countdown to the wedding

In the build up to the wedding one question asked by many people was "Are you scared/nervous?"  The answer was basically "no".  Now I say "basically" because while I wasn't so worried about the wedding, the bachelor party... well that is where all my fear centered!  I clearly hadn't thought it through properly in Thailand a year before when Karen and I proudly announced to Sly, Listy and Magoo our engagement.  We should have kept our mouths shut and held a secret wedding, therefore I would not have had to worry about a bachelor party!  Oh well, I pretty quickly realised, what does worrying solve?  And, looking at the silver lining, it'll be a great chance to catch up with a whole load of mates, even if they do put me in a dress and tie me to a power pole!

The day finally arrived a week before the wedding.  I met up with the boys at the new Waitangi Park in Wellington and we wasted little time before loading into a convoy of cars and making our speedy way out to Grenada North for some paint ball action.  Everyone was given a pair of matching overalls, I though was thrown some of Ali's army attire.  I got the works, including his bulky "webbing" that still housed his empty ammo cartridges and a bundle of other goodies.  It was kind of a 50-50, on one hand I was more camo'd than everyone else, but, on the other hand I was now recognizable as ANGUS, and the webbing was rather bulky and noisy, no commando rolls for me today!

there would be no "angus running the gauntlet" today!! Yossha!

The teams were split, the old veterans (Ali, Andy etc) vs the young rookies(Chris, Hamish etc), I got put with the young guns.  The first game was a simple, grab the cone in the middle and get it into the enemies base, and lasted all of five minutes before Ali lead his troops to a convincing victory.

The second game involved a reversal of bases, but the same game.  This time though things lasted a lot longer, over half an hour actually, before proceedings were finally brought to a close with Eamon running around informing us Hamish had hurt his leg.  We all rushed to the bottom gully of the course, the most remote spot, to find Hamish writing in pain with a split open knee.  Ali instantly took charge, I must say as a brother it was very cool to watch, and got us to fashion a stretcher out of some logs and overalls.  Everyone grabbed hold of the stretcher and we made our slow way up the slippery banks to the clearing up the top, then we took him down the hill side to the road to await the arrival of the ambulance.  Hamish by this stage had begin to laugh occasionally, and his face lit up when he saw the staff pulling out the nos bottle for him to go hard on.  In no time he was on their stretcher (which paled in comparison to our stretcher!), and into the ambulance for his ride to Wellington A&E.

Hamish basically took one for me, as everyone quickly realised time had now run out and there would be no "angus running the gauntlet" today!!  Yossha!

Next on the days list was some lawn bowls.  Most of us were familiar with how to play as we had played a few games at Chris' bachelor party in September.  So, we quickly set about forming some teams and let the competition begin.  I'm not sure if people were being nice to me, if the way the drinks were being dished out to me later in the night I'm pretty sure they weren't, but, I ended up taking victory in all my games.  A future calling perhaps?... only time will tell.

Byron actually took the shots of the day.  He merely rocked on up, grabbed a couple of balls, half listened to me as I explained the rules and how the balls turn, and let fly.  His first ball avoided all of ours, made a perfect arc, and landed with its side touching the "kitty" (white ball).  Basically, he rolled the perfect shot.  We gave him one more go as another practice and he only went and did it again!  This time he came in from the opposite side practicing his reverse swing, and landed the ball on the opposite side of the "kitty", effectively sandwiching it between his two balls!  As Alan Partridge would I'm sure say, "Premier league!"

After some very cheap beers in the sun and some great action on the greens we all separated for a short while before everyone reconvened at the City Apartments on Victoria Street.  The rented room was small, but big enough to fit us all in.  Everyone watched the NZ cricket team demonstrate how not to bat, before the drinking took a steep step upwards as the games began.

