The day of Wedding Part III dawned more obscenely bright and blue-skied than Wedding Part I and II put together. After bacon and eggs and Sunday papers we slowly got organised. Here's Gareth ironing his shirt. He was continually amazed by these marvellous things Australians have called LAUNDRIES. A whole separate room, just for the washing machine. In Britain this room would be sub-divided into three studio apartments.

Note indoor use of sunnies and hat.
Clearly not coping with Australian climate.

I only needed about ten minutes to get ready as it was the third wedding and I finally had the routine down pat. Hair, make-up, squishy undies. And I'd lost enough blubber since the previous wedding that I could now breathe in the frock unassisted and zip it up all by myself! Previously it took two strong men and a tub of margarine. The day gets pretty blurry after that. We arrived at the cafe for the party and it was hot hot hot. I had totally forgotten the sensation of sun crawling over skin. It made me feel rather light-headed and nervy. My friends started to arrive and all I can remember is talking a lot of shit. I was so anxious that people would have a nice time, find the food and the punch bowl; be able to understand Gareth's accent and vice versa. I cannot recall a single thing I said all afternoon. I just remember floating around, kissing people hello, thinking how foxy my pals looked and how strange it was to see Gareth wearing sunglasses. We conducted a mock wedding ceremony just to give things a sense of occasion. Kind of like those dramatic reconstructions on Australia's Most Wanted. Jenny was my bridesmaid, Belinda was Gareth's Best Girl and the amazing Mattay became The Good Reverend. Jenny led the way down the "aisle" and spontaneously bellowed the Wedding March, "DUN DUN DUN-DUUUUN!". This caused me to cackle and forget all about my vow to Act Cool And Classy so I wouldn't look demented in the wedding photos. Bugger. I had just recovered my dignity when Matt welcomed everyone to the Wedding and pulled out a priest collar from his pocket and plopped it over his head. I had no idea where he got that from; it was genius.

I'd knocked up a script the night before, it was all very fluffy and tame so as not to alarm the elderly guests. I may as well cut and paste:

WEDDING CEREMONY THINGO Cast: RM — Reverend Matt MS — Mothership S — Shauna G — Gareth RM:  We are gathered here today to celebrate the marriage of Shauna and Gareth. Marriage is a sacred institution, one that is not to be entered into lightly. Therefore, since today is Shauna and Gareth's fourth wedding this year, we can all be safe in the knowledge that they are pretty serious about it by now. So, who takes this woman away from this man, and then gives her away again? MS:  I do. RM:  Thank you Shazza. Now if the bride and groom could join hands, we can begin the vows. [S & G join hands] RM:  [Turns to G] Gareth David, do you promise to keep on loving Shauna, in sickness and in health, for richer and for poorer; even though she always leaves bits of food on the plates when she does the dishes? G:  I do. RM:  Excellent. [Turns to S] Shauna Lee, do you promise to keep on loving Gareth, in sickness and in health, for richer and for poorer; even though you still can't always understand his Scottish accent? S:  I do. RM:  Do we have the wedding rings? [J hands ring to S, B hands ring to G] RM:  Gareth, please take your wife's hand and repeat after me. With this ring, I re-wed. G:  With this ring, I re-wed. [G puts ring on S's finger] RM:  Shauna, take that Scotsman by the hand and repeat after me. With this ring, I re-wed. S:  With this ring, I re-wed. [And vice versa] RM:  I now pronounce you, once again, husband and wife. You may kiss the bride! CROWD GOES WILD. THE END.

And then there was mingling. Captured here is a moment of confusion with my Auntie remarking how she never knew I had a friend who was a man of the cloth, and me explaining how Reverend Matt was not a real Reverend.

(Photos by the famous JinkyArt. They specialise in photographing kids, but kindly agreed to snap our party. We're good at acting immature anyway. I implore you, if you don't have children you should go out and GET SOME, just so Barb can take photographs of them.) So I hope everyone had a good time. I mostly remember The Mothership's laughter bouncing off the walls. She has a great bunch of mates and they're always up for a good time. I know I sent out the dorky Thank You cards long ago, but thanks everyone for coming along. And thanks to everyone far and wide who were so tops during the whole wedding process; I wish we could have invited youse all. Right now here in Scotland it's turned dark and chilly and everyone seems so far away. It's a year ago on Monday, see. I've gone all mushy and pathetic. Let's get on to the most important bit… THE CAKE! You may recall The Mothership's request for a thistle to plonk atop the cake alongside a sprig of wattle, so to represent Oz and Scotland. This sparked alarmed emails from readers who thought I'd try and smuggle a plant past Australia's notoriously strict customs officials. But I found a nice fake one. Unfortunately all the local wattle had died off so we used some other native fluff. The cake did look a treat. This may be the only photo from the day in which I am not grinning or gurning like a moron, because I was hypnotised by this vision of chocolately goodness.

