As today is our eighth year wedding anniversary, I’m going to indulge in some nostalgic thoughts with my take on this meme that’s been circulating in bloggersphere....
1. Where/How did you meet? As students, through a mutual friend (who now entrusts us to be godparents of his youngest...little does he know we’ll be relaying stories of his wild youth when she’s ready to handle them). We met at dinner, B opened the conversation with an insult, I retaliated and we haven’t let up since as both of us are determined to have the last word. Suppose whoever outlives the other will finally take the crown....
3. How long after you met did you start dating? A couple of months.
4. Who asked whom out? It was a vague agreement. There were a lot of crossed wires at the time...
5. Where was your first date? Cavendish Square, Cape Town.... a movie, “Shawshank Redemption”, followed by KFC....he sure knew how to treat a lady!
6. What is your song? Bryan Adams, “Summer of ‘69”....can you believe Cheesy Disco Man played that at my office Xmas do? Suppose it is a rather cheesy song...
7. How long did you date before you were engaged? We were officially shacked up together after two years...engaged four years later.
8. Who proposed and how? It was a mutual agreement....he’d brought up the possibility a few times but I wasn’t ready until the end of my student days was in sight. I did make him go down on one knee and ask me properly in the end...
9. How old were you when you got married? We were both 27.
10. Where was your wedding? The Wild Rose Country Lodge, Noordhoek. We were married in the herb courtyard under a baking hot sun.
11. How many people were in your wedding party? Just two – best man and best woman.
12. Are you still friends with them all? Best man is the best friend anyone could ever have...he flew out to Cape Town from London for our wedding and then put up with us squatting in his flat for 6 whole months when we first moved to the UK. We don’t get to see him often enough...he has a lot of clocks to wind...oh, and a newborn son to look after.
Best woman remains a special, faraway friend.
13. How many people came to your wedding reception? We kept it small at 40, just close friends and immediate family.
14. What did you serve for your meal? We got married early in the morning, so it was breakfast...as in fruit, muffins, pastries, bacon, sausage and eggs, with champagne and orange juice followed by tea/coffee and cake.
15. What kind of cake did you serve? Carrot cake covered with butter icing and fresh cherries and strawberries. I baked the cake myself, but as there was no time to make it fresh the day before the wedding, I made it the month before and froze it. I did a trial run first though, just to be sure....baked the cake and froze it for the same length of time, then defrosted and got everyone to taste. Yes, a tad OCD...but that’s me.
16. Most special moment of your wedding day? It was all special...great to have all family and friends from near and far all together.
17. Any funny moments? I’d guessed correctly that my dad was going to bring up the issue of lobolo as a joke during his speech. He said he’d calculated that B owed him as least 10,000 head of cattle (or nearest cash offer) for his bride. B responded that he’d done some of his own calculations; based on the exchange rate to the Zimbabwean dollar (which was about one thousand billion million to the British pound by then...and it hadn’t hit free fall yet). So he reckoned “a tenner should just about cover it”, and pulled out a £10 note. To this day, B still harps on about "buying" me for £10 and he thinks he may have overpaid, etc, etc.
18. Any big disasters? Does half of the guests suffering sunstroke during the ceremony qualify as a disaster?
Minor panic when the Marriage Registrar arrived with his wife in tow, despite telling us she would not be able to attend the reception...luckily there was an extra place setting as one of my friend’s husband became an ex-husband between the time of invitation and the wedding, and he decided he would not grace us with his presence.
19. Describe your wedding outfit. I wore a powder blue suit...skirt and fitted jacket with silk camisole and silver sandals.
20. What kind of flowers did you have at your wedding? Some friends got married two days before us and they donated the flowers from their church service (two huge arrangements of white lilies still beautiful and fresh) that we placed in the courtyard for the ceremony. My mother-in-law arranged little bowls of red and pink Namaqualand daisies, interspersed with reeds sprayed with gold paint for the tables. I carried a dozen roses.
21. Where did you go on your honeymoon? We spent the night at the Wild Rose, then went back to our flat to pack up our sparse belongings and hand over the keys to the new owners. A week later, we flew out to London to start our new life. Six years later we treated ourselves to a fortnight's “honeymoon” in the Maldives.
22. Greatest challenge as a couple? Probably moving over to the UK, trying to settle down and find jobs, etc. Thankfully, we had loads of support from Best Man.
23. Greatest strength as a couple? We complement each other...he’s calm but can be grumpy. I panic and worry but remain upbeat. We make each other laugh... a lot!
I did warn you this post contains nuts!
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