First off I had to see how many fizzies (type of sweet) I could fit in my mouth and then scull some bourbon through.  Turns out 55 shocked a number of people, including myself!  Next up and the 'circle of death' began, though it was more a matter of 'angus's death' as every second card seemed to be a reason for me to drink.  All good though, what else was I really expecting?!  I struggled to the bitter end, and even had to drink the saucepan of beer in the middle, which took me a while but I got there.

Before we left for town Ali had prepared a bunch of questions for me to answer and everyone had to bet drinks if I could get them right or not.  I remember there being an awful lot of Karens top-5's in there.  Questions like "What are Karens top 5 colours?"  I can't even name my own top 5 colours, let alone Karens!  Still I surprised myself by getting her top 4 right.  After a whole bunch of questions, some of which were a bit AO, the outfits came out for me to model before everyone finally settled on what I was to wear, nice to know I had a say huh!

The final instructions before we left were given to me on how I was to use my wand and fly swatter.  The wand was to be used to tap any hot girls on the head, if I didn't I had a price to pay, the fly swat was for swatting ugly girls, again I was being monitored if I failed to do it.  With my swat and wand in place, tucked into my nice pink bumbag full of candy, we made our way to courtenay place.

Town was its usual Wellington self, loaded with ugly chicks!  I quickly realized my right gun (bicep for those not down with anchorman! shame on you) was in for a good work out as I swatted my way down the street.  The best thing was the fact most of the girls were loving it thinking they must have done something right to get the attention of 14 alcohol loaded guys walking past!  The fools!

We bar hopped our way around town to a number of different establishments.  Ali had Byron play a buskers guitar and forced me to sing 'Hey Jude' (yep, that song I "performed" in Japan).  However, it turns out I may have a career after all, I think my downfall in Japan was the Japanese audience, cause man the drunk Wellingtonian's were loving it!!

The rest of the night molded together to make one long, great memory of having a top night out.  I remember Chris getting kicked out of Kitty's, yep, Chris not me, I remember getting handcuffed by a cop, taking a slash on cuba street (it was so easy with a mini skirt on), having too many people write on me with vivid (very hard to get off I must add), and finally falling asleep in a bed with Andy C (though I don't remember the cuddles I aparantly gave him!).

The next day I was very spaced out and in dire need of a good fry up brunch.  After that I was right as rain and the only visible signs of the night before were written in black vivid all over my face and body.

The week before the wedding is a bit of a blur of where we were, what we were doing and who we were doing it with.  I know we travelled the roads between Wellington, Levin and Foxton a number of times.  We met with various people that played a key part in making sure our wedding would be a success.

One thing that does stand out was the Tuesday when Granny arrived from England.  She had been so nice and made the journey especially for our wedding.  I can't remember how many years it had been since I last saw Granny, but it must be about 4 or so.  It was very nice to be able to see her again and talk with her face to face!

On the Wednesday Karen and I had a night off from wedding arrangements, and had a night in Wellington hanging with our respective friends.  It was a nice little break from having to think about a million little things sitting on the 'to do list'.

Before we knew it we were racing around the afternoon before the wedding, collecting the alcohol to take to the venue, picking people up, dropping stuff off, and then having the wedding rehearsal.  What I wasn't too happy about was the rain that had started to fall, and lasted most of the night.  Still, we ran through everyone's placement, both outside and in (just in case), and discussed the major details of what was to happen the following afternoon.  When everyone happily knew what their roles entailed we headed home for a large BBQ and a chance for our families to finally meet properly.

The evening was a lot of fun, with our house filled with family, bridesmaids, groomsmen, friends, a dress maker (still busy making dresses!), and of course Karen and myself.  The food was awesome, big ups mum and dad, the stake was the best I've had for the last 5 or so years!  It was nice for our parents to have a chance to get to know each other better, as well as our friends.

With the evening starting to get on a bit, my groomsmen and I made our exit and made our way to Andy C's place for the night.  Once there we had a quiet time watching a bit of cricket and of course talking copious amounts of shit.  Then it was off to bed for me, for my last sleep as an unmarried man!