2018 was a great year for weddings; the royal family alone used tax-payers money to pay for two extravagant weddings, and several wrestlers used their own, hard-earned money to pay for theirs. The biggest wedding of the year however, didn’t happen until 27th December and was well worth the wait.
Jarred proposed to me at the most romantic time imaginable; the interval of a wrestling show (https://diaryofadisabledperson.blog/2017/06/08/special-edition-the-perfect-surprise/). I said yes (duh), and we began searching for venues.
At first, we looked at a local gastropub we had visited once or twice, but even after several emails we never heard back from them. The second venue we reached out to was the Royal Armouries, and they responded within 24 hours. We visited the venue, were shown the rooms for the ceremony and reception, and decided on the spot that it was what we wanted. We booked it for 27th December 2018, relaxed due the extensive period we had to organise everything.
Those 18 months seemed to fly past at record speed. We had to book a registrar from the council, buy all the clothes and accessories we would need (dresses, shoes, hair pieces, rings, matching jackets for the wedding party etc.), order a bouquet, choose a cake, choose our music, send out invites, choose a suitable menu, choose our preferred décor, and create a seating plan for the reception. Fortunately, the coordinators were experienced and provided a great service, making the ordeal a lot less stressful than it could have been.
The night before the wedding my bridesmaid and her partner, Wiki and Nathan, crashed on a double air-bed in the living room, which once inflated had to be crawled across to get from one side of the room to the other. Jarred spent the night in a hotel so that his best man could help him avoid a wedding-stential crisis in the morning. My friends cooked and we played video games before having a relatively early night.
In the morning we didn’t have to wait long for the stylist, my bridesmaids’ sister, to arrive. Wiki was the first to get the makeover treatment, and then it was my turn. My thick, frizzy curls are a stylist’s worst nightmare, and it took over an hour just to pin up my hair. We sent Nathan out to McDonalds for fries, which I ate as my makeup was applied, being told when I could and couldn’t start chewing again. Wiki’s sister than helped us into our dresses and shoes, and after several hours of preparation, we were finally ready. Nathan had taken all of ten minutes to get ready.
I plucked my bouquet from the vase and we made our way downstairs to wait for our taxi, which for the first time in my entire life, was early. We arrived at the armouries half an hour before the ceremony was due to begin, so I mingled with family, friends, and soon-to-be-family in the foyer before being led to the waiting area behind the ceremony hall. There I waited with Batman and Robin, who had honoured me with their presence, my dad, and my bridesmaid.
A few minutes later the doors opened, and I made my way slowly down the aisle to Welcome to the Black Parade, because I’ve never really grown out of my emo phase. Jarred stood at the head of the aisle trying not to look nervous, next to my decorated walking frame so that I could sit down after the 15 m marathon I had just completed.
The ceremony opened with a reading by Jarred’s brother, and then after no one had expressed their objections, it was time for the vows. Jarred’s teenage brother provided the rings, and as the ring was slipped onto my finger, I noticed that Jarred was trembling. I wasn’t sure if it was out of fear or excitement, and that is still the case.
Next, I made the same vows to Jarred, thankfully minus the “in sickness and in health” part which in my case seems a bit redundant. As I slipped the ring onto his finger, I had to bite my lip to stop myself from laughing, having just noticed the Darth Vader plaster he was sporting on his finger after cutting his hand on a broken wine glass a few days before.
With that the ceremony closed, and it was time to sign the marriage certificate. This turned into an opportunity for photographs with the bridesmaid and best man, the entire wedding party, and with our parents. It was at this point I realised that I technically have two mothers-in-law, as Jarred’s parents had divorced and his father remarried some time later. Fortunately, both mothers-in-law are nice.
The next hour was filled with the drinks reception, which included taking a few photographs by the large Christmas tree and also the war elephant in one of the museum’s many galleries, as well as mingling with our guests. This was my first meeting with many guests from Jarred’s family as they live so far away from us, and the time quickly passed as I got to know them.
We entered the reception room a little before 6 pm, and I got a good look at the little gothic cupcakes before undertaking my first ever livestream. The livestream was short and sweet, but I put my phone in my bag afterwards as a flood of notifications poured in.
Once I’d ended the livestream, we had the speeches, where my father recounted a rather embarrassing incident involving a hedgehog sanctuary, and asking a member of staff what to do with a dead hedgehog (I had found one the week before on the way to school). Compared to other anecdotes from my childhood this was fairly tame, so I don’t mind to much, even if I am now being spammed with hedgehog emojis from my friends.
The best man’s speech was just as good, noting a theme of violence in our choice of proposal and wedding venues, and stating the statistic that the person most likely to murder you was your wife/husband. Jarred’s speech also discussed wrestling having messaged the wrestling company at who’s show he had proposed, to which they had responded “Didn’t get an invite though, did we?”. They are still adamant that we should have wed in a wrestling ring, as we all know how famously smoothly those marriages go.
The meal followed the speeches, and having dined on carrot and ginger soup, roasted pepper risotto, and strawberry cheesecake I was almost too full to move. Unfortunately, I had to move for a little tradition we call the “first dance”, and we wobbled unsteadily around the floor to The Only Exception by Paramore.
Shortly after the first dance we handed out the cupcakes, and the DJ began to play an excellent set list of rock tracks, from classics like Bon Jovi and Guns ‘n’ Roses, to mid-00’s punk like My Chemical Romance and Green Day.
As the evening progressed, I mingled with guests, spending a great deal of time discussing wrestling with one of Jarred’s cousins in particular. Slowly guests began to drift off until eventually only me, Wiki, Nathan, and Jarred remained. Jarred called a taxi and by midnight we were home.
It took Jarred 40 minutes to unpin my hair, removing a seemingly endless supply of bobby pins and bobbles while I tried not to laugh. Make-up removal required several wads of cotton wool, particularly as the very impressive long-lasting lipstick lived up to its name. It was almost 1 am by the time I crashed into bed, falling asleep almost immediately. Other typical wedding night activities would simply have to wait.
Now we just have the rest of our lives to go…
Diary of a Disabled Person. 
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