...and finally

So who was next (see previous blog)? It was friends, Lisa and John in London. The last wedding for 2012. Five weddings in total and a few thousand pounds and that's not just monetary.

At a pretty stunning hotel location in Surrey, we stayed over in the top floor of the clock tower with pretty views of the treetops and golf course. A nice big room where you could play with all your toy cars and not run out of roads.

The wedding was a rather long church one so felt sorry for those suffering with hangovers from the night before. I managed to escape those late drinks so felt fairly fresh along with a nice smooth shave and special wedding moisturiser  The other half was bridesmaid so I was looking forward to seeing her turn up and dazzle me. She did that in style with a cheeky smile as she walked down the aisle. The bride wasn't bad either.

The party atmosphere remained all day so you know the score: you drink, you listen, you eat, you drink, you laugh, you fart, you drink, you burp, you drink, you squint, you stumble, you slur, you collapse, you sleep, you breakfast.

The wedding day was fantastic and it was topped off with one of the most extravagant gesture I've seen. A fireworks display in the hotel grounds, complete with marshals and professional cordoning off. The show lasted quite some time but was amazing to watch. I'm just hoping Andrea doesn't think that is now the norm. Might be able to get away with a sparkler though...

One more to go...

The second last wedding of the year came along at Langley Castle and it was a breathtaking venue blessed with blue skies, sunshine and beautiful ladies.

An intimate wedding inside the castle based around the huge window. The fella on the left doing an impression of a Scottish teapot is the groom. He didn't reveal his spout.

I usually have jobs to do at weddings especially when being the best man. This time wasn't fifth time lucky although my job was to bake the cake and the other half decorated it. It was a fairly easy and successful process. It makes you wonder why those cake makers add 400% if you include the word wedding in your order. Suppose that goes for anything to do with weddings.

Those beautiful ladies I mentioned were the daughters of the bride, and of course the most beautiful on the right. They did a superb and funny poem which went down a storm. As did the 4 year-old bridesmaid who decided after hearing all the speeches that she would also do one. It was hilarious, cute and a great start for her future public speaking moments.

After a superb wedding breakfast on a long banqueting table complete with peacocks walking around outside, it was time to breath in to let the waistcoat a bit of room.

Entertainment, drinks, a fish and chip van and weird dancing all went on at Hexham Cricket Club later. It was followed by headaches, bacon sandwiches, champagne, cake and questions about who is next...

JR Hartley has a lot to answer to

I've not been much of a fisherman in my lifetime, so I was a bit concerned when I learnt the latest stag do involved fly fishing. It's a bit of a change from the debauchery of recent celebrations and it gave me a change to swing my arm, erect my rod, put me wellies on and catch an old trout. Actually that really does sound like one of those stag do's after all.

With the more senior members, we went along to Brampton Trout Farm and were met by the loud enthusiastic owner. He informed us he'd put a lot more trout in the water and if we caught the tagged huge one, we win a prize in the kitty for £200. A little lesson in the technique and away I went. I could see the trout swimming, right next to my fly which was in the water. But guess what, not one single bite....for 4 hours. We did have one successful catch and it caught a lot of people's attention. We all gathered round the stag as we were informed it was a large trout on the end of his rod. No it wasn't. It was a large branch.

Thank god we later got to celebrate the branch catch in the pub. An interesting and very enjoyable day. Perhaps I'm at that age now...

Punishment 4u

There's been some sort of strange theme in the last few family weddings. A gypsy theme. Don't get me wrong, we are not part of the 'travelling community' and don't allow krumping, fights and grabbing as you may expect at a Gypsy wedding. It's more to do with co-incidental venues and transport. Our latest wedding (my cousin Karen, marrying Paul) was at the Wood Green Animal Sanctuary in Cambridgeshire where a famous gypsy wedding took place and was on TV. The stag 'do' for the other family wedding involved the same limo used in another televised Gypsy wedding (that's another story). I'm hoping this is co-incidence and that the family are not trying to tell us something. I know I've always said that caravans are a thing for when you are in your 40's but I'm just not ready for it yet.

The signs of marriage are always there; gentle reminders; friends getting married; family members getting married...The best reminder was in the hotel we stayed in during the celebrations. The listed building was on the grounds of an old prison. Our room was called Punishment. What else can I say?

The day was blessed with hot sunshine and drinks on the lawns were made more entertaining by the sight of a horse showing off it's manhood and some ferrets looking bored in cages. The entertainment continued after discussing how many people we could get into a school bus ride and how many sambuca's myself and my cousins could get through. This is the result of male conversation fuelled by Pimms and beers.



All in all, it was a great day and not a gypsy in sight. This was wedding number 3 of 5 this year so the suit needs another dry clean; the girlfriend needs another new dress; the bank account needs another few pounds and the belly needs another owner 

Going out on a limo

It was my cousin's stag 'do' the other week. Now we all know they can be eventful, but this one was particularly lively. The agenda was simple; a race day and a night out. It's been done before without too much drama and humiliation.


The morning involved bacon sandwiches, champagne and some other weird drink while travelling to the Lingfield races in Surrey in a limo recently seen in Big Fat Gypsy Wedding. Now you might think that is impressive but not when we stopped at the services on the way down and were inspected by the Vehicle police. After an hour or so of checking the vehicle it was decided that they would allow us to travel but the limo would be impounded once we got into London later that night as the company did not have an operators licence for that vehicle. The sun was shining and we had beer so it was part of the day out. Oh how we all laughed, especially when my Uncle split his ring. Now I didn't know how else to put that, but he did legitimately split his wedding ring somehow so that it started to pinch his skin and blow his finger up. The strange noises attracted a lot of attention as did the 12 men wearing suits standing outside a limo with a bottle of beer laughing at the man shouting "Meee ring...I've split meee ring".


