Love and Marriage....tying the knot.

Did you know that tying the knot refers to a pagan tradition in the marriage ceremony, as this pic displays.

We had a pagan wedding on 22nd September 2007. It was the bestest wedding ever, thanks largely to Paula's organisational skills.
Here are some of the nuts and bolts of the wedding.

Centennial Park in Sydney is one of our favourite haunts.It was a natural that we would choose this gothic,fecund, romantic park, with its wild marshlands,large lakes teaming with wild life, and even a lily pond framed by ancient paper bark trees, which we chose for our setting. The park charged $200.

We already knew of a pagan marriage celebrant (Marybeth Zang), and there was never any doubt that she would be perfect for us. We went to her place, and the wheels began rolling. We had to do all the legal stuff, birth certificates etc, then came the fun part. We chose the readings (we decided on three); the vows, and were briefed on the ceremony. Marybeth was our kind of person. We were starting to get excited.
We decided on having it on the spring equinox, but on that Sunday the park was being used for another event, so we moved it to the Saturday. The reception would be held at our small unit and we had doubts that we could fit everyone so we got my brother to clean up the yard, which was no small job. It turned out that Sydney weather decided to impose itself, not only by threatening rain (we called its bluff) but also by turning on a very cold day (16%).

At her work place in Burwood one day, Paula ventured into a small Greek cafe. The food was sensational, and they also did catering so we got their menu and worked out an order. Another part of the puzzle fell into place.
We decided to print our own invitations, but hit a snag when it came to 'Dress'. Did we expect the men to wear dresses too? No apparently it's just etiquette to specify what type of dress to wear.

"No way - this is a wedding. To tell them what to wear is demeaning them, and an insult. I say we leave it out all together".

In the end we reached a compromise: I would allow 'dress' to be 'neat and casual', as long as it was in inverted commas. No-one wore swimmers and thongs, but I wouldn't have minded if they did.
Paula bought some paper at Dymocks, and I reckon we turned out a pretty classy invite, with even a reply insert.

We had invaluable helpers on the wedding day. My bro picked up the food from Burwood, a forward party helped Marybeth set up the wedding circle, and we had some helpers to get us dressed (and help me with my tie... the things we do for love).
For some inextricable reason Paula's Mum and sister decided not to come to the wedding. It was their loss. We missed them.

What's it like being married?
Marriage is a state of mind; we like it, it suits us.

We know it's not for everyone, but denying same sex couples the right to marry is an abuse of civil liberties.

My next blog is about our wild honeymoon.