The Wedding

It is early Sunday morning (09 Dec 2012) and I’ve just dropped my brother Mahesh at the airport. Mahesh came over to see me this week-end. The house is quiet and a great time to write a new post. There are a number of things I want to write about, but I will start by writing about the highlight of the year; Lesley-Ann and Mike’s wedding on August 25, 2012.

Monday April 11, 2011 I was diagnosed with CML (Chronic Myeloid Leukaemia) and my first goal was to get well to walk Lesley-Ann down the aisle on August 25 2012 and thanks to all your support and prayers I was well enough to do this. On the day, Lesley-Ann was saying Dad, “walk a bit faster”, but I wanted this moment to last as long as possible’ I had dreamt of this moment since she grew up to be a lovely young lady there was no way it was going to end too quickly! You may be able to spot this as Lesley-Ann is looking ahead while I am soaking up the atmosphere!

Saturday, the morning of the wedding.  The months leading up to the wedding, Lesley-Ann seemed to be ‘stressed out’. I suggested that we should get a Project Manager just for the day on Saturday, so that she can forget about everything and just enjoy the day. She was not interested, and just like many of my other ‘great suggestions’ this too was discarded very quickly 🙂 The night before (Friday night) we all got a detailed Agenda from Lesley-Ann. It looked liked the day started at 8 a.m. and there was something for someone to do every half an hour.  That is Mike’s family, who were at the hotel where the reception was taking place and us. We were awake around 8 a.m. on the Saturday and it was like Lesley-Ann had just turned off a switch, she was completely relaxed. There were all sorts of ladies coming in at all hours of the morning, hair dresser, make-up lady, flower lady and to add to the chaos the photographer. But all was calm, so much so we forgot all about the time and had to rush to get ready for the wedding.

Here are some photographs that capture the atmosphere that morning with all of us completely chilled out!

 

We did finally get to the church (Foxrock church) about 20 minutes late. Lesley-Ann had planned for us to get to church 10 minutes late. She was radiant, smiling without a care in the world. I thought that I would have very mixed emotions on the day, but actually I was so happy that that I did not feel sad at all. The church service was fabulous as it was personal. Mike’s sister Bethan sang ‘Bread of Heaven’ , Lesley-Ann’s sister Shereen sang ‘ Ave Maria’ and Lesley-Ann’s friend Margaret sang the Offetory Hymn. Lesley-Ann’s God Father, my brother Shammil did a very personal Communion Reflection for the couple.  The music arrangement was by Margaret.

This is another short clip that captures the emotion of the day. Lesley-Ann’s friend Margaret arranged all the music for the Church service and it was fantastic. Here Margaret gets emotional herself as she tries to hold back the tears!

This is a short clip of Bethan, Mike’s sister singing ‘Bread of Heaven’.  I like the words; “I am weak, but thou art mighty; Hold me with thy powerful hand: Bread of heaven, bread of heaven. Feed me till I want no more”. This is a Welsh hymn and represented the Welsh side of the family. The two ‘clans’ are from Wales, Ireland & Sri Lanka.

We’ve had a great laugh watching my ‘Mr. Bean’ moment in church. Shereen is singing Ave Maria.

The reception was at the Summer Hill House in Enniskerry, Co. Wicklow (South of Dublin) and there were about 120 guests at the wedding. These are some family photographs from the day. The little figues (Mike & Lesley-Ann), the map of the world showing all the places where the couple had visited together and the tree are all Peter’s handiwork (Mike’s Dad). The tables were all named after a city and there was a small gift from that city in each of the tables. A very nice touch!

This is a good way to end this post with the Last Dance before the band left. Unfortunately, I did not have the energy to stay awake to watch this. This gives a good flavour of the day. As Lesley-Ann and Mike said in the card, it was truly a day of celebration with Friends, Family and Laughter.   Thank You Lesley-Ann & Mike for a very memorable day that I will treasure for the rest of my life.