It comes as no surprise that the word “obey” will not be uttered by the Royal bride1.
Such words are outmoded in this liberated world.
But one young married woman I know said that she was interested in obedience trials.
She said: “First I started sending my dog, but now I send my husband”
And there he was, whining and begging for a biscuit. But like most men, he isn’t worth a cracker,
My own wedding remains something of a blur. I know there was a lot of crying.
Most of her relatives hadn’t seen me before.
The best man shouting “Left, right, left, right, left, right as we went up the aisle wasn’t my idea of a wedding march.
Of course the bride was radiant, assured, moving with grace, her train rustling and her father acting as guard’s van.
The minister rebuked me for not following the service
“For goodness sake,” he hissed, “stop asking ‘whose turn?’”
The music was moving although I was somewhat disconcerted by the bank manager’s rendition of I’ll Walk Beside You”.
Might I say a few words about flower girls. These petals of innocence are the delphiniums of delinquency. Di, and the tiny terrorists of matrimony.
Behind the kiss curls clustering on their innocent brows are razor-sharp wits working on the appropriate graffiti for the marriage getaway car. Under their pretty little gowns they are probably wearing sandshoes, anyway.
I think flower girls should be lined up in an identity parade before a wedding so that the prospective bridegrooms can compare them with mug shots from a central intelligence agency which keeps track of these marauding tots.
Our flower girl nipped in and cut the wedding cake just for thrills, collapsing the two top storeys.
If there’s anything I hate it’s jerry-built wedding cakes.
Well, I served the little dear with raspberry delight right across her precocious, turned-up little nose.
The minister cried “And we haven’t even said grace.”
Still I suppose it all went well My wife maintained that cool rapture of the newlywed, gently asserting herself by snatching away my second plate of jellied custard sponge.
A mere trifle I’ll admit, but it showed the way things might go after the departure with the euphoric relatives parting like the Red Sea to allow us to the car.
Of course we had been through that great Western institution of glazed faces, womanly triumph and the terrible where-am-I look of the groom—the wedding photo graph.
The wedding photographer flushed out every wrinkle, mole and idiosyncrasy of my not over endowed face.
One of the relatives sent the photograph back with the note “Our mantel-piece thanks you for submitting this photograph bur regrets that it is unable to accept it.”
Obey? I turn the word around in my tired old mind The State demands obedience, the boss wants it, the family snaps its fingers
So I’ll sit up on my hind legs, wag my stump of a tail and look at you with my rheumy, pleading eyes.
And if you toss me a biscuit, I DO like cream centres.
Max Fatchen