At the wedding

I have survived the wedding.

The predicted showers did not eventuate nor did a threatened storm late in the day when dark clouds covered the sky for a while as the reception got into full swing.

The ceremony started 35 minutes late after Ry, the bride's father, held back her arrival insisting she should arrive fashionably late but forgetting that once at the Cathedral steps the photographer would insist in another quarter hour of photograph taking.

The ceremony was at St Mary's, Sydney's principal Catholic Cathedral, for no other reason than it was the only Church the bride and groom found that could fit their wedding in at their preferred day and time and then only because of the cancellation of another booking.

As a consequence, the 150 invited guests were boosted by a similar number of tourists who happened to be touring the Cathedral at the time and who happily observed proceedings from the rear.


The reception was held at Watersedge which if nothing else has a terrific location on the edge of the Harbour adjacent to the bridge. This photo taken from the venue's website gives an indication of the setup and venue location.

Our table was in the corner at the bottom right of the photo giving us a splendid view of happenings in the reception as well as on the harbour.


The setting became more spectacular as day merged into evening and the city skyline, including the Luna Park across the harbour, became transformed by night lights.

The nibblies on arrival at Watersedge were sufficient in quantity and diversity to constitute a meal of their own almost making the subsequent dinner irrelevant although the white chocolate mousse dessert proved a rich and satisfying finale. The toffee topping reminded me of a scene from Priscilla Queen of the Desert.


Thankfully the friends at the table I was placed with were congenial company and my fears of being odd man out did not eventuate. They were virtually the only people I knew at the wedding apart from the parents of the bride and two other couples elsewhere in the room.

There was plenty of man candy at the wedding, pretty well all of it far too young for me. Once again I had that odd experience of setting eyes upon one attractive man early on in proceedings and then finding him popping into my view time and again in the following hours.

This time it was a good looking, late twenties, blondish type sitting across the aisle from us in the Cathedral. I noticed him from the outset and cast occasional glances his way. As it turns out he was to deliver the first reading so I had the pleasure of hearing him speak in the fine acoustics of the Cathedral early on.

Later on as the reception got into swing I became aware that one of the guests had taken over the microphone and was singing impromptu to us. It was the same blondish man and he was doing a very professional imitation of a Frank Sinatra type.

Then once the dancing got underway, there he was again easily the sexiest male dancer on the floor moving sinuously around and, to my delight, dancing closely and sexily with both men and women, obviously completely confident and comfortable with either gender.

It would be thrilling to imagine that he was gay and even more so that he might be available but my intuition strongly pointed to him being a straight man totally at ease.