Well, my younger daughter got married a couple of weeks ago. As the multiple calls each day to her mother testified, it wasn't an easy event to organise among the changing rules of emerging from lockdown. Daughter's plan was to leave the wedding venue in her Audi A4 convertible with veil and stuff blowing in the breeze, so she didn't order a wedding limo. When her mother, Mrs H, found out, daughter was advised in no uncertain terms not to be driving around East Cheshire in her wedding garb, and that I would dress my Jaguar S-Type up as the wedding car, despite its dark red paintwork being the wrong colour for wedding duty.
Immediately after the maternal lecture, with 4 days to go and never having done this before, I pitched in with enthusiasm. My speech was in my suit pocket, a copy was in my son's suit, so I could devote some time to tarting up the old girl. (Insert risque joke here). The interior was given a vac. and the seats wiped with Gliptone. A thorough wash, including wiping behind the door seals where, when I took posession, there used to be a luxuriant growth of moss and algae, preceded two coats of Autoglym polish, some energetic prone polishing of the tailpipes and the application of some frankly diasappointing tyre gloop. I later supplemented the tyre treatment with genererous slarts of Cherry Blossom. Mrs H and I set off to buy some white ribbon to put across the bonnet. In the haberdashery area of the local get-anything-you-want store, a tedious discussion about the correct width of ribbon took place which I managed to halt by finding a packet of white material labelled 'Wedding Car Kit'. Inside was enough ribbon to go down the bonnet of a Bugatti Royale and back and 3 thingies which, if you followed the the faded and obscure instructions, transformed themselves into ribbon bunches to go on the radiator grille and the door mirrors.
The Jaguar doesn't have a 'leaper' on the bonnet and I didn't want to feed the ribbon through the mesh grille because, as it was something I'd macramed up myself, I didn't trust it to stay in place, so the ribbon went through a loop of gardening wire behind the grille. I had thought the obvious place to fasten the door end of the ribbon was a sun visor, but it looked wrong, so it was tied to the grab handles above the front seats. Everything went off a treat and the car looked smart enough in the photos. Nobody mentioned the absence of a scabby 'just married' cardboard plaque on the back.
As the couple made to get into the car I remembered the shoe polish and had to stand arkwardly next to the rear wheel until the dress was out of harm's way. After delivering the bride and groom to their home, and possibly in a serious bid to keep me away from the champagne, I was assigned taxi duty to get those guests who hadn't read daughter's emails from place to place. Even though it was a busy, sunny Friday, many of the locals stopped to let me out of junctions on the strength of the car's ribbons and maybe even my dark suit and sunglasses. A day to remember!
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Excellent. A lovely day by the sound of it.
I've "done" two weddings using a Jaguar XJ12 convertible, belonging to a friend who had offered to do them for friends, and then found he was going to be elsewhere!
The first one was, as people say these days, a nightmare. I thought I was just collecting the bride from a hotel, but when she came out there were three - bride, matron of honour and bride's mother. On the outside this is a fairly big car, but inside it's about the size of a Fiat 500. They were all wearing 6 inch heels and the dress was like a frothy circus tent. They finally squeezed themselves in but there was no way were they getting out without assistance. The pre-stressed bride's mother was frankly grumpy about the unsuitability of the car but I remained courteous as befitted a mere chauffeur. Off we went to the church, on the opposite side of St Alban's.
That was supposed to take 10 minutes but I had allowed about 25. It took over half an hour due to very slow traffic. I was already pretty stressed myself and watching the temperature gauge anxiously, with beads of perspiration on my brow when the engine decided it wasn't going to tick over any more. After a couple of restarts following stops in the traffic, I started to heel and toe it to avoid flattening the battery of the 40 year old beast, not really something you want to be landed with in an unfamiliar car in those circumstances. The beads of perspiration became rivers. The plan was to reverse up the wide path to the church door to discharge the cargo, which I did, almost holing the sump which touched the gate stop. A couple of sturdy ushers helped to extract the passengers, the bride and mother in the back having spent half an hour in stewing heat folded up like penknives.
I did say "never again", but ended up doing another a year or so later - that went much more smoothly.
Last edited by: Manatee on Fri 21 Aug 20 at 14:07
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Lovely story Hawkeye, and so much more personal to use your own car.
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Great move ! My wedding in 2010 - drove the (to be's) MX5 with my best man to the chapel - luckily it was sunny ! I drove her in the car to the reception with the roof down. Great !
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In 1983 I hired my Best man a BMW E23 735 to run us around in.
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There was one of these featured on a 1990s episode of the Bill recently, still a lovely car, ideal for your Baader-Meinhof themed wedding.
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> Maroon Jaguar
..
> maybe even my dark suit and sunglasses.
A Krays themed wedding! Classy! like it.
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We left our wedding reception and subsequently went on a tour of Europe for our honeymoon in my red Westfield. Have I mentioned that before? ;-)
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Was this wedding 1 or wedding 2?
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>> Daughter's plan was to leave the wedding venue in
>> her Audi A4 convertible with veil and stuff blowing in the breeze, so she didn't
>> order a wedding limo. When her mother, Mrs H, found out, daughter was advised in
>> no uncertain terms not to be driving around East Cheshire in her wedding garb,
>>
What's so bad about that?
Not a million miles from you, solicitor daughter of a well-off family drove herself to the church in a LandRover Defender, stopping off for a pint at the pub next door to the church!
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My dad had a white Carlton GLi. E817XSU. One of my friends was getting married on a tight budget and my dad agreed to drive them to the church. White ribbons etc.
Day before the wedding the couple discovered my dad also had a video camera. So he did the videoing and I did the driving!
Loved that car. Rear wheel drive. Bottom of dads street has a 180 degree turn incorporating a sharp gradient. Used to love spinning the wheels round it!
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First Mrs LL..fancy wedding limo from church to her parents palacious gaff 1/2 mile away for pre reception drinks. Then drove new wife to reception in my 205 Gti.
MiL never liked me anyway.
As if I cared
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>> What's so bad about that?
>>
According to Mrs H it was partly to do with not being her idea of the 'done thing', partly to to with the probability of losing Mrs H's hand-me-down veil which had featured in our traditional wedding and partly the fear that Miss H might turn into a traffic hazard by having the train wrap itself round her legs and be unable to control the mighty power of the A4.
Please tell me I'm not the only one here with a life partner prone to irrationality.
Last edited by: hawkeye on Sun 23 Aug 20 at 12:03
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>>the fear that Miss H might turn into a traffic hazard by having the train wrap itself round her legs and be unable to control the mighty power of the A4.
Did she mention the fate of Isadora Duncan? My wife seems to allude to her whenever transport and voluminous clothing are likely to come together.
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>> Please tell me I'm not the only one here with a life partner prone to
>> irrationality.
Goes with the territory. Mars n Venus n all that stuff
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Jaguar S-Type - My £1k Ebay banger as a wedding car - Manatee