We did manage to get to the races just in time only to be greeted by Judy Dench (nicknamed The Dench for the rest of the day). She smiled and waved at us, she had no choice really. My cousin, the stag, looked great in his Paul Shane style jacket and 80's wig. Infact there were some people at the races who dressed like that anyway so he wasn't out of place. After winning nothing, being the centre of attraction for the day, swallowing several pints and hog roasts it was time to leave and travel into London in our questionable limo. This was to become an interesting journey...


So, we were on the way to London, beer in the limo, a foreign driver who had no idea his boss didn't have an operators licence and someone needed a wee. The traffic was building as we approached London, the wee sack was building too. It was someones idea to jump out the back of the limo and empty themselves into some nearby bushes on the roadside while onlookers tried to establish if the men in suits were stars or The Unusual Suspects. It must've looked funny to see the suits running desperately behind the limo to the chants of "Run Forest Run" to catch up to it as the traffic started to move.

The earlier events of the day meant that the limo was being watched as we got closer into London and were escorted to Tiger Tiger by police motorbikes. Now this wasn't a problem for us as we were then treated like real stars. Forget The Dench, we were famous. We were papped, and I don't mean we needed the toilet again. The London public got excited. There was talk of One Direction being in the limo. But there was massive confusion when we all got out the limo wearing James Corden masks. After laughing along with the policeman we went into Tiger Tiger, ate our VIP food, drank various cocktails and invented James Corden dance moves.


The limo drama continued when it turned up an hour late at 3am in the morning and then couldn't find its way to our destinations via the sat-nav. So the driver got frustrated, so much so he rather unprofessionally slammed the brakes on so we all tumbled forward in true crash drama style. We weren't happy by this attitude as most of us were asleep and my gymnastics meant that my feet ending up in someones face. The good thing, no-one was hurt and the stag had a fun packed story to remember for the future. The limo company is currently being chased for all of its failings...so maybe we'll hear of it again in the news or a Channel 4 documentary or the death of its gypsy passengers.

Where's my £100?

Many years ago when men wore long shorts and calling someone gay meant they were simply happy, 3 men made a bet. One of them was me. One of them was Mark and the other, a man with not just fire in his belly; Colin. Those two are pictured here on the left. Colin is demonstrating a small problem Mark has. The bet? It was one hundred pounds to the other 2 lucky two who didn't get married first. For some time we all held on, having our own opinions on who might be first. Nights out would always end with the same conversation relating to this bet.

The other month, one of us finally did it. Not me, or Mark, but congratulations to Colin and Jackie. No it's not a civil partnership, but a real grown-up marriage complete with talks of caravans, days out at castles and the tiny patter of....take-away delivery men. We all had such a good day from the ceremony to the reception at the New Exchange Brasserie. The hog roast went down very well, you just need to ask Mark to confirm that.


So, which one is next? No doubt one day it will be blogged right here...

She's 30, you really wouldn't think it but she's 30

We couldn't have asked for a better day for the Mrs' 30th Birthday the other week. I've just got round to blogging it now after preparing 3 types of home made burgers, curry pies, Cumberland pies, corned beef pies, la la la. The sun shone on the beach with views of the castle, pier and sea, which was great seen as it was a beach party with a man size BBQ, a bouncy castle, music, pimms and friends and family.




The star of the show knocked me out on how gorgeous she looked and managed to get loads of presents some of which we are still drinking. We got snapped together in some unusual poses as the party moved indoors.

It was difficult to get up at 7AM and go tidy Tynemouth Rowing Club where it all kicked off but it was so worth it. This was the day of Andrea's birthday so the sun shone again and we had a few more beers along the Newcastle Quayside just to top up the alcohol.

The glasses got hitched

Luckily after the stag weekend in Glasgow, the wedding was still going ahead and it was wedding fever weekend as the Royal Wedding was the day before. Andy & Helen decided to get hitched in Edinburgh where the sun shone brightly all day. As Best Man, my duties were simply to make sure Andy had clean underpants on, was sober enough to slur 'I do', his glasses were on straight and I held onto his ring. Speaking of holding rings, it was appropriate as the bride decided to give Andy a scare by being 45 mins late, a problem with the dress they say, but I think the modern way now is for the bride to go off to the pub or hot dog van before the ceremony. (In Australia, we caught a bride doing exactly that!)

The speeches all went down well at Norton House Hotel after spending time outside in the bright sunshine drinking Pimms and listening to the harpist. Andy had even asked me to do a quiz in keeping with the horse racing theme. Great idea. There was some serious contestants wanting to do anything to win.

We all had a great day and I reckon the bride and groom did. I can't believe I spotted how much the groom looked like Harry Potter in his younger days from the photos on the wall. Some great touches too, especially the post box with my nickname on it, the life-like cake decorations and the fireworks!

Of course those Harry Potter glasses came out again during the party night, they get you noticed. Here are me and the boys with the perfect geek-chick-freak look.

So congratulations to the married couple, A & H. May the marriage flourish. One bit of advice to Andy: When you make love, make sure you talk to eachother.....as long as there is a phone handy ;)