A perfect wedding day

Here's Becky and Barry tucking into their wedding breakfast after a lovely wedding ceremony (click to enlarge). We all had a wonderful day at The Old Bridge Hotel in Huntingdon where we had great service.

The weather was perfect and all the arrangements ran to plan. The meal was very nice, the wine superb. In the evening about seventy guests were fed from a barbeque on the Riverside Terrace and entertained by a disco.

Think my speech went ok... you can judge for yourself, here it is below. A bit more jokey than typical for a Father of The Bride speech since Barry's Best Man was his six year old son Sammy... although he did a great job with the rings he wasn't quite up to making a Best Man speech, so it was down to me to pull Barry's leg a bit. Hope he understood!

"Ladies and Gentlemen, on behalf of my wife Linda and I, I'm delighted to welcome you here this afternoon to celebrate the marriage of Becky and Barry.

This wedding has been long in the planning and I think you'll all agree it's been a wonderful day so far. This morning's preparations went off well, the weather is just right, the ceremony was touching and we've had some lovely food and wine. I know we're all going to have something special to remember.

It's particularly nice to know, Dusty and Doreen, that the bonds between our two families are now that little bit stronger. We've known each other for some years now and always got on well together. With this marriage we have a formal tie and a shared interest in the happiness and wellbeing of this family of four.

Part of my role is to act as warm up for the magnificent speech Barry will shortly be delivering. I've got to know Barry intimately over the last few years... you may have had cause to question the degree of that intimacy if you were walking along the Ouse footpath towards St Neots a while ago. Imagine the vision that confronted you as you ambled round a corner... an older man, rugged in a Clint Eastwood kind of way, prostrate with bottom pointing skywards. Behind stood a younger man with a gleam in his eye, eagerly donning a pair of tight rubber gloves.

Now I know what you're thinking... of course! they must have been examining an interesting toadstool! And you'd have been absolutely right. Not sure what the walker would have thought, but fortunately by the time the Police arrived Barry and I had moved on.

Seriously thought, Barry, you've been part of the family now for many years and we all enjoy your company. I know how much you mean to Becky, who had her eye on you at an early stage before you had any idea that your future had already been mapped out for you!

I really look forward each week to giving you your tennis lesson with a pint afterwards. I hope we have many more opportunities to get out into the countryside walking together in the years to come.

I know that you love Becky deeply and that you're hard working, caring and considerate. I have every confidence in your ability to look after my daughter, as you have been doing for some time now, and happily entrust her to your care.

And what of my daughter Becky? Linda and I are immensely proud of her, as we are of all our children. We've seen Becky grow from a little girl who showed her caring and inquisitive nature at an early age, to a beautiful and loving mother. She's always been stylish, but seeing her today has made me realise just how elegant she is.

As you may know, her nickname is Sniff... and a nosey theme is fairly common in some of the stories of her. Just one that Beth may remember... when she was very young Becky experimented on her by getting her to smell various herb jars, with somewhat explosive results when it came to the one with curry powder in it!

You all know Becky is very gregarious and loves to keep in touch. Linda had to call the telephone engineer in some years ago, well before the advent of mobile 'phones, because we kept hearing voices on the line. He was really puzzled and couldn't understand it... after extensive tests involving half of BT the engineer could find nothing wrong.

Was it maybe the dearly departed trying to make contact? Or aliens from another world trying to get in touch?

Well, shortly afterwards the mystery was solved... it turned out Becky couldn't bear to be out of touch, had borrowed a 'phone from a friend and was plugging it into what we thought was a defunct socket in her bedroom and calling her friends!

And how about the time you decided you had a life to lead even well after it was bedtime and sneaked out to see friends? Ever thoughtful, you took the back door key so you could secretly let yourself in late at night. Of course you hadn't accounted for your eagle-eyed mum. On retiring for the night she spotted and wondered where the back door key had gone, and put the spare key into the keyhole. I do wish I could have been there to see the panic on your face as you tried to get the back door key into the keyhole, rather than the penitent version that confronted me when you had to knock on the front door to get us up and let you in.

As we all know, the lot of a married man is not always a plain sailing...

The day of reckoning had arrived and the whole human race was amassed in Heaven. God arrived, much as Alan Sugar does in The Apprentice, and said 'I want all the men to divide themselves into two lines, one line for those who were dominated by their women on earth, the other for the men who were in charge. While you're all sorting yourselves out I want all the women to go off with St Peter.'

For a while God turned to talk to his archangels about one or two matters. When he turned around again there were two lines of men. The line for those who had been dominated was so long the end couldn't be seen. In the other there was only one man.

God was angry and said to the first line 'You men should be ashamed of yourselves. I created you in my image and yet you were all whipped by your mates. Behold, the only one of my sons who stood up and made me proud! Listen and learn from him! Tell them my son, what is your secret... how did you manage to be the only one in this line?'

'I don't know' squeaked the man, 'my wife told me to stand here.'

I think I'll make a quick exit now while I'm still in one piece, but before I do I'd like you all to raise your glasses and join together in wishing Becky and Barry every happiness. I give you the toast... to the Bride and Groom."