From This Day Forth

'Special' is a word that gets bandied around a lot, usually with a 'your' in front of it and a 'day' behind it. If you're already so fed up with this that you've thrown your coffee cup through your monitor at the sight of the subject line, I apologise. I'll try to get through the rest of the post without using it.

Like all clichés, it has some truth behind it. Yes, this is an important day, and, while for the pair of you it may be - should be - less important than all that follows, it will be the one day that everybody's looking at you.

Most catalogues, books, websites, whatever, ask you what you want on your special (sorry!) day. Some go so far as to tell you what you want. It's interesting how often what they think you want happens to be what they want to sell. I'd like to ask: what's important to you, as a couple?

What's important? What is unique to the pair of you? What makes you different from anybody else? And how can you work that into your wedding day?

A personal anecdote seems appropriate at this point. My husband and I met at university. To be precise, we met in the university chapel choir. We sang the same part; we stood next to each other; occasionally we shared music, when there wasn't enough to go round. Music - singing - was an important part of our life together, even before we had a life together.

Five years later, by now living in a different city, singing in a different choir, we got married. We didn't even have to think about this one. Of course the choir would sing at our wedding. Of course we'd give them something meaty to sing. Singing was an important part of our life together.

In the event, we had three hymns, two anthems, and a psalm. We put the full music for the hymns and the psalm in the order of service, so anyone who wanted could sing any part they liked. Of course, we could also sing along with most of that, apart from the bits where we were walking somewhere or signing something. We even had a reading that exhorted us to 'sing hymns and psalms and spiritual songs'. We were pleased with the service. It was a reasonable reflection of ourselves, and what we liked, and who we were.

The reception, however, terrified us. More specifically, the prospect of the first dance terrified us. We can't dance, neither of us. We couldn't then and we can't now.

We could, however, sing.

Oh, yes, we did. We had a First Song. We sang the Duet for Two Cats, the most famous work Gioacchino Rossini never wrote, and we nailed it. Because standing up in front of all our friends and family screeching 'Miau' through two octaves was 'us' in a way that drifting around the dancefloor to I will always love you could never be.

So, what's important to you? What is special about the pair of you? Roller blading? The works of Charles Dickens? Wine tasting? Coffee? Doctor Who? Grand opera? Knitting? Hiking? Ruined castles?

And how can you work it in? I bet there's a way. Even if the registry office won't let you bring your motorbikes in because they're worried about oil on the carpet, you can do what you like at the reception. Go away and think about it.

Next: on pleasing all of the people all of the time.