Phil and Daniella Get Married

“I want to go back home to Africa” were the encouraging words from Kieran as we started our first stroll around Cambridge. Surprisingly, this was not an expression of the intense disappointment of the first love of his life marrying his uncle Phil. He’d taken that quite well, the pain eased perhaps by the fact that Daniella has now been replaced by a new girlfriend. No- this was all about the cold weather.

To be fair, the flight from Tanzania to the UK had resulted in a drop in temperature of something close to thirty degrees so perhaps he had a right to complain. Having said that, he was wrapped up in ski jackets, hat and gloves and had attached himself to me in such a way as to get both hands inside my coat. He was being, perhaps, ever so slightly feeble.

Thus it was that last month we headed back to a slightly above zero UK for the wedding of my brother Phil, the second of our generation (after me, of course) to manage inexplicably to convince a woman way out of his league to spend the rest of her days with him.

We arrived on the Thursday, well in time for the Saturday wedding, having experimented with flying SwissAir for the first time. The usual long flight out of Africa (prehistoric man would have managed it faster) followed by a stressy dash through Zurich airport to make the half hour connection. Before long though, we were making our final approach into City Airport, flying over our old house in Erith- a nostalgic experience enhanced by the relief in seeing that the place was still truly a bombsite and selling up had been a masterstroke after all.

A short drive later and there we were, in Cambridge- in temperature, architecture, in fact in all respects a world away from the hot and sticky African city we’d left the previous day. Thursday passed quite quickly- shopping, eating and drinking, before we met up with Daniella’s father, Mike, and his wife for a few drinks. Fortunately we’d booked a mini apartment so were able to keep on partying well after the boys were in bed. We stayed up into the wee small hours with Mike, Daniella’s brother Eric and a number of the bridesmaids, steadily working our way through the bottle of whisky I’d bought as a greeting present. Hours later, with Daniella’s father fast asleep in a chair and the bottle more or less drained, it was clear that this manifestation of the Chubb- Rossi combo had got off to a pretty promising start and we all headed off to bed.

Anyway, rather than going through this on an hour by hour basis, let’s just stick to the important bits. We’ll take it as read that there were lots of enjoyable chats with friends and family in varying states of sobriety, punctuated by shopping expeditions to find the millionth thing “we didn’t have but absolutely couldn’t do without”.

Friday afternoon saw us at the wedding rehearsal. There we met the vicar for the first time- a pretty cool combination of biker and priest who, had either of us been Christian, would have been most welcome to officiate at my and Soma’s wedding. We had prolonged polite negotiations over which order the procession should enter in, before deciding that the American way was best and that the first couple up the aisle would be myself and a young lady called Sarah. I have to say, going up the aisle with a tall blonde lady was a bit of a change, being married as I am to a short Indian.

The procession and the rehearsal went very well indeed. Kieran behaved himself impeccably and listened quietly to all that was going on, unlike his grandfather who was told off by our biker vicar for talking in class!

A day later we were doing it for real. Kieran, Jake, Eric and myself were there nice and early ready to hand out programmes and welcome guests into the Girton College chapel. All of us were dressed in our finery, including Kieran, who was possibly as smart as he’s ever been in his life. He felt very important indeed in his dual role of usher and doorstop (we couldn’t keep the chapel door from closing violently so we wedged Kieran against it). On the whole he did very well indeed. One slight failure came about when he stepped away from the door and almost succeeded in braining his Great- Great Aunt Lorna, but even she took it all in good humour. After the inevitable delay, bride and bridesmaids turned up looking sensational and the fun began.

As with most weddings, the ceremony was both poignant and brief- not brief enough for Rohan who, delighting in the noise made by turning the digital camera on and off was escorted from the chapel by his mother. Before long, though, the new husband and wife and their assorted guests were in an adjoining room sipping champagne. The reception was fun too- although the college itself is obviously quite an austere place, some of the formality had been taken away by naming all the tables after planets from Star Wars. We were lucky enough to be placed on the Death Star- an improvement for me in terms of Star Wars locations. The last I’d visited was Tatooine (not just a planet but a small town in Tunisia) about 14 years ago and I had my shorts stolen by a dodgy hotel owner!

The speeches were good, since both Mike and Jake understood that defining quality of a good speech is brevity. I guess the toughest speech is always the best man’s speech since so much expectation is attached to it. Jake did a really good effort and managed to walk that tightrope of trying to be funny without offending too many people. At least I now realise just what a good choice of wife Phil made; anyone who is happy to send porn magazines to soldiers on active duty in Afghanistan clearly understands a man’s true needs and is fine by me!

After much eating, drinking and dodgy folk dancing we headed off, happy in the knowledge that Phil was now a proper grown up, Daniella had been made an honest woman of, and that we’d met a great bunch of new friends. Although people always seem to leave weddings assuming they’ll meet up with the “other side” again sometime, I really hope that we do so this time. Mike travels a fair bit anyway, so I’m looking forward to seeing him and his wife come to East Africa sometime- apart from anything, there’s another bottle of scotch needing finishing off.

Anyway, we’re now back in Tanzania, with the wedding a happy memory. The photos Daniella and Phil had made are great too, taken by a genius photographer called Mark Wallis- check him out online at www.markwallisphoto.com if you’re getting married. Okay, some of the pictures of me show the unavoidable truth that I now have a bald patch the size of the hole in the ozone layer, but who is ever happy at photos of themselves anyway? Way more importantly, the pictures show a day in which two super people, thoughtful enough to send hardcore porn to Afghanistan, finally tied the knot. Congratulations both and see you here soon!