Phwoar.

As the Australian leg of the wedding odyssey rapidly approaches, it’s The Mothership’s turn to get the Wedding Fever. While she has a more relaxed approach than the Motherinlawship for the Scottish one, she’s still a stickler for details. Because weddings are all about details. She came up with the idea of decorating the cake with some wattle and a thistle to symbolise the union of the Aussie and the Jock. I scrounged up a thistle and assumed we’d just yank a sprig of wattle off a tree on the way to the party, but I received this memo instead:

FROM:  Mothership
SUBJECT:  Photo and Size of Thistle

Good evening to you both

Could you email photo of thistle (put something next to it that I would know for size comparison) and write the dimensions of thistle in the Email – we need to get the wattle the same size to represent your partnership with Gareth.

Luv ya
Ma

(Don’t kill me Ma! Couldn’t resist this one!)

Cutting the cake was the only Official Wedding Thing we thought we'd have to do during the whole Official Wedding Party. We stabbed the slab, posed for pictures then poised to flee. But that's when people started hollering, "Speech! Speech!". "Ummm," gulped Gareth. He briefly thanked our friends and family then we attempted to scurry away, but the guests were still looking at us expectantly. My sister Rhi bellowed from the back row, "How bout we hear from the BRIDE?! It's 2005, don't you know!" The gin and tonic had impaired the part of my brain that makes one think before speaking. "Yeah! " I blurted, "Thanks David and Mary for putting on a great party. Especially Mary who ran round organising the whole thing while David played golf and me and Gareth sat on our ARSES!" There must have been a dozen snowy-haired Friends of the In-Laws all thinking, "How did nice young Gareth end up with this uncouth Australian?" I don't normally supplement with alcohol, but both of us had been terrified about the party. All these people giving up their Saturday night because of us? Wasn't there something better on the telly? Many people relish being the centre of attention but it turns my stomach to ice. What if no one had a good time? What if they thought the ceilidh was naff? I've always hated throwing parties because I feel personally responsible for the happiness of everyone in the room. So keeping fifty people happy, many of whom I didn't know, well… that's pressure, baby. But the ceilidh was a brilliant icebreaker. We stomped around the dancefloor while the band fiddled and accordion-ed and a tall bossy lady told us what to do. It was a scorching evening by Scottish standards, soon our guests were red and glazed like Christmas hams. I handed out cards from our wedding gifts so the ladies could fan themselves between dances. As I surveyed the room most people seemed to be in a reasonable state of happiness, so I started to relax. Perhaps a little too much. It was time for Strip The Willow and the caller instructed the men to, "birl the girl around a bit". "What the fuck is a birl?" I boomed. To my right stood three small children. To my left was my mother-in-law. Just dandy. Birl: v. to spin. I fled to the loos soon after that, remembering just in time that I was wearing my Amazing Squishy Bodysuit Thingy beneath the wedding frock that undos with three very fiddly clasps in the crotch area. Ladies, be sure to allow yourself plenty of fumbling time if you wear one of these contraptions and have a small bladder. If I'd had another wine it could have been disasterous. Earlier that day I'd made a few dozen prints from Vegas and stapled them on a big noticeboard, so guests could trace our wacky path to the altar. Everytime a guest innocently paused by the display I'd rush over and sprout verbal captions for each picture, like the curator of the Dork Museum. It was surreal, standing there in the same fancy frock, gawking at photos of me and Gareth and that dude in the Elvis suit crooning into a microphone. It was no wonder I hadn't felt like we've been married these past four months. The whole Vegas thing looked so bloody pantomine ridiculous that it couldn't possibly be for real! But on Saturday night, surrounded by friends and family and semi-strangers, reality finally sank in. As much fun as eloping had been, celebrating the moment with a room full of sweaty folk was extra special. There were Gareth's school buddies catching up over a smoke. There were aunties and cousins and golfing buddies. There were little kids who crapped their pants from excitment. There was the Ewins', without whom I'd never have met Gareth. There were generous and patient in-laws. There was my delirious sister untying balloons, gulping down the helium and bleating, "Does my voice sound funny? Does it? Does it?". The evil gin makes me sentimental, so we could blame my misty-eyed antics on that. But as our guests trickled home I felt sappier than a box of Disney DVDs. I had had a blast and was feeling very fortunate indeed. I queued up one last song on our classy iTunes/speaker set-up and dragged the bloke that I now properly appreciated was my husband onto the dancefloor. The belated First Dance for the bride and groom was It's Not Unusual. Whoa-oh-oh-oh-oh! What a day.

