27th anniversary

Brigid and I were married 27 years ago yesterday, in the town of Mandeville, Jamaica, where we both were working as teachers.

By coincidence, our best man, Mick Paine (see joke just below), called yesterday just to catch up.

Our whole wedding, honeymoon thing was pretty funny.  I asked Brigid to marry me right after the Easter break, she said "I’d be delighted", and we were married less than eight week later.

For the whole story, click on the link just below.

In the interim, we did the pre-cana conference thing with a ten minute meeting with the priest (Fr. Martin, a Paulist missionary), Brigid made her dress, I bought one of those Jamaican suit outfits that Michael Manley popularized, and we started arranging our reception.

We went to one of the recommended restaurants in town, and the owner suggested we use his big, empty house to hold the reception (he was between wives at the time and the house was empty). We decided the reception would be on the second floor of this gorgeous caribbean mansion –  the 2nd. floor had an outdoor porch that ran completely around the building. 

So the big day arrives. My parents and youngest brother Philip are down (Brigid’s mother couldn’t make it from England – but she OK’d me) Mick is the best man, Judy Hardy the Maid of Honor, and Tom Hardy gives the bride away ("How can I give you away when I’ve never had you?" Veeerry funny Tom!)

The wedding is lovely. Fr. Martin speaks eloquently about two people from different countries meeting in a third country. Carolyn Robinson and Dennis Hendricks each did a reading. Phil is the altar boy (he’s eleven at the time). An Irish engineer (rugby player) by the name of John Dunne takes the pictures. (Another funny coincidence. Yesterday John sent me a picture of himself, Liam Fennelly, another Irish engineer in jamaica, and their wives.)

Paul Foster drives Brigid and I over to the house for the reception, we hustle up to the tastefully decorated (by Brigid and my mother) second floor – and find that all that’s there are seven bottles of rum punch. So Paul and I rush over to the restaurant while Brigid starts doling out rum punch to our gathering 60 or so guests.

Get to the restaurant and the owner goes "Oh man! Is it time already?" (Remember, this is Jamaica and everything runs on "Jamaican time.") So the food arrives a few minutes late.

But the party is a good one – starts around 6 PM. It was also a little bit of a British style reception in terms of speeches. At British weddings the best man gives a speech, saying funny things and nice things, about both the groom and the bride. But our best man Mick said funny things about Brigid and nice things about me! He later told us that he’d lost half his notes – the notes with the nice things about Brigid and the funny things about me.

About 11:30 an engineer named Dewey (from Arkansas) suggests we have a slide show! Sounds like a great idea (especially after many red stripes and much rum), so he gets out a projector and slides, which he just "happened" to have in the car!

This sounds pretty bizarre if you are used to your basic American wedding reception, but you have to remember that this is the expatriate community in a third world country. People tend to work and socialize together and things are very casual. Of the guests, only a small number were Jamaican. Most everyone was either British, Irish or American.

So the slide show is a big hit, since it mostly features people attending the reception, playing rugby, pub-crawling, or acting in the "pantomine" comedy put on every year as a charity fundraiser by the rugby club and other expatriates (that year it was "Cinderalla). And the party goes on and on.   

It was all great fun. I don’t remember when we left, but it was awfully late. Brigid reminded me yesterday that when we got back to her house, I feel asleep. So we didn’t close the deal until later that morning.

I could go on and tell you about our honeymoon on the south coast of Jamaica, which also had many funny moments. Most of these moments were triggered by the fact that we’d taken my mother, father, brother and Brigid’s dog Feisty along with us to the house we rented (to my father’s everlasting embarrassment).  However I think I’ll save those adventures for next anniversary.