For some reason one of my old posts isn't showing up in my archives at all. It was the post about Harriet and Will's wedding and since that was the wedding of the century I've decided to repost it. I don't understand why it isn't showing up, it appears when I search for posts from June 29th that I wrote, but isn't on the corresponding archive page. Weird, anyway, I'll just put it here again so that it isn't lost:

Well, I just wrote a long description of Harriet and Will's wedding that Helen and I went to yesterday. I was just publishing it when explorer crashed, d'oh. So now I have to do it all again, but I don't know if I can be bothered. It's boring to write it again. I'd even found links to all the songs that we sang in the ceremony. I suppose it shouldn't take as long this time. Hmm. I don' t know, you could just read Helen's blog she said all about it. I'll say some bits though.

Right, the ceremony was at The All Nations Centre on Frog Island, not exactly the most Picturesque of locations for a wedding, being on the A50, but nevermind. It was a very lively service, with a loud band playing some excellent worship songs, all fairly new ones. One of my favourites because of the fantastic lyrics: Blessed be Your name (Matt Redman) another very lively song with great lyrics, by Paul Oakley: Unashamed a Hillsongs United one (they're always good) Free And Holy, a Vineyard song.

The instructions given for when the bridal party left were:

"Please stand for the bridal party and cheer loudly, as though England has just won the Ashes or the World cup or the gold medal for curling at the Winter Olympics or all three at once." Which is great.

The reception was at a farm belonging to some friends of Will and Harriet, in the afternoon we all congregated in the garden where there were tables and chairs and snack food being passed round on trays, large bowls of strawberries were good :-)

At about 5 the speeches began, they were excellent, Will was so funny. I had to get up to go and accept a present during Will's speech, they had presents for about a million people, okay, maybe not quite that many, but anyway they were thanking me for running the wedding list and helping out with stuff, thankfully I turned my camcorder off when they made me go up instead of letting someone film me, I don't like being filmed, but it would have been even worse as on returning with my present I managed to slip, turn my foot over and break my shoe. I'm not entirely sure how it happened, the ground was uneven, but I wasn't wearing heels or anything (and no, I hadn't been drinking, I don't drink) I was just wearing flat sandal type things, but the side broke, I think it may have broken before I slipped it felt like that was why I slipped, but I could be wrong, fortunately I had spare shoes in the car. Oh, my present was very cool, a magnetic dry wipe board with "Captain Memo" on and a cool in a really appallingly tacky way light switch cover of Mr T!

I had been kind of nervous on Will's behalf of his best men's speech, (he had 2 best men) what with one of them writing for Graham Norton, but they weren't too bad. Mainly the speech consisted a lot of one of them telling embarrassing stories such as the time he did such and such with that woman, then the other one pointing out that that wasn't Will. They did do a fairly embarrassing "guide to sex" thing, having discussed the fact that Harriet and Will were Christians and so had waited for their wedding night, but it was quite funny really.

We moved to the barn for the evening meal and stuff. The food was really good and they even had an ice-cream van with free ice-creams, how amazing is that? It was great, unlike any other wedding that I've been to. There was a bouncy castle, which was cool, but a combination of me having eaten too much and wearing a dress meant that I didn't go on it. Yes, I did wear the dress as promised, I even got a mention in the order of service in the list of Thank You's at the back: "Ali Yates for being Ali Yates and the computer genius contained within, and for wearing a dress" I dispute the middle comment particularly after last week's "incident" but the first and last points are correct.

The band that played was great, I really loved the music and for once actually wished that I could dance, it was the kind of music that I would like to be able to dance to. That never normally happens, I'm usually firmly rooted at the edge not having any desire to dance.

Sadly my camera battery ran out during Harriet and Will's dance, I would have liked to get all of that filmed. I managed to find a plug socket though, so I charged my battery up a little more, which meant that I was able to film them leaving in style and what style it was. It was a great idea to have them leave in the scoop of a digger, it looked so cool, particularly when it was raised up so they were up above everyone, though they looked a little like they might fall off when it jerked a bit.

Basically I think the wedding was very stylish, it really kind of went with their personalities and was very moemorable. I'm certainly glad I was there, mind you I'd have been glad to see them married anywhere, they're both great people and I'm really pleased they've tied the knot, it's not everyone I wear a dress for. You know, I even felt nervous for them when I got up yesterday, how odd, and the whole time we were sat in the church I had butterflies as if I was doing something, how weird. Do other people get nervous for friends or is it just me?