Shoe disasters, Painted Nails, Jam Pots and 'THE Bouquet'...

It was always the way of thinking with my family- me and my brother are the youngest from a set of 6 Cousins. And we were always the ones with hopes pinned on us for prospects of Marriage and Great-Grand-Babies. My eldest two cousins (both guys and brothers) had had their fair share of Girlfriends- both long and short term- and both are extremely career focussed. I can't for the life of me tell you what either of them do because I don't really understand what they do. One is the Assistant Director of some very famous firm in London (... famous enough that I don't even remember the name, obviously...) and the other is an Accountant or suchlike for Honda. Lots of the moneys coming in, both had plans for their lives. And both involved getting very expensive cars and then worrying about the rest of their lives later, thank you very much. The next two are brother and sister. One is a Geography teacher and hasn't had a boyfriend in a very long time and doesn't really care, the other is living with his French girlfriend in Paris being a translator for various companies and making a career over there. So everyone seemed a bit too busy to bother with the thought of bells and nappies. So me and my brother (Even though younger than me) were always the ones who had to answer the questions of 'when are the wedding bells then?' more aimed at me, and 'how many children do you want then?' aimed at my brother. Strange way of doing it I know, but welcome to my family.

This was all until just over a year ago. 

I shall explain the cousin system through numbers. Eldest cousins are 1 & 2, middle two are 3&4, and then there is me and my brother.

Cousin 2 and his then partner fell pregnant. Huzah, new baby to cuddle and the pressure is off the rest of us for a while. Sadly they are no longer together for one reason or another but according to my Gran who was initially old fashioned thought that it was still brilliant. 

Then cousin 1 proposed to his beautiful girlfriend whilst on holiday somewhere ridiculously nice and then we have the first wedding of the Grandchildren to attend. My Gran was literally beside herself. Excellent for the rest of us too!

Not being a particular girly-girl and having a mother who is even worse it meant we had to put in ALOT of effort for this wedding. I'm not saying my cousin isn't worth it, I love him to bits but we went above and beyond for this one! I had my hair properly dyed this time (hooray) and cut, I got mums hair cut properly (rather than cut it myself and end up nearly in hospital again for cutting off a limb...) we even got our nails painted! Incidentally, don't get Shellac Nails. Mine peeled off after a week and it RUINED them. It took me forever to find a dress, and I find clothes shopping a nightmare to begin with! Then there were the shoes... oh my, the shoes. I do love shoes, even though I can't wear anything with a heel I love them all the same. But it took us five solid hours to find these shoes. We went up and down town for ages, then when I finally found a pair they had my size but they were all dirty from being on the shop floor so we had to go to the next town half an hour away to see if their sister store had the pair... I was so close to texting my cousin and telling him that if I couldn't get these shoes I was wearing my converse whether he liked it or not...

The wedding was absolutly beautiful though. Truely. It wasn't over the top, it was very chic and vintage, the church was tiny, her dress was perfect, my cousin looked awkward in a suit and we all got royally sloshed. 

Big mistake on my part was catching the bouquet. Crap.

I was a little bit drunk, I was joking around with my only other girl cousin (number 3) about catching it... then it happened. I wasn't even looking properly. 

....

You know when you've done something unexpected or silly, and everyone around you stops breathing? Yeah, it was that. Except they wern't looking at me at this point.

They were staring at my poor poor other half.

And then there was ridiculous cheering, more champagne opened, many hands were shaken and many photographs taken of me and Mr B with the flowers, me and the bride, us and the happy couple...

Shit shit shit, what have I just done.

It was a beautiful bunch of flowers I have to admit. I hope Mr B doesn't think I'm expecting anything soon (although a girl can dream, right??? =P)