A fall in the house of Usher

One need look no further than the sacrament of marriage for proof of the cultural chasm that exists between the English and Irish. Since moving to London, I have attended one English wedding, which took place in a registry office on a Friday afternoon before everyone sallied forth to a country hotel for the reception, which ended at 1am. The bride arrived by chopper, her hair was ruined and apart from that it was boring as hell.

An Irish wedding I attended recently, on the other hand, took place in a church in Castleknock on a Friday afternoon before everyone sallied forth to a castle in Cavan for the reception, which ended back in Dublin at 2am the following Monday. That’s more like it.

A friend of mine was getting married – the first of us to take the plunge. I was a groomsman, as was another mate, while the groom’s younger brother was best man.

My only previous position of importance at a wedding had been something of a fiasco. As ushers, myself and a friend were supposed to greet the guests as they entered the church and direct them to their seats: “Hello, bride or groom? Sit over there – that sort of thing. Needless to say, we made a complete pig’s ear of it by getting hopelessly lost on the way to the church, eventually arriving 20 minutes after the bride and sitting on the wrong side ourselves.

There was no reason why this one should be any different: I’d somehow gained promotion despite failing utterly as an usher, my fellow groomsman was being thrown in at the deep end despite never having been entrusted with a position of trust of any kind at such an event, while the Best Man had never actually attended a wedding. What could possibly go wrong?

Quite a lot, as it happens. After the “rehearsal”, on the eve of the wedding, the four of us were invited to the bride’s parents house for a sophisticated repast of finger food and fine wine. Several bottles of red and many cans of lager later we were sent “straight home” with strict instructions to do nothing more boisterous than watch a video and get an early night. And while we set off on the 20 minute lurch home with the best of intentions, we decided that a couple of quiet pints in the local pub would steady our nerves and help us sleep.

Maybe it was nerves or excitement, or perhaps God just decided we deserved a break, but the following morning upon surfacing at 9:30am we didn’t have a hangover between us. Not only that, we had more than three whole hours to get showered, shaved, suited and booted before our limo arrived to pick us up.

Within an hour we were fed, watered and almost ready – dressed but spectacularly failing to secure very large flowers to our lapels with very small pins. Calls to several neighbours’ houses in an attempt to find a woman who might be able to do it proved fruitless: everyone was out.

Fifteen minutes after our limo was supposed to have deposited us at the church, the groom and his groomsmen were still attempting to spear their now decimated buttonholes while the best man was screeching: “What do you mean he doesn’t have a fucking mobile?!” down the phone at the hapless receptionist of a limousine hire company. Fifteen high-speed minutes in the Best Man’s car later, we arrived at the church in time for the wedding photographer to attach what was left of our flowers to our jackets before the bride arrived.

The ceremony went swimmingly and, afterwards, we emerged blinking into the sunlight to discover that our limo had finally turned up at the church. Without any booze. Cue more snarling from the Best Man at a less-than-helpful limousine company employee. It had been agreed, as part of the deal, that the limo company would send two cars – one for the bride, one for the groom and his adherents – which would arrive on time. It had also been agreed that both cars would contain ice buckets, ice, champagne and flutes from which to drink it during the hour long journey to the reception. In exchange, they would receive an obscene amount of money.

As the – not so much blushing as seething – bride quite correctly refused to budge until she got a glass of champagne, it was left to the Best Man to hightail it to an off license to stock up on booze. And how! A bottle of Moet for the bride and groom’s Bentley, a bottle of vodka, a bottle of Tia Maria and two litres of coke for the stretch limo that was carrying ourselves and the ravishing bridesmaids.

I can’t speak for anyone else, but I had a good time. At least I think I did, because three days later, I awoke in a friend’s house in Castleknock and chuckled at vague memories of the bride’s father doing a spectacular rendition of Johnny Cash’s ‘A Boy Named Sue’ before sprinting for the bathroom and chundering my guts up. In the upstairs bathroom I could hear the lady of the house engaged in a similar activity.

Clearly, there was one of those tummy bugs going around.