Just a perfect day

I had such a lovely day yesterday, although I feel absolutely exhausted today despite having had eight hours' sleep. I think it's probably because I spend a lot of time alone, and prolonged periods of time interacting with other people always tire me - but not usually this much! Oh well. I was determined to finally tackle my email inbox today, but instead I think I might go back to bed for a while after I've written this. (Sorry, if you've been waiting for an email reply from me! I'll get there eventually!)

It was Dr Liz's wedding, and it was fabulous from beginning to end. The photo above isn't great, but it's the only one I have - there were people in the way every other time I tried to get one! I have no doubt that there will be many proper photos available at some point.

The weather was OK - not sunny, but not too cold and not actually raining. The church was packed. The service went off without a hitch. (The brass quintet playing at the start was a lovely touch.) The evening reception featured a ceilidh - I watched more than I danced, because there kept being an odd number of people in our group and I didn't have a partner. But this was fine because I was melting as it was, so I was happy not to get any hotter! I was particularly amused to see Elaine and Gillian dancing all the dances as if they'd been doing so all their lives (which, they both admitted, they practically had) while their husbands exhausted themselves attempting to keep up :p

Our singing went very well indeed. There were six of us - two sops, two altos, a tenor and a bass (Lizzy, Claire, Amy, me, Tom and Richard) - and we did three songs a cappella. The first was the aforementioned I Was Glad, in which Lizzy was rather nervous about singing a top B flat on her own (but she needn't have been - it was spot on every time she did it), and we also did Perfect Day and Dream a Little Dream of Me. All three went down really well - there were people in the congregation mouthing the words throughout the latter two songs, which is always a nice thing to see. (In I Was Glad they mostly sat there open-mouthed, which is also encouraging!) The service was recorded, so I may be able to share mp3s with you eventually.

I felt really good about the number of people who came up to me during the rest of the day to tell me how much they'd enjoyed the singing. Most of them asked how many months we'd been rehearsing, and I don't think they all believed me when I told them we'd never sung together as a group before this week, and had only had one rehearsal. Needless to say this made me feel even more smug! And one guy - who has his own choir - was so excited about I Was Glad that he paid me for a copy of the arrangement, there and then. (He said his choir has tried it in the past and it's never really worked because the organist hasn't been good enough. And when he'd heard that this wedding would include an a cappella version with only six singers, he didn't believe it was possible.) You will understand that I very much enjoyed this whole conversation!

The six of us enjoyed ourselves so much that we were all quite sad that it's over and we have no excuse to sing together again - so if you know anyone who's getting married and has no music currently planned, let me know!

(Actually, that was one thing from yesterday that intrigued me. One of the people who came to tell me how much she enjoyed it said that it made a nice change to have something happening during the signing of the registers, because at most weddings the congregation are just left to talk amongst themselves. I was really taken aback by this, because at every wedding *I* go to, there is music during the signing of the registers.... but then it occurred to me that of course I'm usually there as one of the singers! I can't actually remember the last time I went to a wedding as just a guest - it was many, many years ago. What's your experience? Do most weddings have music at that point or not?)

P.S. Almost forgot.... When I was at Victoria Station on my way home, I was a bit baffled at the large number of people on the concourse, and even more baffled when a brass band started to play (at 11pm!) Turns out it was all in aid of the last ever train on the Oldham Loop line, which was about to depart from platform 1 when I left from platform 2. I'm annoyed with myself for not making the connection at the time (hee! I mean, the connection about the date - I did make my TRAIN connection....) because I was aware of the line being closed but had forgotten!