First British Wedding

Last weekend, we attended our first of three British weddings this summer. It was our first ever British wedding, and probably the most traditional/formal of the three. It was very similar to a traditional church wedding in the US, with of course, many of the smaller differences.

The groom is a former colleague of Brian's from here at Oxford. His now wife was also a student at Oxford in medicine, which is where they met a number of years ago. They are a super fun couple, and we were so glad to be invited to their big day.

The wedding was in Salisbury, which is around 40 miles southeast of Oxford. Since we still don't have a car (but we both now can legally drive in the UK!) we took the train. Salisbury is where the famed Salisbury Cathedral is located- and is very close to Stonehenge. It's an absolutely lovely British town, well kept, amazing mix of historical British architecture, and cozy traditional pubs.

We arrived Friday evening, checked into our lovely and quaint B&B (the nicest we've stayed in so far, had a lovely big bay window overlooking the entire street). We ventured down the street to an old pub with low timber ceilings and a huge garden in the back. It was the place to be,  and we had dinner there in the evening.

After lovely breakfast, we checked out a bit of the town centre and the Saturday market. It was nice, but those markets are now just getting taken over by those cheap clothes stalls. It's a real shame. We grabbed a quick bite, then back to the B&B to get ready for the wedding. We had to be at St Thomas church before 2. The church is older than the cathedral, as it's the one that was built for the workers building the Cathedral. I believe it's the church where the bride grew up in, since her family is from Salisbury.  The ceremony was very similar to a US-church style wedding. The only difference that stood out was that they signed the registered during the ceremony, rather than after.

The reception was in the gardens of the Salisbury children's School, overlooking the Cathedral. It was a beautiful day, and beautiful garden to celebrate within. We had a drinks and nibbles reception outside, and then moved in to this grand marquee on the grounds for dinner. Dinner was a carvery buffet, and it was delicious. We sat at the FROG table, some physics acronym, with former colleagues of Brian and partners, which was fun.

The wedding speeches were the best I've ever heard. The father of the bride, the groom and then the best man. Very clever, witty, honest, funny loving and entertaining. There was a wedding quiz, which our table didn't do so well on, and then the evening activity was a ceili dance. Which is Scottish named in origin, but was more like American square dancing, which was pretty fun. Funny too, as the caller lady was clearly American, from Cali and loves to square dance!

As the evening wound down, my favourite part of the night was out on the expansive lawn looking up at the glowing Cathedral and seeing the huge night sky of stars. I don't get many chances to be in a wide open space at night here, when the stars are even out, to enjoy the British night time sky. It was a pretty spectacular and surreal sight!