Hats and suits at the ready, it's officially wedding season.
At the ripe old age of 27, I have now entered into what I am calling the wedding, christening and first birthday era of life. My grandma has told me to be grateful for this as at least I am not at the funeral era yet. So I am not going to complain about the numerous invitations and save-the-dates stuck to my wall as let's be honest who doesn't love a good wedding. But I do truly believe a farm wedding is like nothing else.
My reasoning for this is imagine explaining a traditional, farming family wedding to someone outside of this community.... they would think it all fictional.
For example the explanation of when weddings can and can't happen. It is farming law that you cannot host a wedding during peak lambing, combining or silage time. So you will be inundated with wedding invitations for certain months.
Then we get to the day itself. Firstly, the groom normally decked out in a tweed suit with a shotgun cartridge as his button hole (personally I love the irony of this) arrives on a tractor polished to the high heavens. This is usually his main contribution to the wedding planning, his other contribution we will arrive at later.
The church is boisterous as people have a rare chance to catch up while awaiting the bride, and decorated beautifully with gorgeous country themed flowers but please imagine explaining the use of milk churns to someone who doesn't know what they are.
The bride arrives looking beautiful, the service has farming themes running through it. The happy couple make the most beautiful of promises to each other and once the service is done they arrive outside as man and wife to a pitchfork wielding mob. How else would you describe that certain young farmers tradition?
The happy couple then drives or rides away to the reception on some form of farm machinery. Which will be parked up at the reception for photo opportunities.
And now we get to the groom's other contribution to the wedding. In a lot of occasions the reception will happen at the family farm either in a barn or a marquee. The groom will have either tidied the barn with the use of a tele handler or made sure the grassed area the marquee stands on is top notch. The bride may have been pulling her hair out with everything else to organise, but God, that grass looks good.
The breakfast arrives, the food is always top quality and the drinks are flowing. The speeches are are at times hilarious with tales of Young Farmers or university days and at other times emotional. Congratulations to ‘stormin' Norman Walker for making me ugly cry at the last wedding I attended.
Then it's dancefloor time, the music selection is almost as wild as the shapes thrown. There's always two blokes who, thanks to a few beers, think they can pull off the Dirty Dancing film lift.
Let me tell you, I have been to a lot of weddings and I have never seen this end well. The old saying work hard, but party harder has never been more applicable than at a farming wedding. The party carries on until the early hours and when it's all over and done you can't wait until the next one. Well, once the hangover dies off anyway.
So yes, everyone loves a good wedding but farming weddings are in a league of their own.
