1984: [Insert Wedding-Related Lyric Of Your Choice Here]

I am, as they say, getting married in the… wait, no, it’s tomorrow afternoon. 3pm, to be precise.

Today was the ceremony rehearsal, which was rather more informal than I was expecting. Although I’ve been married before, my previous marriage was a civil ceremony in a hotel and as such was a little less dependent on tradition, ceremony and symbolism. Tomorrow’s wedding — which will hopefully be my last — is a church wedding, however, which is altogether more “formal”. The rehearsal, meanwhile, was pretty much just a runthrough of what is going to happen when and who needs to stand where.

We’re having a pretty simple and straightforward ceremony. Neither Andie or I are particularly religious, but given Andie’s family’s ties to the clergy (her late father was a member of the clergy in the church we’re getting married in tomorrow) it felt entirely appropriate to have a church wedding. We did, however, decide to put our respective feet down a little and not have any hymns or traditional organ music, because frankly, both of those things are far too sombre and dirge-like for our liking. Instead, we’re coming in to the same music that introduced our in-game wedding in Final Fantasy XIV, our signing of the register is accompanied by two tracks from the Ar Tonelico series, and we’re leaving the church accompanied by EXEC_COSMOFLIPS/. from Ar Tonelico Qoga. They’re all strikingly powerful pieces of music that will hopefully leave something of an impression on those who hear them, even if they’re unfamiliar with the original context.

Over the last few days, I’ve spent some time assembling the music playlists for the reception afterwards. In keeping with our desire to keep things simple and personal, we’ve opted to not have a DJ or disco, and are instead having music from my tablet pumped through a PA system. That way people who want to get up and dance can do, and those who just want to chill out, talk with people and enjoy socialising can do without some braying idiot bellowing exhortations to gyrate wildly at them. (I loathe wedding DJs, particularly those of the breed that believe everyone should be dancing at all times, otherwise they are somehow a failure.)

There’s another reason for doing things this way, though; taking a DJ out of the equation means that we have control over the music, and as such the playlists I’ve been assembling — a slower-paced one for during the meal and a more energetic one for when everyone’s finished — are made up of a… somewhat eclectic selection of tracks, to say the least, but by doing that I feel that we’ve managed to capture our respective personalities and histories quite nicely. There’s a mix of stuff from our respective youths, some modern stuff that we like the sound of, and some stuff that will only mean something to a few people in the room — bits of the Final Fantasy XIV soundtrack, songs from Love Live!, music from the Ace Attorney series. There’s also Babymetal, because Babymetal, and I think there’s at least one Taylor Swift track in there, if only to placate our Taylor Swift-obsessed guildmate. (He isn’t at the wedding, but he probably appreciates the thought.)

I’ve written my speech and have some ideas on how to ad lib in a few places so I’m not just reading off a card. The venue is pretty much set up, with only a few minor bits and bobs to take care of in the morning. I remembered to bring my suit with me, and my shoes. We have the rings with us.

I think we’re ready to go!

Barring any last-minute anxious posting tomorrow morning — which is entirely possible, as I still feel rather calm right now, which I think is freaking people out a bit — the next time I speak with you all, dear readers, I will be a married man. Hooray!