THE WEDDING

SATURDAY 5th NOVEMBER

  The sun shines on the righteous!  It is a beautiful sunny day - the day of the wedding.  Rob and I were up at about 7.00am, and the lad made tea and bacon sandwiches and we slowly got ready.  We set off before 8.00am and drove over to Bexley, not one of Sydney's more salubrious suburbs, and arrived there well before the appointed time of 9.30am.  It took a while to work out exactly which was the cathedral in a complex of buildings all within the boundaries of the Coptic Church area.  Robert then searched for a toilet but only found one that was locked.  We then came across Jerry and her boyfriend Pat and she too was in need of a toilet.  To cut a long story short they never found an accessible toilet.

  We decided to go and stake a claim in the church and grabbed some pews on the left hand side three from the front.  The church started filling up and assorted priests/bishops made their way down the aisle to the altar, followed by the groom and his grroomsmen, who arrived soon after 10.00am.  The elevated altar area was packed with some seven priests including the Coptic Arch-Bishop of Brazil who had flown over for the occasion, a Roman Catholic priest from Fiji that Charlene and Sam knew, and innumerable deacons (one of whom was a former landlord of Robert and Jeannette - of which more later).  Finally the bride arrived.

                                Juan coming down the aisle with Charlene.

  The two hour long wedding ceremony kicked off with a lot of chanting, accompanied by a deacon on triangle and another on cymbals, creating a goodly rhythm.  The intruiging thing was that neither partner took marriage vows, but the conditions of their marriage were imposed by the Church.  The couple sat up on the altar area with the groomsmen and bridesmaids behind them.

As the ceremony proceeded so crowns were placed on the heads of the young couple.

It seems that the couple are married in turn by each of the seven members of the clergy in turn, albeit the actual moment of marriage is when the priest places the rings on their fingers.  No person is then allowed to take them off their fingers.  The presence of the Brazilian Coptic Arch-Bishop is explained by the fact that his participation in the ceremony in his native language will make the ceremony more understandable to the Chilean members present.  The only problem is that they speak Spanish in Chile and Portugese in Brazil!

A number of the guests left the church at the end of the two hour wedding ceremony and did not stay on for the additional hour long copitic mass.  Robert and I were among those who left in search of liquid sustenance which we duly found in a local pub.  I had shed my yellow tie by then and Robert never had one to start off with!

After a couple of refreshing rounds of beer we returned to the Cathedral just as the mass was coming to an end.  Sam then announced that brunch was being served in the hall, so that's where we headed.

We eventually wound up with Juan and Dita and their neice Dita, an IT Manager who had spent most of her life in Germany, but was currently working in Melbourne, prior to moving to Hong Kong in a few months time to join her English boyfriend.  The idea was to drive down the road to Brighton and have a drink or two before making our way to the evening reception.  In the event we got lost and landed up in Cronulla where we found a bar overlooking the beach. 

Dita, Dita, Rob & Juan

We had considerable difficulty in finding our way back to Bexley and Robert's car, but eventually managed to find it. The journey to the reception took about an hour and a half so we failed to arrive until after 7.00pm. However although the hall was full, the official business had not yet started. Robert was horrified to learn that alcoholic drink was not available to the hoypoloy, and was only served to the guests on the main table (bride & groom, bridesmaids, groomsmen and parents). There was wine on the tables, but this was not good enough for the lad who adjourned to the pub next door with Jeannette's nephew Denis for a beer and returned with hip flask size bottle of bourbon.  (Pat was also inked in for the party but failed to get a pass out from girlfriend Jerry).  Fortunately jugs of coke was provided at regular intervals by the waiters. I was engaged to hold the glass of coke under the table whilst Robert furtively withdrew the bottle of bourbon from his inner pocket and topped up the glass. Nobody drank the white wine at our table so the bottle of Chardonnay all came my way. Robert borrowed my camera at regular intervals taking photos of all and sundry.  However I managed to snap one of the deacon's at the service who was also at the reception.  This man was also formerly Robert and Jeannette's landlord.  In true Christian spirit he had them evicted just before Christmas 2010.  Just goes to show there are scumbags in all walks of life!

Robert kept his cool, and apart from giving him a look of contempt, conducted himself with commendable restraint.

Charlene & Sam

                                Juan & Kathy

                                Robert & Jeannette

                                Jeannette, Kathy & Charlene

                                Emily, Beatrice & Jeannette

                                Dita & I

Beatrice, Jeannette, Kathy & Emily

                                Liz, unk & Anne

                                Charlene, Sam & Simon

                                Nick

Charlene & Robert

   Juan kicked off the speeches with some typically emotive words.  Sam's parents also spoke and Jeannette's speech was cut short on orders from Kathy who also had her say.  There were speeches from Sam's brothers and a hilarious film made by the video company of how Sam met Charlene which involved a kidnap attempt on Charlene and ended with Sam rescuing her and delivering her safe back to Juan, played by an actor wearing a large sombrero!

  Sam made an excellent speech and in one breath thanked the Brazilian arch-bishop for coming over from South America and me for coming over from England for the wedding.  Numerous other thanks followed culminating with the all important one of thanking Charlene for becoming Mrs Mikhail.