On to the show!

Paul and Kelly’s wedding reception was held at Addington Palace near Croydon in Surrey. It was an absolutely luscious venue. The Palace is an 18th century mansion set on some beautiful grounds and a lovely golf course annexed to the place. Although used mainly for weddings it is also apparently becoming popular for film, video and television recording ranging from, according to their website, music videos for Girls Aloud to historical dramas. Even The Bill apparently comes and shoots there regularly.

In any case I must admit to being very impressed upon entering the Palace. Unlike other venues which may sometimes cater for more than the one wedding in a day Addington Palace only caters for one wedding a day so that meant that Paul and Kelly had the run of the place. This included the Great Hall (where the dancefloor was located and gorgeous with the impressive giant chandelier), a Library and Lecture room, the room which had the bar, plus about three or four other rooms. It was a massive venue and quite often finding people, if they weren’t in the bar where most people ended up thanks for the free bar, meant searching three or four rooms!

The reception really was just a giant party and it kind of operated on that basis as well. There wasn’t a sort of welcome to formally start the evening – probably due to the fact that people were arriving at all sorts of time. Still, it wasn’t until about an hour into the reception that I saw Paul and probably another half hour after that until I saw Kelly. Kelly’s dress, by the way, was exquisite!

The event officially started at 7.30pm and at around 9pm people started congregating in the Great Hall for the cake cutting and bouquet throwing. This was the first time I saw Paul and Kelly together and weren’t they just so sweet. Even sweeter when they came back about 15 minutes later to dance their first dance.

Although the work people didn’t outnumber the rest of the guests at the wedding we certainly formed a large part of it (with probably around 30 people from work at least in attendance.) We were joking that it was almost like another day at work! At the very least this meant there were plenty of people to talk about but sadly not too many people were willing to brave the dancefloor and it wasn’t until very late in the evening, when everyone was well and truly sloshed, that we could get a few more people out there. (The non-work people, however, were more than happy to get out there and show the stuff.) Though the live band were good and managed to cover a wide range of songs I’m sure I won’t be the only one to admit that they were a bit scary because the lead singer was coming around and singling people out to sing on the mic and also to do dance solos!

By about 11pm people started trickling out to try and get the public transport home. Sandra, Julian and I stuck around until just after midnight which actually was a lot earlier than I thought we would be leaving but still I had a great time and was pleased to see that Paul and Kelly had a great day too. I bet they’re really looking forward to their two weeks off in Mauritius!