David and Claire Meiklejohn were married on the 16th August 1997, at Hebron Hall in Glengarnock. There now follows a groom's eye view of the big event.
It's Saturday morning and it's the "big day". The best man, David, was supposed to arrive at 10 o'clock, so I expected him around quarter past, which turned out to be about right. We drove to Claire's house (Claire and the bridesmaids were all away getting their hair done) to pick up stuff to take to the reception, took it to the Croft, left my car and drove back to Houston.
The rest of the morning was taken up with playing Sensible Soccer & Doom, eating cheese toasties and finally deciding we'd better get ready. David drove me to the church for around half past two. I finally gave him the rings to look after once we were safely in the church.
After hanging about talking to people for a while and having our photos taken outside the church, the bridesmaids' car arrived, so we thought we'd better go inside. Eventually, everyone else entered, just ahead of the bride and her father. The bridal party were as follows:
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Irene Gallagher Chief Bridesmaid |
Kim Davis Bridesmaid |
Nicola Taylor Bridesmaid |
Claire Gallagher Bride |
David Meiklejohn Groom |
David Renton Best Man |
Andy Gallagher Father of Bride |
The service was conducted by one of the elders at Hebron Hall, William Ewing. It consisted of 8 (yes, 8) hymns interspersed with the vows, advice, meaning of Christian marriage, etc. The hymns were, in order:
While the guests were singing Amazing Grace, the bridal party went over to the table to sign the register, and that was us married. Claire and I walked up the aisle, posed for a few pictures, got in the car, posed for some more pictures and headed off for Moorpark House and the photo shoot.
|
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
The wedding party were driven to Moorpark House, in Kilbirnie, for the wedding photos. The people there were the bridesmaids, bride, groom, best man, the bride's parents, her brother Peter, the flower girl Kirsty and her grandparents. After about 45 minutes, many silly poses and a ridiculous amount of smiling, we went to the reception hotel and had some more photos taken there with my family taking part.
|
|
 |
Once the photos had been taken, we were ushered into the hotel (Hotel de Croft, Dalry) for the meal. First, though, we had to cut the cake (well, create a very slight dent) in front of many hundreds of cameras.
We sat down to the meal, which included a choice of fruity starters, a soup course, chicken or beef, gateaux or cheesecake and then tea and coffee with a bit of wedding cake (made by Claire's great aunt Margaret). Speeches were made by Mr Ewing, myself (Elvis references: it was the 20th anniversary of Elvis's death), Claire's dad, Mr McNeill and David (threatened to tell a lot of scary stories about my brother). Each table had a disposable camera on it to take pictures of the meal and dancing, so we could put together an album of the evening later. After this we milled about while the band set themselves up.
The band (run by Mr McLelland of Beith) were a celeidh band, and played mostly celeidh music, plus a few soft songs and some old favourites. The first waltz was accompanied by The Police and Every Breath You Take, followed by She's Like the Wind from the Dirty Dancing CD. After that, the band got into their stride and the music got faster as the night wore on.
After many invigorating celeidh dances and a few slow ones, the event was coming to a climax with a last big dance. Sensing the impending possible embarrassment, Claire and I left early and retired to our hotel room.
|
|
|
|
|