Today is the day that brought us to England in the first place – the wedding of Ashley Porath, the daughter of Nancy, one of the Wisconsin “Pink Ladies”.  The weather was absolutely wonderful-69 degrees for a high and sunny all day. You could not ask for a more lovely day.

Since the wedding was not until 2PM we went out for a brief morning walk to see the few sights we missed the last few days, including the very small local museum housing artifacts from the area and life in Corfe Castle over the centuries.  We also stopped in at the visitor’s center to see a model of what the castle would have looked like in its heyday.

The wedding ceremony took place here at the 21 room Morton’s House Hotel where many people are staying. We were asked to not take any pictures during the ceremony so I had to wait until after it’s completion to record some aspects of the event. The actual ceremony was conducted by the local magistrate and her recording clerk. She did a very nice job, interjecting both humor and seriousness to the proceedings which lasted about 30 minutes. Approximately 45 people were in attendance, most of whom were friends of Steven, the English-born groom, who has lived in the US for many years. I came to find he holds dual citizenship which I did not know was possible. We also learned that the marriage ceremony performed in England is also valid in the US. Vows would not need to be retaken in the US.

After the ceremony we adjourned to the dining room for “high tea”.  There was champagne and tiers of finger sandwiches, pastries and scones along with the featured drink-tea. We had assigned seating and met several lovely couples from England and a couple from California, all friends of Steven.

At 5 PM we convened at the entrance of the hotel for some group photos, after which we boarded a 50+ year old double decker bus (red in color, of course) for a tour of several local landmarks (on or near the beach) for more photo ops. The bride brought her prerequisite Wellington boots (we were told that all proper English people own at least one pair of these iconic boots) and dutifully posed for pictures on the beach at Lulworth Cove wearing them while we toasted the newly weds with prosecco.

Back on the bus we went to another favorite beach location called “Durdle Door”, a large rock arch formation on the shores of the English Channel. It was a pretty good hike from where the bus had to park and locals were entertained watching the wedding party and guests winding their way down the path through the woods to the shore for more picture taking.  Thanks to Ashley we all got in our 10,000 steps for the day.

It was now close to dark as we were taken to a small local pub that is housed in a 16th century building where we had a very tasty buffet and continued the traditional wedding celebrations with toasts by the wedding party,  followed by a cute game called “shoes”.  A game where questions are posed to the couple (sitting back to back, each holding one of the bride’s shoes and one of the groom’s shoes) then they answer  questions by raising up either his or her shoe.  It is a cute game we had not seen before. And by the way, they did quite well on their answers.

By the time the DJ music began for those interested in dancing to the wee hours, it was after 11PM and we decided to call it a night as we had to pack for our trip to London tomorrow morning. The groom had hired a local cab for the evening to take people back to their respective hotels on request, which was a nice touch.

All in all it was a beautiful day and an even more beautiful wedding! We are certainly glad we had been invited and that we came to help celebrate the happy occasion.