Beach Wedding of the Year

Where the Bloody Hell Are They?

People by now were getting restless and still the bride and bridesmaids were nowhere to be seen. Everyone was hot and cranky, kids were fighting and punching, and the groom and his mates were getting more drunk by the minute. Stace and I were trying to take shelter under Kara-Lynn's rather inadequate tent, drowning our miseries with bubblies.  We always take advantage of free bubblies; cos you never know where the next one is coming from.

Finally, Whit arrived with her Dad, but still no bridesmaids. Whit started to cry and appeared to be having some kind of melt down. Stace and I edged closer to the boat ramp, where Whit and her maids were going to do their procession.

We could hear Whit's Dad say, "It's OK Flossie, they'll be along any minute, you'll see. Look, Ron's here."

"I'm not called Flossie," howled Whit, stamping her foot. "Ron's bloody drunk, and so is his shit-faced old mother."

"Don't marry him luv, there's a good girl. Let's go back home and have a nice cuppa. You can do much better than Ron Pond."

"I bloody can't," wailed Whit, "and besides, I think I might be pregnant."

Stace and I were so shocked that we both had to take selfies with our mouths hanging open. We thought Whit told us everything.

Just then, the bridesmaids' cars, all four of them, pulled up with a screech of tyres and nearly rear-ended each other. The girls tumbled out, all eating, would you believe, ice-creams, in various stages of devouring. Stace and I just cracked up laughing.

"We stopped on the way for an ice-cream, cos it was so hot and Ron's freakin' borrowed cars don't have air-con," explained a giggling Britnee, the maid of honour.

"Our car even had a hole in the floor," piped up a flower-girl, "and you could see the road underneath."

"You bleeping bitches," screamed Whit, "I've been waiting in the heat for, like, ages and you lot are buying ice-creams? I bloody hate you all."

It didn't take long for Roz to appear on the scene. She grabbed the bridesmaids by the arm, one by one, and marched them to a rubbish bin, where she forced them to put their ice-creams. Some of the girls wiped their sticky hands on their dresses, which were a sheer white fabric, with embroidered yellow daisies. One flower-girl lashed out and kicked Roz in the shins. She howled with pain, but it stopped her in her tracks.

Stace and I, like we said, were gob -smacked. You all would have been too if you'd been there. People who lived nearby were also coming outside to see what the commotion was about and we noticed many taking photos on their phones and chatting to one another. They'd never seen a spectacle like this one.

Roz, by now, had recovered from her kick and was grabbing the girls at random and shoving them into place for their parade down the boat-ramp. Two of the flower-girls wriggled free of her grasp and ran off, laughing and pulling faces. The sun continued to beat down and melted make-up, fake-tans, and heated up drinks. A few people even fainted and had to be taken to Around the World emergency room. Stace and I reckon there's nothing worse than warm bubbly, so we tried switching to Vodka and Cranberry juice, but that was warm too, with far too much Cranberry for our taste. More ice had to be fetched from the Around the World resort. Roz forced Kara-Lynn to go and get it, by grabbing her roughly by the shoulders and spinning her around a couple of times in the direction of the resort. Roz seems to have taken an instant dislike to Kara-Lynn. Fortunately, good old Dr Ray volunteered to go and help.

Whit had kept many of her wedding plans a secret, but Stace and I were finally told that she and the 'maids' were going to walk down the boat-ramp to the music of Summer Love. We didn't know it. Whit told us it was performed by a Seventies pop-group called Sherbet. However, what came out of the crackly old speakers (discarded ones from Around the World resort) wasn't Summer Love, but Horror Movie by another Seventies pop-group called Skyhooks. Ron and Whit are both into seventies mu sic,which is about the only thing they have in common.

The bridesmaids looked confused, but still started walking. Whit let out a long loud wail and Britnee started giggling again. Finally Whit's Dad, Wally, said, "Enough!"

"Joke,"called out Rabbit Man, a DJ who Ron had hired for the day. Rabbit Man also works at Head-banger Central, the music shop in Jewel Park and a few sleazy clubs in the city.

"Just joking around, mate." Rabbit Man could scarcely contain his laughter.

"Shit timing for joking around, mate,"shouted Wally. "Now play what Whit and Ron asked for, you mongrel."

Wally suddenly found his assertive side. Roz tried to butt in, but Wally shoved her aside. "Piss off, you old slag. You're nothing but an  interfering old jailbird. Out of our way."

Roz retreated in shock and, for ten minutes at least, couldn't say another word.

I'm afraid Stace and I were laughing really hard. In fact, we almost wet ourselves, but we were trying so hard not to. You know how it is when you know you absolutely shouldn't be laughing, but you just can't stop. That often happens to me and Stace.

Anyway, the bridal party finally made their way down the boat-ramp with the right music, and the wedding ceremony began. Unbelievably, everyone went quiet, only interrupted by Carly, one of the teenage bridesmaids(and one of Ron's many step-sisters), telling a younger flower-girl to quit scratching her backside.

Coral, the celebrant, dressed in a frothy peach and gold number, droned on and on, rattling off anecdotes about Ron and Whit. We thought those were kept for the reception, Coral.

Then the part came for Ron and Whit to exchange vows and all hell broke loose. Just wait till we tell you how the whole day fell apart. You won't want to miss this.