I bet the bride and groom at Saturday's wedding in Wymeswold couldn't believe their luck! I don't suppose they will have envisaged bright sun and soaring temperatures when booking their wedding for October the first! What a bizarre climate we have these days - blazing hot April and October with the coldest summer for 20 years sandwiched inbetween. All very strange, but mustn't grumble eh?
Saturday's proceedings kicked off with a brief rehearsal round at Caroline's house. This went quite well once I established the pitch of the first note of my tenor parts. For the first run through of 'Praise My Soul' I jumped in an octave too low, which was a bit on the 'bass' side. 'Oh Lord My God' went much better and I was then all ready for the wedding. Much merriment was caused by a knock on the door as someone called to ask Caroline about something or other. I think the poor guy was slightly shocked to encounter a choir belting out hymns as she opened the front door!
So off we went in convoy to Wymeswold. On arrival, the eagle-eyed quickly spotted several RAF uniformed chaps outside the church. Personally, I was rather more interested in the GORGEOUS, bright RED classic Jaguar outside the church. A Mark 2 I think, though I may be wrong. T'was a stunning vehicle though!
Inside the church, the choir were to be situated at the front in a part which probably has a specific name, but I confess to being somewhat ignorant of such things. Today's choir was made up of all the gals from 'Enchanted' plus Diane, Dorothy, Sue, Shirley, Michelle, my lovely wife Ruth, sis-in-law Julia, Jeff, Jake, Sean, Ian and yours truly. Hope I've not forgotten anyone there! The vicar gave us all a quick run through of 'the geography' of the wedding as she termed it and said that we'd really need to try and project our voices out to the congregation, something that I think we more than adequately achieved.
Credit is due to the bride who was true to her word and arrived pretty much on time. So, off we went with Oh Lord My God and despite a somewhat tentative first verse from myself, I got into my stride with the final three. One could sense that today's choir was sounding rather good, although it's not always easy to tell. The second hymn again required a tenor part but only in the second verse. This was going well until the last line which I got hopelessly wrong and it all rather fizzled out. After that it was a straight forward rendition of Jerusalem and the usual We pledge to One Another during the signing of the registers.
I must say, despite my one gaffe, this was the best yet. The choir sounded good and the congregation apparently stopped singing during one particular hymm just to listen to us! Cool! The bride and groom left the church through a line of swords outside the church, but we obviously missed this spectacle which was a shame. There were lots of appreciative comments about the choir afterwards, particularly from the bride's father, so it was another job well done and a fun day!
Nothing else for it but for family members to round off the day with a meal at The Quorndon Fox with Ian and Joyce. Despite acquiring third degree burns to the roof of my mouth, thanks to the unfeasibly hot beer-battered mushroom starter, we enjoyed a cracking meal - the chicken, ham and leek pie is to die for! Mmmmmm!
Now my attention must be directed towards the LOROS concert and getting those songs learnt. Prior to the next male voice choir rehearsal though is another lesson with Caroline where the use of the strange rubber band thingy will be revealed!?! So watch this space!
Cheers,
Alyn.
Hallooooo!
ReplyDeleteWell, m'dear, it is commonly called the Chancel although, when screened as on this occasion ('rood screen') behind which sit the choir, then is is sometimes just called 'the choir'.
So there you have it :-)x