Celebrating Great Memories

We’re in Thailand celebrating the fact we’ve been married 10 years. Yep 10 years, a decade! While most couples tend to celebrate their marriage– and all it entails – Steve and I find it impossible to move beyond remembering our truly sensational wedding in Koh Samui, 10 years ago – which is why we’re back in Thailand now. We love this country. More than 60 people braved the journey for our nuptials (from all over the world with only a couple of months’ notice) and we still laugh about it – a lot. That’s a successful wedding in my mind.

This is dawn Jan 16th

On our big day, there were no meringues, no bridesmaids, no groomsmen or anything weddingy really – although we had a lot of flowers, a lot, hey it’s Thailand after all – and instead it was just a bunch of people hanging out for more than 10 days, building up to the big festivities on the 15^thof January 2005. I was also very un-bride-like. Shit, I didn’t even organise it. Steve did. Definitely not much of a bride me, but then I expect it comes down to the fact I never ever thought I’d actually get married. So when I did, it had to be unconventional, it just had to be.

We achieved that.

The memories we talk about, apart from the people who came, are along these lines

Everyone started arriving from the 9^th of January and we landed on the 10^th– still drunk from a brunch in Singapore. Our packing was atrocious! Each day we had new arrivals which meant new party pals every evening, always starting in the Coral Bay Bar and finishing with ridiculousness on our villa deck. New friendships were formed throughout this time, so the wedding became about all of us. I really liked that
The day before the wedding, we had to meet the lovely ladies at the resort for final detail confirmation. It went SO well… “excuse me while I go vomit.” Classy. But that was the week we were having – partying into the wee small hours of the morning. Then again, Steve had organised everything anyway, may as well let him keep going while I have a heave…
The bucks/hens night started with go-karting. All was going well until two cars flipped. There was silence as we all wondered what the hell was going on, and as my panic built thinking Steve was hurt because I could see his shirt from the other side of the track, it turns out our friend Tony had broken his back! FUCK!! The drama was terrible and poor Tony and Jane endured a very long hospital stay in Koh Samui. The good news is Tony was up and walking pretty soon after and is now a proud Daddy of two (with Jane). It definitely wasn’t a funny memory but we’re so glad it turned out well for them. Whose idea was it to go go-karting anyway? Crazy shit in this part of the world. Never again
After the ambulance headed off, a rather sombre group split into boys and girls – except Adrian, he stayed with the girls – and after the boys had enough of being told how handsome they were and playing connect four with the local gals, we ended up merging parties and dancing up a storm. It was a cracking night, concluding in a naked duck race on our deck. I will not reveal the second naked person, but the Welsh guy we met at the bar was the first to clench a coin in his arse cheeks, all encouraged by his wife. I don’t encourage Steve to do such things

Then the day arrived and our transport was an elephant, and while entertaining for everyone else, getting on that bloody thing while wearing a Kebaya, and with a fear of heights thrown in the mix, was not a lot of fun for me. Then people started handing their children to us, so here we are, shitting ourselves, and people give us responsibility for the most precious humans in their lives. Not to forget the crowd on arrival, which was not just the wedding guests. A huge crowd of strangers turned up, taking photos, and all I could focus on was this one rather rotund chap, in black speedos, with a photography vest on (and nothing else) and a rather unfortunate case of body moles. He wasn’t pretty and he took all of my focus away from the crowd. I was totally relieved to get off that bloody beast I tell ya
Then we had a ceremony with eight Buddhist monks. The head honcho was awesome, but as he splashed us with water, Steve and I broke into giggles and couldn’t stop, but you know what stopped it? We had to go to each Monk and give them an offering on our knees. We did this on wooden planks and it was bloody excruciating! Yeah, we weren’t laughing then
We had another ceremony after that – can’t remember why – then it was all in the ocean for a group photo and cosmos all round. At this point, we lost three people on the beach (drunk) and in hindsight, cosmopolitans may not have been the best idea, especially when drinking them by the jug. Coming back to that later
Food is always important when entertaining anyone from Asia – we discovered that early when hosting our first BBQ in Singapore. The mantra is food now, drinks irrelevant. I know, different right? Steve and I were offered first place in line, but as we’d rather keep drinking, we offered first dibs to our Singaporean friends, who jumped at the offer. By the time we got there, all Suckling Pig had been devoured. Steve had a moment of remorse at that point

