I have just been to a strange wedding. I have been to a good few weddings in my time after a long career in church choirs and have seen many strange occurences, but never quite so many in one wedding!
The bride was Nigerian and the groom white English. Nothing wrong with that except that Africans keep different time to the rest of us. At the appointed time of the wedding the three or four people in the congregation were told that the bride was running twenty minutes late. Then, about a minute later, it was announced that she had arrived. She came in accompanied by various relatives and friends, many in traditional Nigerian wedding robes. The bride wore a traditional English wedding dress but seemed unable to walk in it without constantly kicking out the front of it from underneath so she didn't trip herself up.
The groom kept fidgeting about and looking nervously over his shoulder as though he was a prisoner on the run and expected the police to turn up at any minute to arrest him. Or perhaps he was worried someone would stand up and declare an impediment. He managed to get the ring on the brides finger without incident but then she put a ring on his finger and it wasn't until after the vows had been made that the groom cried out in pain and tried to take the ring off. It was at this point that it was realised that the ring was on the wrong finger and, worse, was stuck.
During the singing of the last hymn another contingent of Nigerians arrived, including a flower-girl who was very disgruntled that she had missed the actual wedding. The married couple went to the side of the church to sign the registers and there was a big kerfuffle trying to get the pen to work and then an even bigger kerfuffle which, I discovered afterwards was due to the groom having spelt his surname wrongly. It was only spotted by the rector because the best man, who happened to be the groom's father, also signed as a witness, and spelt his surname differently. Rapid alterations had to be made, which gave just enough time for the final witness to arrive at the very last minute, to be hastily ushered up to the front of the church and to sign the register, despite the fact that she had not actually witnessed the marriage at all!
As they say in Yorkshire - "There's nowt so funny as folk".
