Giles Brown
I WAS invited to a wedding in mid June, up in a beautiful hacienda in the countryside between Jerez and Sevilla.
The weekend was absolutely perfect and the guests, who had flown in from London, California and all the fashionable points in between, managed to lower the European wine lake by a good three metres.
The bride looked stunning and, reflective soul that I am, it had me pondering on all things matrimonial. Not my own of course. Being based in Marbella, my relationships tend to work in dog years, where a year with me equals seven years in the real world. The only other place on the planet that this applies is LA, although relationships there tend to involve a higher percentage of feng shui experts, life coaches and divorce lawyers…
If you and your beloved do take the plunge and decide to get married, take advice and do it as far away from Marbella possible, without telling anyone. Otherwise you are in danger of becoming the ‘wedding of the year’ in one of Marbella’s society magazines.
You know the type. They usually take place at one of the big hotels. He normally runs a property or internet company, she is a hairdresser or beautician and one of the pageboys/bridesmaids is the kid that they had from a previous relationship three years ago.
All the blokes wear cream suits or try and do that ‘Resevoir Dogs’ thing with the sunglasses. Although none of them has been to church in decades (apart from births marriages and deaths) a priest/rabbi/druid is flown in from the Old Country to conduct the service. The first song at the reception is normally something by Ronan Keating, at which point everyone rushes to ransack the bar.
Which brings me to another good reason for holding your wedding as far away from ‘Marbs’ as possible. If you have friends like mine they’ll come to your wedding reception, drink the bar dry and make obscene suggestions to the bridesmaids, WHETHER INVITED OR NOT.
And never, ever, hold your reception by the beach. It’s an easy target for the hardened wedding crasher. All you have to do is take your customary stroll along the shore about an hour into the party, walk past the venue and bingo! You’re in.
No one will question the fact that you don’t habitually stroll along the paseo in Armani every day…
None of the above applied at my friends’ wedding of course. The ceremony and celebrations were superb and Tom and Charlotte, I wish you both the very best. And apologies for the minibar incident…
