Postcard Wedding by Theo

It was, as Dom commented the following day, a postcard wedding. The bride looked lovely, pulling off the traditional white lace look with aplomb, the groom dashing and surprisingly sober, and the weather absolutely superb. Warm and sunny, with the Cotswolds looking and smelling incredibly fresh and lush after April's rain, it was the perfect day for a wedding. And we so nearly didn't make it.

 The wedding was on a Friday and due to my timetable there was never any way we were going to make the afternoon ceremony, but we planned to try and get to the evening do for 7.30pm after leaving Rosie with my parents for the night. However, as we madly packed the car in Bristol we realised that the wedding invitation with the directions for the reception had been accidentally recycled. No need to worry though: I knew it was in Northleach, which is pretty much a one street town. We'd find it.

 Upon getting to Northleach and asking in a couple of pubs and some passers by, it became increasingly obvious that if the wedding was in Northleach then is was a stealth wedding and an extremely well kept secret. I'd been calling and texting old school friends I thought might be at the wedding all afternoon to try to find out exactly where it was, to no avail. All dolled up, no place to go, it looked like Kate and I might have to turn the car around.

 Then Thom suddenly called (and not long after Dom and Beans): the wedding was just up the road in the picturesque and fabulously named Lower Slaughter. Heartened we cruised up the road, followed the signs, crossed the little mill stream, pulled into the 'car park' (the father of the bride's paddock) and were met by Beans, Vicki and Ian bearing an as yet uncorked bottle of bubbly. Perfect!

The reception was incredibly stylish, with a gorgeous teepee that I'm sure was a stage at Glastonbury in 2007 set up in the bride's family's back garden. We made it just in time for the cutting of the cake and the first dance, and well before the buffet and piles of charming cupcakes. As Kate remarked, it was incredibly tasteful, and a lot of fun. Phil - the groom - and I went to school together, and a dozen of so of our former classmates and their partners were there. It was fab to see them all, and it naturally made us all wonder why the hell we don't get together more often. It was an excellent evening, especially as being, being a Friday, we had two days to get ourselves together again afterwards!