Oxford Wedding

I went to a wedding in Oxford. Luckily it was not flooded. (Though truth be told, I kind of was hoping to see some floods, you know, just out of curiosity and to be able to say that I braved the floods of 2007.) Anyhow, it was my first time in England outside of London. The countryside is very pretty! Lush green rolling hills! Oxford is pretty different from anywhere I've seen too--lots of Gothic architecture all over the place, since we were wandering through the university. I was hoping to find a patch of grass so that we could take silly bubble blowing pictures while running barefoot on the grass, but all the greenery was behind gates. Finally at the reception site there was a big grassy lawn, but running there would have been weird because 1) the bride and groom were taking pictures, 2) the guests were all sitting along the side of it waiting for the party to start, and 3) the little toddlers were already running all over the place (exactly my plan!)

Dinner was in one of the Oxford colleges. I got the vegetarian meal because the other options were lamb and chicken. I don't like lamb and chicken at a wedding is almost never a good choice. My salad came with edible flowers in it. They were okay, and I even managed to trade a flower for a slice of duck and mango. Score! Dinner also included boiled vegetables. Not a big fan. But my caged mushroom was really good! It was a mushroom caged in a puff pastry.

After dinner, instead of the normal bounce around to pop music, there was a céilidh. What was neat about it is they taught you the steps as you went along. What was not so neat about it was that it was danced in couples. Hetty and I didn't join in because there were more women than men, and since we're both tall, we've already endured years of being the "boy" whenever boys or men were scarce. Besides, I haven't really spoken with Hetty since Beijing. The bride and groom noticed our lack of participation, and came over to ask us to dance. Our somewhat wimpy excuse was no match for their determination, as the bride volunteered to be the man. Unfortunately, all the rest of the guests were appalled at her having to play the man on her very on wedding day. Fortunately (for me anyway), Hetty was the one dancing with her. :o)