Wedding allergy and the year of weddings.

My allergy started a few years ago when my beautiful niece, my brother's first of three daughters, married her love and, since then, it has become chronic.

You couldn't find a more idyllic setting than the bush near Anglesea along the Great Ocean Road, Victoria.  We couldn't have asked for better weather: sunny, warm ... perfect. We couldn't have selected more picturesque accommodation.  Cockatoos sat quietly on our balcony railing; sun streamed in through large glass doors.  But, where was I? In bed, of course, sick with what I thought was a head cold.  I felt guilty.  Stop being a wimp.  It's just a cold. "Soldier on" as the adds tell us.  So, I did.

The venue was an amazing bush retreat. A small timber pavilion provided a backdrop to one of the most touching ceremonies I have experienced. The reception, in a cavernous barn decorated with swathes of fabric and chandeliers, perfumed by huge bouquets of native Australian flowers, warmed by crackling log fires, complemented the two nature-loving-adventurers who were vowing to spend their lives together.  It was  beautiful ... but I was sick, really sick.  The reception is a blur. I remember the most magnificent oysters, tray after tray of them, followed by sumptuous plates of food and somewhere, at the other end of the barn, a band ... but that's it. No dancing, no socialising, just sitting in the couch in front of the soothing fire with MLP at my side.  Sick.  It's just a cold.  You're a wimp.  Soldier on ... but I couldn't.

"This isn't a head cold," my doctor announced, when we returned home.  "You have a severe sinus infection."  I felt relieved.  I really was SICK.  I wasn't a wimp.

But then came 2013, the year of weddings.  Three of them!

Number one in Perth.

"Let's make a holiday of it," says MLP.  "Let's do the motor home thing from Adelaide to Perth."  So, we did. Spectacular! A journey everyone should make.  The Eyre Peninsular, the Nullarbor Plain, the Great Australian Bight, Esperance, Denmark, Margaret River, stunningly beautiful parts of Australia.

The wedding reception venue overlooks Kings Park.  The ten piece band rocks the night away.  The food and wine are beyond belief. The bride and her father dance a Croatian jig which brings tears to the eyes ... and I have no voice ... as in NO voice.  I can still dance, eat, drink but being social is more than challenging.


Wedding number two is MLP's first born's.

A perfect day, after pouring rain the day before.  A serene garden setting. A bride so happy she laughs her way through her vows.  And, I am well!  Unbelievable!!  I dance, eat, drink, socialise: a REAL wedding celebration.  Until ... about three am the next morning ... when I find myself prone over the toilet bowl.  24 hour bug ... great! Hello bed, pillow .... toilet bowl.  Bed, pillow ... toilet bowl.  Forget the post-wedding family get together.  MLP heads off to that alone.


Wedding number three. Sydney, the harbour city.

The venue overlooks the water.  A Cruise ship, ferries, sailing boats slide by as we await the arrival of the bridal party.  Kookaburras and magpies watch over the ceremony.  The bride in the softest pink; the bride's maids in stunning, cerise gowns.  Sound too good to be true? Yep. MLP has the worst head cold known to man (No, he's not one of those men who drop at the first sign of a sniffle, quite the opposite.) and I'm doing the seal-wobble-sciatica-walk!  A double whammy!  But ... I did prove it is possible to dance with sciatica ... weirdly ... but regardless, it is possible.

As we lie side by side in our post-wedding, non-marital, hotel-room bed, MLP murmurs between his sniffles and coughs, "Imagine how sick you'd be if WE were to get married ... "

Yes, I'm allergic to weddings. I'm convinced!  No doubt.  And now, it seems, MLP has succumbed as well.  

We have a pact ... there will be no exchanging of vows, in the near future, and no weddings in 2014.  We're too afraid.  Who knows what nasty, evil bug might be lurking ... waiting ... conniving to invade our systems should we dare to attend another wedding?

OS ... that's the place to go in 2014!  I can hear canal boats in France calling our names.

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