It doesn’t get much more self indulgent that writing about your wedding day, but what the hell. I thought I would share some memories and photos about a day that was so special to Jill and myself.
We got married on 30th August 2018, a Thursday. It was an early start for me, I had to meet up with Rick, my best man, drop cars off in Manchester, leave bags at our hotel and get back to Rochdale to meet guests arriving for the ceremony at 11am.
It was to be a simple registry office ceremony, however Rochdale registry office is in one of the finest municipal buildings in the country, Rochdale Town Hall. Described by Pevsner as possessing a “rare picturesque beauty” and the owner of a persistent, if somewhat dubious claim that it caught the eye of Adolf Hitler, who planned to dismantle and rebuild it in Germany.
Time passed quickly as I did lots of meeting and greeting. As the appointed time got close, I sent Rick out to wait at the door, so he could warn me of an approaching bride, whilst I chatted to friends, family and the registrar.
It turned out that Jill had been having a stressful morning, with hair and make-up turning up late and the taxi that was booked to bring her Mum to the Town Hall driving off without her. They all managed to jump in the Mercedes that I had booked for Jill and Mia, so in the end it all ended well.
Rick came back in the room and let me know that she was here. I knew that she would be a couple of minutes, whilst she was asked a few questions. Then the music started, I looked back and saw Jill coming in to the room and from complete calm, suddenly got very nervous.
The ceremony flew by and before we knew it, we were married, bar a little paperwork. As a bit of fun we had chosen Stevie Wonder’s “Signed, Sealed, Delivered I’m Yours” to play whilst we signed the register. Or rather, signed the register, then posted for lots of photographs of pretending to sign the register.
Whilst our guests where filing out to “Here Comes the Sun” I was able to get our marriage certificate and a couple of copies and safely put it way in my jacket pocket.
We had arranged a drinks reception in the Town Hall, but before that I was keen that we got a group photograph.
It is difficult not to be impressed by Rochdale Town Hall and our American guests in particular where amazed by the building. We would have exclusive use for an hour or so, including the balcony.
As it had by now passed twelve, it was time for a little drink. Some of the guests took the opportunity to do some exploring.
My friend and colleague Jonathan, who is Partnership Director for the Town Hall Restoration Project, had taken the opportunity to escape his office and act as tour guide as people marvelled at the Great Hall.
The main staircase at the Town Hall is something of a favourite for wedding photographers and obvious we took advantage of this. The stained glass is some of the best of its type in the world and shows the trading relationships between Rochdale and the rest of the world.
The balcony provided another opportunity for a group photograph.
This was a multiple venue wedding and the rest of the day work take place a dozen miles away in Manchester. Rather than expect everyone to drive themselves in to the city centre, we wanted to lay on something a little bit special.
Booking the bus, I had the opportunity to book either London Transport red or Blackpool Corporation cream and green. Obviously, I chose Blackpool, in part because vintage red routemasters are a bit common, but mainly because I thought my godmother would like it. She is a Blackpool native, although one that has lived in the US for nearly forty years.
The journey in to Manchester was fun, involving a section of motorway, then in Harpurhey a drunk boarding the bus. He was politely repelled!
We were dropped off on Thomas Street, on the edge of the Northern Quarter and walk the last hundred yards to our reception at 63 Degrees.
We had celebrated our engagement at 63 Degrees and really enjoyed the experience. We wanted to really treat our guests and give them a meal that they would remember.
We enjoyed a wonderful meal, with starters of duck or a vegetable terrine and main courses of the chicken cooked to 63 degrees that give the restaurant its name, monkfish or an asparagus risotto. After the meal it was time for speeches.
Jill’s dad, John had asked my advice on his speech. My view was that the best type of speech in this situation fills two basic criteria, it should be short and it should be short and from the heart. He was obviously nervous, but did the job perfectly.
I love the opportunity to give a speech, but despite thinking about the speech quite a lot, I had just three words that I would hang my speech on “thanks”, “love” and “luck”. I also had a job to do and a surprise up my sleeve. The job was present flowers to our mothers, for which I was ably assisted by my best man Rick.
The surprise had taken a small amount of planning and subterfuge. Jill’s oldest friend Claire had not been able to attend, due to living in Hawaii, but I had been in touch with her and she sent a video message, which I was able to play to the room on my iPad. Resulting in happy tears from Jill and Mia.
It is of course the job of the best man to embarrass the groom, but he was generally very kind, talking about the times that we had got ourselves in an out of various sorts of trouble, mainly but not entirely climbing related.
With our reception being in a French restaurant, we followed the French tradition of a spectacular choux construction, it was also dessert. The cake was coming from a patisserie across the city, we got word that it was a little delayed, but we were very happy drinking and talking with our friends and family. When it arrived, it was both spectacular and delicious.
After thanking our hosts, Florence and Eric, we took a taxi across the Northern Quarter to the Malmaison Hotel. We had not told them that it was our wedding day, but somehow they guessed when we checked in and kindly upgraded our fancy suite to an even fancier suite. I would have liked to have had a little rest, but the delayed cake meant that time was a little short and I had to transfer some photographs from an email to a memory stick.
We wanted a small wedding and a very big wedding. What I mean by that is that that we wanted the formal stuff and the meal to be on a scale, whereby we could make it very special to the people who where there, but we also wanted a huge party for all of our friends. Our venue, the Fitzgerald, wasn’t really a wedding type venue, but it had a nice vibe and thanks to the memory stick mentioned above we were able to project images of the formalities.
I took the mike and said a few words, Rick did a compressed version of his best man speech, then we handed things over the DJ and partied.
At the end of a very long, very happy day, we walked back to our hotel through the streets of Manchester, as Mr and Mrs Barton.
It was a truly wonderful day of happiness and celebration, followed by an amazing honeymoon of train and ferry travel that took us to London, Paris, Barcelona and Ibiza. I wish I could do both wedding day and honeymoon every year.
Thoughts and Memories 