Claires Wedding - 6th July Knowle Church

It was time for another wedding. This time it was Claires tuen. She was marrying Ian. They have been together since Uni so guess it was about bloody time they tied the knot!!! The ceremony was in in Knowle Church with the reception just up the road at Hogarths.

Claire and Ian

Everyone was a bit nervous about the weather seeing as it had been shocking for the past few days (read weeks). But when the time was right it came good with just the occasional shower to dampen things.

After a warm up pint in the Red Lion we went to the church. The ceremony was nice. Then it was back to the pub for another warm up pint. Then we hit the reception. We were greeted by Champagne. Nice. Then some more champagne, then a free bar. Well it would be rude not to really....

Rumours were circulating that the bar was only free until dinner at 5pm. So we had to make the most of it. However in the beery haze we made a slight error of judgement. Rather than stacking the pints on our table it seemed double parking was not allowed - so down the hatch it went. I for one was pretty battered by dinner!!! Nice.

The drinking was combined with a game of croquet on the lawn. Fabulous. Such fun - although I did shockingly badly. Although I am sure there was some dodgy tactics going on and it had nothing to do with the beer and champagne!!! I came last!!!

The croquet battle

They had a quiz on each dinner table to get the cogs whirring. Mentally Challenged as we were known (back to the old pub quiz days) played a blinder and won!!! Ok so we had a little help from Jenna and my folks on the end of a few txts but hey - we just saw it as using all available resources!!! The prize - more champagne!!! Just what we (didn't) need!!!

The gang

Food came, and went, then it was disco time!!! Cheese-o-rama into the small hours. Fire works at night fall too. Fantastic day topped off with a late night curry on the way home!!! Hehe. Oh and there seemed to be some discussion amongst the 'older' members of the group about approaching the big three-O. Something epic has to be done to celebrate. Well Daves suggestion of the 30 highest mountains in the world before we are 30 is errr, an interesting one - we'll put it down to the booze I think. But we settled on Kilimanjaro. The highest peak in Africa. There we go - its on record!!! I'm game.

errr, yes.. ROCK AND ROLL!!!