The stinking invitations have been sent. Thanks to all who offered to be guests; I have you all on standby!

GARETH:  Can't we just run away from the wedding party?

SHAUNA:  You can't elope when you're already married!

Gareth and I quite often forget we got married. It still feels like we just went on a really excellent holiday and there was that guy in the Elvis suit. That's why we can only blink confusedly when asked how the Wedding Party Preparations are going. Luckily Mary, Gareth's Mum, knows how lazy and inept we both are and has done much of the organisation already.

We had a Planning Summit around the dinner table last Sunday. It's surreal to find yourself with Parents-in-Law, but mine are lovely and I like going to their house. They have our wedding photo on top of the piano! I've never been on someone's piano before. They've tolerated our haphazard approach to marriage with grace and humour.

"So," said David, Gareth's father, "Your mother's now telling everyone you two eloped, haven't you Mary? Because it sounds more sordid that way!"

"Well! It's a good story!"

Gareth's brother entered the room and announced, "There's a fiddler on the phone."

"Oh! The fiddler!"

"The fiddler?" I whispered to Gareth as his Mum dashed out.

"Yes. For the ceilidh band."

There'll be none of your mulletted Foreigner-playing dodgy DJ's at our wedding party, thanks very much. We are having a traditional ceilidh dancefest, complete with twelve-piece band. It will be kilts ahoy. I can Strip the Willow with the best of them but I am already worried my wedding dress won't contain my boobs when confronted with such jaunty exercise. Then there's the high heels that make me stagger like a trainee drag queen. That was the beauty of running off to Vegas – I only had to look nice for ten minutes then I could get back into my slob gear.

The first order of business was the selection of items for the buffet. This involved Mary reminding Gareth and I that it was Our Party and it was really up to Us, Gareth shrugging, "I dunno", me giggling at how Scottish people pronounce it "boo-fee" and David saying, "As long there's no vol-au-vents! I can't stand vol-au-vents!"

"Now what about the wedding cake?" Mary asked. "Do you want a round cake or square cake? Fruit cake or sponge cake?"

I could see Gareth's head turning crimson, a sure sign of confusion and/or stress. "I'm not a fan of fruit cake."

"Me either!" I piped up, helpfully.

"Then we'll have TWO tiers with one of each flavour!"

"Good good, that's all settled!" David tapped his wine glass with a knife. "Meeting adjourned. Mary, I haven't seen you have this much fun since we were buying the new piano!"

This past week didn't sail as smoothly. First we started calling guests and found that many were on holidays or going to T in the Park. I don't know how you could turn down some accordion action for the likes of Snoop Dogg and Foo Fighters, but people have strange priorities. Then it seemed the ceilidh band were unavailable. Mary seemed gravely concerned that there'd only be half a dozen people in the giant room she'd hired, munching vol-au-vents in ceilidh-less silence.

"Don't you have any more friends?"

"I dunno!" There is nothing that skyrockets a mother's anxiety levels than a listless "I dunno" from an ungrateful child. She suggested we invite all my work colleagues, random strangers from the phone book, bums off the street; anything to boost the numbers.

My favourite stress-filled exchange of the week:

"What's wrong with you today anyway, you're very grumpy!"

"I've got a lot on at work, that's all."

"Oh. You're not taking it out on Shauna, are you?"

"Nooo!"

"Well a friend's daughter's partner just came back from Iraq and he's taking it out on her."

"I'm not taking it out on her!"

"Well, I was just saying."

Good news came though on Sunday – the ceilidh band have made themselves available, after Mary explained the Bride was Australian and would really appreciate a dose of Scottish culture. We may end up with more band members than guests but for the moment there's an air of calm on Planet Wedding Party. Ahhh.