Sharon and Marks Wedding

This weekend we went up to Oswesty near the north Wales border to the wedding of our friends Sharon and Mark. It took us a couple of hours to drive there, but we got a little confused after parking. The invitation said the wedding was at St Oswolds church, but when we got there we found out that there was 2 churches of the same name. We walked to the first one, and no one was standing out. We found this lady and she told us that we was at the correct church (luckily). She informed us that Mark was in the pub with everyone else. So we joined them and had a nice pint of LandLord bitter. Just what you need before a church service.

The Parish of St Oswolds Church in Oswestry.

Being completely non religious I thought I may burst into flames as soon as I entered the church, but luckily I was spared this indignity for the day :-) At about 12.45 we was all standing out side the church, including the groom, When Sharons wedding car pulled up. She was early!! As soon as mark saw the car he rushed inside the church so he couldn't get a glimpse of her dress. We all quickly followed him in. The bride is normally late, so this was a complete shock. I must add that Sharon looked amazing in her wedding dress, I think Amanda was even crying at the point when she Sharon walked down the isle.

Great looking wedding car.

The wedding went very smoothly and took just under an hour for the service. The vicar was quite humorous and made a few jokes during the service. This makes a nice chance to the usual stuffy services. I think this probably also helped Sharon and Marks nerves. I can quite relate to how they were feeling as I got married 2 years ago.

Sharon and Mark after the service.

After the service everyone went outside so the photographer could take the photos for the wedding album. Everyone was jostling for space to get photos of the couple, I even got in the official photographers way a few times, but I'm sure he is used to it.

Half way through the photos there was a break in the clouds and we had some blue sky, so I quickly grabbed the camera from Amanda and took the above picture of the church. I like shots like these.

Once the photos were finished eveyone made their way to the hotel were the reception was. This was held at the Lion Quays hotel just outside Oswestry. The hotel was very good. They had only finished building it this year so everything was new. We had a room booked there for the night. All the rooms even had nice flat panel widescreen TV's in them, which makes a change from the crap TV's you normally get.

We all sat down for the meal around 4pm. The food was very nice. There was vegetable soup soup for the starter, followed by chicken in redwine sauce with oyster mushrooms. Then profiterols for dessert. After the meal it was time for the speeches. These got off to a rough start as the microphone kept on cutting out. I really don't think this helped Marks nerves, but he delivered a good speech with all the usual mushy sentiments. His best man was next who was even more nervous and he kept on fluffing his lines and jokes. Can't say I blame him though, I hated doing a speech at my wedding. The nerves were horrible.

The wedding cake.

The evening party started around 8pm. This was a typical wedding party, a cheesy disco, Lots and lots and lots of alcohol and a buffet. The buffet was really nice, it was bbq'd burgers chicken and sausages etc. Very tasty.

Today after nursing our hangovers we decided to have a drive around after checking out of the hotel. Seeing as we was up this way, we thought we should see whats about. We decided to cross over into north Wales and went to a town called Llangollen. This was about 20 minutes away. The town is centered around a river. We saw signed leading to a steam railway so we walked over to check it out.


On the way to the railway I spotted this strange shop. They sold bizarre chairs and mushrooms carved out of wood. I like the fact they painted the caravan in the background the same color and pattern as the wall behind it.

View over the canal to the steam railway.

It was very cold today. When we packed our suitcase for the wedding we forgot to pack coats. For the wedding I was wearing a suit, but I wasn't wearing this the following day and only had trousers and a t-shirt so we was very cold.


The railway was cool. You don't see many steam trains these days so I quite liked seeing this one. When one of the trains pulled up and released it's steam, I was surprised at how much billowed out over the platform.


At about 2pm we decided to go and get a cup of coffee and then drive back. We got back around 5pm.