Wedding well done

What a difference 10 hours of beauty sleep made. I felt as fresh as the orange roses in my bridesmaid bouquet. The church wedding yesterday was luckily not quite as mad as I'd imagine - it's just that I was robbed of my winks on Friday (due to a blackout) and had to wake up at 6.30am and embraced my role as maid of honour.

When we got to F's casa, she was already all made up and we helped her ease into her white princess gown with a gorgeous train lined with buttons and fringed with lace. She was going to buy it after all and promised I can rent it for my future wedding in Italia - in exchange for a plane ticket. Ha.

At 8plus, the brigade of pretty sisters was ready with our bag of tricks when the gang of brothers arrived, geared up to break the door down. We made them perform a song (talent round - they did Bob's "No Woman, No Cry"), answer quiz questions (intelligence - got only 1 out of 4 right - loro sono stupidi!) and ate some horrible concoctions (bravery test - sour, sweet, bitter and spicy delicacies), before P pledged his undying love for her.

After popping the Champagne at 10am, we took off for church in separate cars. P felt like throwing up from the wasabi which we made him brush his teeth with but the poor guy held it in. Soon enough, the guests started trickling in and mass service began after our bridal march-in. The wedding went on like clockwork and I was trying not to doze off after 2 glasses of wine and a full lunch.

After church, we rushed over to P's parents for the traditional Indian blessing ceremony where P and F were fed banana and milk, and their elders showered them with garlands of jasmine and rice. It was beautiful. One of his uncles cried and it was a touching moment for all as we tried to hold back our tears too.

With some help from P's Auntie Sophie, F changed into her splendid blue-orange-gold day sari and stood tall in her 4-inch stilettos. Their Indian lady relatives also shone in their gloriously vivid saris and eye-popping gold jewellery (ooh I can't wait to wear mine tonight!). Then later, we helped F change into her form-fitting dark jade-green cheongsam for the Chinese tea ceremony at her parents. At 4plus, we finally popped up our feet and had a well-deserving cigarette in the breezy shaded garden.

At the Sunday dinner, I busied myself as the wedding coordinator while trying not to trip over my bellissima royal pink and green sari, going onstage to make a speech with Les. Five hours later, the dinner was finally over in a blur and I was more shacked than F the bride! Remind me not to have a wedding please! My ideal one would be to escape to an idyllic isle and sip on a mojito in nothing but a layer of sunblock.