Elspeth meets her first Lady Boy

The evening entertainment was a Transvestite Cabaret. We were asked what rules we wanted – i.e. how far could they go? – and we said no rules. If people are offended – oh well. Well the Tranny’s came out in all of their gorgeousness and within moments we had vaginas (mostly surgical) on display everywhere. Dunny (Megan) tried to compete, doing cartwheels in a frock with a g-string, and the children who attended the wedding are probably still traumatized, as the dressing room doubled as the child minding room. All up, we’d say people were entertained

Poor Thomski

A highlight of the evening was Tomski being rescued from the beach. He’d passed out drinking cosmos, with a few others, and some of the lads got it in their heads to put him on a sunbed and carry it to the middle of the dance floor. It’s one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen. A green Thomski woke up, straddled by Tina Turner tranny and he didn’t know what the hell was going on – hilarious
The staff at the resort asked us what our limit was for drinks that evening. We said no cap – people can drink what they like. They told us the highest cost wedding to date was an Irish wedding – who drunk themselves through 130,000 Bhatt over the course of an evening. Approx. US$4,000. They suggested they tell us when we hit THB120,000? Sure. However I must say we were slightly surprised when the resort manager told us we’d hit this limit beforewe even sat down for dinner! I believe we still hold the record for the highest spend on alcohol at a wedding, as well as the longest wedding (finished 9am the next day), the most fights, the most drunks, and eight survivors going straight to breakfast. The new arrivals that morning were a bit mystified by our state let’s just say
The speeches were a lot of fun, with heckling from the crowd (LeeAnn’s “baby cheeses”) and Deborah silencing everyone when she stood up and sang opera. It was stunning! Nathalix and Saskia blew everyone away with “Dancing Queen” – thanks girls – and Thomski missed his speech because he was passed out on the beach – don’t feel guilty Tom, your arrival was better than any speech
We had an impressive search and rescue operation, as a couple of people dropped off the radar, one of which was an exceptionally drunk young lady. So 20 people headed out stumbling along the beaches, rooms, paths, etc…. We were glad no bodies washed up on shore the next day
Around 4am, we had an unfortunate misunderstanding between two guests, which ended with one of them sporting some impressive bruising for the next week. All friends now, it was soon forgotten
Emile’s DJ’ing effort. We’d stocked a brand new iPod full of music, expecting the shuffle feature to work seamlessly. Unfortunately being iPod virgins, we didn’t realise you can only shuffle the folders you create, but Mr. Bloemen did a stunning job, keeping everyone on the dance floor all night with tunes ranging from ACDC, Abba, Dido to Josh Wink (just for Siobhan)

Our voluntary strippers

We had a collection of males desperate to strip off and show their wares, none of whom had the Adonis form (but everyone had fun). We had Jen’s jugs in her purple dress, Siobhan’s jugs in any dress, Jane’s jugs would have been included if she wasn’t at the hospital, Dunny kept her jugs in her dress, and of course, the bride’s jugs are always up there with the “best”
The best part of having a wedding in Thailand is there’s no closing time. As a bride and groom, both with the gene for always being the last to leave, we were rather pleased with our wedding having the capacity to finish at its natural end time. While that was 9am the next day, the badge of honour for going the whole hog goes to Jen, Siobhan, Christian, Pete B. Sharifa and Emile. We sure did have some epiphanies during this particular dawn

The dawn contingent

It was chaos and carnage – my perfect wedding. Everywhere I looked people had the biggest smiles on their faces, and I feel such delight remembering back to that time. To those who came – brilliant time, awesome memories. Thank you. To those who couldn’t make it – you missed a ripper, so don’t pike out on the next big night huh? And for those we’ve met since who we know would have LOVED it, wish we’d met you earlier. You know who you are ‘cos we tell you – wish we knew you before our marriage – you would’ve loved it! But seriously you would have.

So let’s get planning for more chaos. How’s this? If I’m still going at 50, perhaps we meet up somewhere exotic again and go crazy – no rules? We’ll shout a night if you can get yourself there? And you’ve been warned with five years notice, so start saving if you’re broke. We’re thinking Sri Lanka??!!

Happy happy still

Finally, to my love, seriously babe, I’m the luckiest girl in the whole world. You are sensational and thank you for loving me as beautifully as you do, it’s amazing being adored by you. I really don’t know what I did to deserve you. Then again, when I asked you last night if I’m still your favourite waste of time, because perhaps “Candy Crush” has taken my place, well you were a little bit non-committal…. #justsayin.

Anyone else have memories to share? Come on, keep us smiling.

Yours, without the bollocks

Andrea

A few more pics….