like it was planned, but later they were like, no we didn't plan that at all, it was just a coincidence! Tres cool.

Have I bored you all with enough details? The only thing left I have to say is that the bassist was playing a bass with five strings. To which most of you will probably go "So....?", but I thought that was interesting.

Too bad for Pun, I'm not going to list out what was on the menu....instead, just for you dear Punny, I will tell you that my cousin works as a nurse.....and her name is...





...Christine.

*bwahahahaha....rotfl*