Sunday March 4 - wedding Bells (or Teachers, Glenmorangie, Claymore...)

My name's Will and I'm a social alcoholic. It's been two months, three days and 20 hours since my last drink.

Another weekend, another chance to flagellate myself with the birch of sobriety at yet another great British booze-sodden tradition.

This week's hurdle: the wedding. A special day on which a man and a woman give a very public declaration of their love for each other. And all of their friends give a very public declaration of their love for free alcohol, pork pies and Dexys Midnight Runners. (Note: this is true for Brummie weddings but may be hopelessly off mark for other areas, so please insert your own regional variation. In Sheffield, for example, they may go wild for twiglets and Def Leppard, or in Watford for spicy knick-knacks and Elton John.)

Yesterday's wedding took place near Oxford (where natives apparently favour a prawn ring and Radiohead). It involved my old school mate, Matt Cumberlidge, and his beautiful bride, Cathy Succamore. I don't normally include surnames in this blog, but the potential for double-barrelled mirth was too hard to resist. Frankly, I was surprised and slightly disappointed that nobody went for the Cathy Succamore-Cumberlidge gag during the speeches. Just because something is on a plate, that doesn't mean it's not worth a nibble.

For the record, the speeches were all excellent but the biggest laugh came unintentionally, when the groom said: "Cathy is lucky to still have her grandparents around. I had fantastic grandparents, but they can't be here today because they have died. Oh well..."
(The 'oh well' was delivered like he had just been told he'd have to wait two minutes for his pint while the barrel was being changed.)

I knew that a wedding would represent a major challenge to my sobriety. It is, after all, a major set-piece in any drinking calendar. A 12-hour piss-up with some speeches and a white dress (and some stuff at the start about love and commitment, yadda, yadda, yadda.)

On the other hand, I believe that weddings played a large part in starting this tee-totalitarianism project in the first place. Gemma and I went to eight weddings last year. (Yes, I'm at the right age to appreciate the joke behind Four Weddings And A Funeral - unfortunately, it turns out that it's still shit.)
While I genuinely enjoyed all of those occasions, after each one I felt a familiar sense of anti-climax. After weeks of looking forward to seeing my friends and family, I'd realise that I knew absolutely nothing new about them, nor they about me. All that planned catching up and re-bonding was washed away by waves of champagne. Incinerated by flaming sambucas. Pounded to dust by the drunken foot-stomping that my people are genetically-programmed to do when we hear Come On Eileen.

All those intimate conversations and searching questions replaced by "Who's round is it?" and "Is it too early for shorts?", screamed over the wail of the doo-rah doo-rah doo-rah doo-rah-ays. (God, Dexys are a bit of a racket, when you think about it. Sorry, sorry, sorry, I didn't mean it, I take it back, I love you Dexys.)

So, in a perverse way, I was quite looking forward to my first dry wedding. At last, I thought, the chance to savour the moment. To drink it in, not drink it dry. To lap it up, not puke it up. To cherish, not chunder.

Just one problem. There's not much point in savouring the moment when everyone else is absolutely bladdered.

Not unless you want your memory to be cluttered with random soundbites like this one, which I overheard.

"Look at the lunar eclipse."
"That's not an eclipse. That's f***ing cloud."
"Oh, bollocks, I've just spent half an hour watching that."

Or this gem from Gemma, who was infuriated that I was carrying our joint cash in my wallet.
"Give me some money, Will, I'm going to the bar."
"OK, here's £20."
"Don't act like your giving me my pin money. Raj! Raj! He pretends this is his money, but it's our joint money. He's always being a patriarch, he likes to controooool me (continues in this vein for several minutes, while Raj looks tired and confused)"

Or this one, between me and a tearful lady (not Gemma).
"Everyone hates me!"
"No they don't!"
"Yes they do! That girl hates me!"
"No she doesn't!"
"OK. That girl hates me!"
"Don't be daft. She likes you."
"Well, that girl over there definitely hates me."
"Well, erm...gosh, look up there. Isn't that a lunar eclipse?"

To be fair - and at the risk of this sounding like the end of an episode of The Wonder Years, in which I learn a valuable lesson - I realised last night that I was the one with the problem. Weddings are not really designed for catching up. You do that the following day, over a greasy full English, while your hangover has caused verbal diarrhea and slight hysteria.

Nope, weddings are for full-blooded, unapologetic binges (and all that guff about love, dead grandparents etc.)

Bearing this in mind I drank two coffees, which I handily "came up on" just as the band began to play Guns'n'Roses. Tie off, air guitar on, and all thoughts of namby-pamby "conversation" out the window. I had a bloody great time. They even played The Pogues, which are a poor man's Dexys, but enable a certain amount of foot-stomping nonetheless.

It seems strange - and slightly unfair - to have gone through a wedding entirely sober but still wake up with that old nagging doubt: "Was that videocamera actually on me while I was Riverdancing last night?"

Congrats to Matt and Cathy, and thanks for a brilliant do.

Also many congrats to Don and Kate, who informally announced that they are expecting a baby in October, which will definitely be named Malcolm. (OK, so you do learn some new things at weddings, but Kate wasn't drinking so it doesn't count...)