Love

Yesterday I went to a perfect wedding. One of my cousins got married to a lovely woman, in a Quaker Meeting House in Oxford. It was packed, and looked like one of those paintings of Dutch interiors; there was a lot of light oak panelling and the sun shone in beams through the windows and through leafy trees in the garden. I had never been to a Quaker meeting before and was intrigued to see what happened. The Quakers I know include my gay foster cousin's partner and Shima from NIgeria who used to board at our house when I was little. He was a Tiv and went to the Meeting House in Jesmond in full tribal gear. We dropped him off and then went to Jesmond Presbyterian Church, McDad wearing his kilt, before picking him up and going home for Sunday lunch.
Anyway, this was the quietest wedding I have ever been to; every so often friends got up and spoke, before we all signed a huge certificate. Nobody was ordering anyone around; a vicar didn't tell the couple what to say- they just said it without being controlled by a Religion and without Pomp and Ceremony. Rather nice, I thought, for a second time around marriage with two people so utterly in love with each other.
Later, we went and scoffed very nice food and caught up with family talk; I sang them Autumn Love (much scarier than a gig, somehow), and then drove home feeling very happy that true love had been celebrated that afternoon.