Four Weddings and (as yet) no funerals!

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.

Another Prestwold wedding!

With no choir rehearsals to keep the vocal chords in trim it's good that my services are required for a few weddings over the summer.

The latest was on Saturday August 6th at Prestwold Church again, but this time I was to be the only male! The choir was made up of Caroline, Ruth, Anna-Ruth, Amy, Diane, Julia and me with the addition of one non-family member - Olivia from Enchanted. So, as the 'token bloke', any blunders would be glaringly obvious to everyone. No pressure then?

So, with us all looking sensational, me particularly in  a reddy/pinky striped shirt, borrowed from Charlie King with the tasteful addition of my 'Marilyn Monroe' cufflinks, we made our way to the King's new residence in Barrow-upon-Soar. A fascinating house it is too - lots of levels and a very long garden!

A pre-gig run through of 'We Pledge to One Another' went okay except that I kept singing bits of the first verse during the second verse in an attempt to sight read the music. I got the tune right, but messed up the words. Doh! Still, it'll be all right on the night? Or not. . . .

It turned out to be another curious wedding. A highly emotional groom, a bride that washalf an hour, yes, HALF AN HOUR late and two kids running around and playing during the entire ceremony! The Vicar, the Reverend Vince seemed a jolly chap though. On hearing that the majority of the choir were related he then questioned whether any of us had webbed feet! Is that the kind of joke a 'man of the cloth' should be making I wonder? Well, why not!

For our part, the choir did admirably. I think I sang the first hymn 'Love Devine, All Loves Excelling' pretty darned well. However, that was as good as it got for me. While the others did a good job, from a personal point of view, the second hymn 'Make Me a Channel of Your Peace' was a bit of a shambles. I thought that I knew the tune - until I actually came to sing it. The words simply didn't seem to fit the music to me and I rather bluffed my way through it. Never mind, our starring role in singing 'We Pledge' during the signing of the register went (for me at least) a bit better but rather like the earlier run through, I again sang a line of the first verse in the middle of the second! Oops!

So not bad I suppose. Apparently, so miffed was Reverend Vince that there will in future be a maximum delay of 20 minutes after which the choir may depart and still get paid! Quite right too, say I. This 'tradition' of the bride always being late is just not on and over half an hour is madness!

My services are required for another wedding near the end of August and perhaps wisely Caroline arranged a rehearsal last Saturday. It should be another corker and we've got folders of music for this one! Included amongst the hymns was a piece of music for us to sing under the title of 'Caroline Sharpe Singers', at a concert at Trinity on November 19th! Woh!

I'll keep you posted.

Cheers for now,

Alyn