Engagement party

We were delighted to attend my cousin’s son’s engagement party. I’m told it is becoming increasingly fashionable to hold an engagement party. We never held a party for any of our children but then they all chose partners, lived with them and then thought of marriage. I don’t think they ever thought of becoming formally engaged. They jumped straight from living together to marriage.

I suppose I may as well air my long standing grievance with my son. He lived with a young lady for several years. I was slightly uncomfortable with this because I thought her parents might also be uncomfortable as they seemed slightly old fashioned in their attitudes. The first time I met her parents I tried to express my feelings. Her mother immediately reassured me by saying she knew my son would marry any time but her daughter wouldn’t have him.

This state of affairs continued for some years until the couple visited us in high excitement to show us the scans of a baby they expected. We duly cooed over these and all was well until a throw away remark by my son saying that knowing they were hoping for a child they had got married some months previously; in fact the previous year. We were astounded. It emerged they had just gone to a register office with two close friends as witnesses and married with no word to anyone else.

I should emphasise we were delighted with our new daughter-in-law. We would have liked to have given her a more traditional wedding day. In fairness she always said she was very shy and maybe it would have been difficult for her. I must admit our motives were not entirely unselfish as I felt that a family day would have been very welcome- I always maintained that weddings were as much for your family as yourself.

We did have one traditional family wedding with our elder daughter. Sadly after many years together they eventually divorced although remain on very good terms with one another. As a post graduate student of New Cross college at Oxford she was able to hold a reception there. The civil ceremony was in a nearby hotel. The college setting was wonderful for the reception and on a pleasant sunny afternoon we could enjoy the gardens. I enjoyed meeting her partner’s family. I’m happy to say we have kept in touch, albeit more distant, with her partner’s parents.

Our younger daughter’s wedding was rather different. In deference to her partner’s elderly grandparents who couldn’t travel they held the wedding in a hotel near to the grandparents home in Cumbria. Both civil ceremony and reception were in the hotel. My disappointment was that they held a second reception for their younger friends in their home city and I never got the chance to meet them. So they remain as names. Our eldest granddaughter was about 3 and enjoyed being a flower girl and having a dress which she could twirl. This latter was an essential requirement.

There was a curious corollary to my elder daughter’s wedding. One of the guests had exactly the same name as her, so was also Alison Hall. Periodically at the reception I would meet the other Alison and make some jocular remark such as I was sure that wasn’t her real name. These sallies were met with quizzical looks which at the time I attributed to my feeble humour. It was afterwards I discovered I had the wrong Alison. No wonder she was surprised.