Chapter 9

The Wedding Seasons

In the 1980’s people tended to get married in their 20s, rather than as now in the 21st century waiting into their 30s, that is if they decide to get married at all, so over the next few years we attended the weddings of most of our university group.

Julie had met a boy from New Zealand whilst on her travels, and planned to live out there, but she came home to Bristol for her wedding. Carol and Sue were to be bridesmaids along with some of her family. As only her husbands immediate family were making the trip , it was a reasonably low-key affair, but we went up to Bristol for the weekend to be with them. The other girls were all there too, and they all went to her ‘Hen” night to which Maria was invited, but I declined. However Maria did join them for a quiet meal together the night before the ceremony.

It then became a tradition that Maria would join them for a meal before the event. At Carol’s big traditional wedding, at Sue’s Registry office marriage, and at Emma’s country house ceremony we had wonderful evenings reminiscing about our times together at Uni, but again I skipped the hen nights and Gino was the guest at the wedding ceremonies and receptions.

Linda however had different ideas, she wanted Megan and Maria to be her chief bridesmaids as she had no close female relatives. Whilst I would have been delighted to be dressed up in all the finery and being pampered and preened getting prepared by the salon staff, I felt that this was just too much and that I would be too exposed, being in the spotlight for the whole day and evening. I did agree to be a groomsman for Jack, her husband-to-be, which would allow me to escort Megan back down the aisle after the ceremony. I had got to know Jack quite well as the four of us had frequent get-togethers, usually at Bodmin or Liskeard, which are both roughly half-way between her home in Plymouth and ours. This time however I had the pleasure and privilege of attending both the groom’s ‘stag’ and the bride’s ‘hen’ night.

Rather than just drunken Pub crawls both had decided on similar theme nights, luckily on consecutive nights so they did not clash. Both were big fans of the crime shows on TV featuring Miss Marple or Hercule Poirot, and so opted for Agatha Christie Murder Mystery Nights at one of the big local hotels just outside Plymouth, where we had all booked in for a few days

As we were particularly close to Linda, I had agreed to go to Linda’s hen night on the promise that nobody would know who I really was, and that I was just Maria, a friend from university. We were all to go in character so agreed a theme of 1920s ‘flappers’.

Back in the hotel room, i went through the normal routine of close shaves of all visible parts, face, arms, legs, chest, armpits, followed by moisturisers and all sorts of lotions and potions to freshen up my skin. There was no need to do anything major with my hair as we all had short bob wigs with headbands to keep them in place, very 1920s flappers !

Megan had got us matching outfits of two thigh-length sleeveless scoop-neck shift dresses, decorated with bands of long tassels, finished off with simple pearl ear studs and a string of imitation peals as a necklace, and strappy chunky-heeled sandals. As was the style we had on very pale powder make-up, bright cherry red lips and dark-shadowed eyelids. Women and girls definitely have more fun in costume than is available for men. We found out when we went down to the dining room that there were not many others in period costume.

Altogether there were twelve of us in our party, on two adjacent tables of six,. They had kept us in two groups, so that we could have more fun solving the clues. Murder Mystery nights usually take the form of several actors mixing on the tables with the guests, pretending to be just another guest, and their their group somehow working into the activities a murder by persons unknown, but having left several clues when discussing who they were with the other guests. There was to be a prize for the team to solve the mystery of ‘who-done-it’ and give the best explanation of the clues.

We had our meal and wine, and then mingled and chatted with other guests, when the lights suddenly went out, there was a loud bang and when the lights came back on there was a body on the floor with a bright red stain on his chest. Although we all knew it was an act, we were still shocked. We had the rest of the evening to chat with others that we suspected, to try to identify the murderer, in fact because the group of us were dressed in costume we collectively became the prime suspects.

To allow all the guests to mingle and look for clues, the rest of the evening was a normal social night, drinking, dancing, and having a good time. we were all up on the floor dancing, and I soon found I was dancing just like the others, hips swinging, arms up in the air, with all the tassels on my dress swaying and swinging. Girls are much more expressive in their dancing than boys and it is easy to understand why they are more keen on it than their partners.

Between us we got an awful lot of nominations as the murderer, because we were so outgoing that other guests didn’t think us genuine, but that let us through to win as the only group that had identified all the clues, it ended up as being a jealous jilted ex-fiancée of the victim. The prize was a discount voucher for the hotel which we gave to Linda, and some bottles of wine which we all shared. It wasn’t as riotous a night as some hen nights, but we all really enjoyed ourselves and went off to our bedrooms happy.

At Megan’s request, we just cleaned off our makeup, left on the wigs and clothes and started slowly and sexily taking off each others clothes items one by one in sexy dance routines, building up our passion, eventually falling into bed together for a night of energetic and repeated love-making. Maria definitely added a bit of spice to our sex life.

The following night I went out with the boys for Jack’s stag night which was completely different from Linda’s. It was a much more boozy and boisterous affair, lots of drink, near-the-knuckle jokes and pranks. We didn’t take the mystery solving too seriously and did not repeat the prize-winning effort of the girls. We ended up going on a pub crawl after the event night had finished, eventually somehow finding our way back to the hotel, going off to our bedrooms and me crashing out on the bed. It was not as enjoyable as the previous night out with Linda and the girls, and I knew which I would prefer in the future. in the morning I got in touch with the acting group who had performed the murder mystery and promised to arrange a booking at one of our hotels.

The wedding ceremony went off beautifully and I was really proud walking back down the aisle arm-in -arm with Megan, who looked absolutely gorgeous, and started thinking about needing to plan our own wedding. The wedding reception went off smoothly, the only hitch being that Linda and Megan kept getting asked what had happened to Maria that had been at the hen night, and what a shame it was that she couldn’t be at the wedding - if only they knew! Linda had bought gifts for her bridesmaids, a small diamond pendant and matching ear studs, and I was shocked but delighted when she privately gave me a set too, to thank me for my support and friendship.

Mainly because we were both so busy with our work commitments and developing our careers, but partly because we were already living together, and partly because Gina and Bob had already announced their wedding plans which we didn’t want to hijack, we were in no rush to ‘tie the knot’ and it was another two years before we became the last of our “gang” to formalise things. As Megan only had her immediate family, parents, one brother, two Aunties and Uncles, and most of her friends were now local to Truro or Perranporth, she decided to get married in our local church rather than her home town. As we had plenty of time to organise things we ensured that that The Piran was available for all our wedding guests to stay and that our function room was free for the reception.

Obviously this time it was not appropriate for Maria to make an appearance. My stag night was a surfing/barbecue/drinking session down at Perranporth beach followed by a drinking session in The Green Parrot with a lot of my old school and college friends, Gina’s fiancé Bob, and Bob and John from the Abba band.

Gina, Linda, the girls from Uni, and some of Gina’s friends that I had spent a lot of time with at school made up the numbers for Megan’s hen night out, which was a meal and drinks at The Piran, a much more sedate and civilised affair than my night out.

The wedding ceremony and reception went off without any hitches, Megan was absolutely stunning, and there was no prouder man in the world when we walked back down the aisle, and spent the next hour getting photographed with our guests and family groups . The hotel staff had really excelled in getting our function room dressed up for the reception and the meals prepared, i thought a special bonus would be appropriates for them. It was a day that I will always remember.

To be continued