Sunday, January 07, 2007

The Wedding

The night before the wedding, KJ and her three bridesmaids got together for some last minute female-bonding… which for guys means: underwear party and pillow fights; for girls means: face masks and pedicures.

But before that could start, we had one tiny detail to sort out. NJ had locked her keys in her boyfriend’s house. We needed the keys to get ready the next day. So at 9pm on the night before KJ’s wedding, the four of us were plotting how to break into her boyfriend’s bedroom. First step was explaining our intentions to the guards at the boom… “Hi, we’ve locked our keys in the house at number 7. We’re just gonna get them out – in case you see people with torches wandering around, okay?” Complete incomprehension from security guard. Okay.

We were able to get through the garage and around the house because, along with locking keys in the house, NJ had also forgotten to set the alarm. Unfortunately, as with most Joburg residences, every window was protected by burglar bars – inside and out – and we’d left our power tools and blowtorches behind. So being resourceful of nature, we chose a golfball retriever and several pieces of wire as our tools.

We got to Mike’s room and managed to pry a fanlight window open. By the light of our handy torch (I had extra batteries in my back pocket – consider me armed and dangerous) we could see the keys sitting promisingly on the desk near the window.

With the use of the extended golfball retriever and wire we were able to hook the key ring. Halfway through the operation, KJ got the giggles. At this stage, I was pulling the shrubbery back from the window, so golfball-retriever operating KJ could stand on the ledge, with NJ hovering behind her holding the torch to guide her – and Mink (fresh from Scotland) was clutching one of the spare batteries in an attempt to arm herself from every noise in the darkness.

So that’s what we did on the night before KJ’s wedding – broke into her sister’s boyfriend’s house.

We were up early the next morning – the BIG day. KJ set the tone by choking on toothpaste. Turns out that not only should you not swallow toothpaste, but chances are that you actually can’t swallow it. Before we knew it, we were trying to get the bride to cough it up or spit it out while her eyes watered and she gasped for air.

Apparently toothpaste really burns as it goes down – not advised for ingestion. Poor KJ was burping fluoride freshness for most of the day, although I think she got most of it out by the time she walked down the aisle.

The wedding itself was beautiful – as every wedding should be. Unfortunately the bridesmaid dresses, although pretty in colour, were not great in shape. They gaped on the chest and were cut at an angle, so the left was short and the right point almost touched our ankles. They also weren’t very fitted on the waist… we were effectively wearing very pretty potato sacks. Last night, a friend tried on my dress. She is a 36EE. I am a 32A. She fitted into my dress. It was a tight squeeze but I think my point is proven.

Back to the wedding – I found a new boyfriend… although I will have to wait quite a few years until he is legal. His name is Thai and he is beautiful. He is also the 5-year-old cousin of the bride. He was my biggest fan, waving at me shyly as I stood next to the betrothed couple. Very sweet boy – almost makes me want to have kids… if it wasn’t for the fact that his three-year-old sister is the sulkiest creature alive.

Wedding done, we moved indoors for the reception. My seating ‘partner’ was a pairing of convenience, as one of the many cousins also had a long distance partner – back in London – so the two of us were the leftovers at our table. Dom and I knew each other as kids, and our last encounter was about 12 years ago… when I managed to knock a glass of raspberry juice all over him. Not much has changed – although this time, it was him flinging fettucine pasta at me. After a few table-orders of whiskey suitcases, all was forgotten and we hit the dancefloor for some serious sokkie-sokkie-ing.

As far as I’m concerned, any group gathering is a great excuse for name-throwing – and with my dress effectively pinned and tied in place I was once again feeling dance-off confident. I would have hated for all the relatives from the Netherlands and Australia to go home without being treated to some Koekmeister dance moves. That would’ve just been wrong.

Weddings are awesome – I intend to attend many, but will stay as far away from the organisation as possible. Over the Christmas holidays, three more of my friends got engaged. The dropping of the flies has started.

3 comments:

ChewTheCud said...

Rule Number ONE - bridesmaids dresses will always look horrible so that no-one looks more attractive than the bride. Don't want the groom changing his mind at the last second do we ;p

(What - no pics of koekie then? ;p)

Koekie said...

Imagine if you will, a brunette with a goldfishbowl-shaped hairdo and drag-queen make up, in a shimmering green potato sack... Meet Koekie.

Peaches said...

Breaking and entering Koeks? That's proper!!! Am so proud of you.