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!

1825: The Happy Couple (or: How I Proposed For Real in #FFXIV)

It occurs to me that a Big Life Event happened during the period when I was doing creative writing on this blog, and thus those of you who only keep tabs on what I’m up to through this site won’t be aware of it. So now seems like as good a time as any to share the happy news that Andie and I got engaged, and we’re getting married in June of this year.

You probably want an engagement story, don’t you? Well, all right, then. Settle down and I’ll tell you one.

As regular readers will know, Andie and I are both regular players of the massively multiplayer online RPG Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. In a recent patch, developer Square Enix added the facility to perform a “Ceremony of Eternal Bonding” with a partner in the game — getting married, in other words. Any character can marry any other character, no matter their gender or race, making it a wonderfully inclusive part of a game that was already extremely inclusive to begin with. I mention this latter fact because Andie and I both play female characters: mine is Amarysse the Hyur Midlander (essentially a relatively normal-looking — albeit “Final Fantasy attractive” — human-type female), while Andie’s is W’khebica the Miqo’te (a race of people with cat ears and tails).

As soon as the Eternal Bond stuff launched, Andie and I knew that we wanted to indulge in it. It’s ultimately a silly thing that doesn’t have a huge amount of relevance to the game as a whole — your main benefits for getting married are that you get a ring that allows you to teleport to your spouse’s side once every 30 minutes and, depending on which package you signed up for, some of which cost real money, a selection of goodies including wedding attire, a two-seater chocobo mount and a minion to give to all your guests when they attend your ceremony — but we still wanted to do it. I also think it’s quite a nice way to acknowledge a real-world relationship in the game itself — though, of course, there are plenty of people who are getting married just for fun.

Anyway. Andie and I got up early on Boxing Day to book our ceremony. Yes, you actually have to book; ceremonies occur at specific times on specific dates, so we had to get in early in order to get a practical slot. Given that we play alongside a lot of Americans, we wanted to book it for an America-friendly time that was also not in the middle of the night for us, so we eventually settled on Saturday January 3 in the evening our time, since you have to book at least a week in advance.

Now, since we’d been talking about getting in-game married ever since the possibility was launched, I’d been pondering secret plans in the run-up to this, and decided that yes, I wanted to put those plans into motion. I had not-particularly-subtly hinted to Andie that I might be interested in buying her a shiny ring, and invited her to indicate a selection of acceptable choices that would not cause me to be thrown out on the street or anything. I did some research, shopped around and eventually settled on one that she’d indicated she particularly liked. I finished work early on New Year’s Eve and snuck into town to see if they had one in stock. They did, but not in the right size; I bought it anyway, as it was more that I wanted to have it as a symbol to go with the proposal than something I could put on her finger right away. (It transpired that she put it on anyway, got it stuck and we eventually had to go to A&E to get the damn thing off again! We now have one in the correct size.)

That was that; the plan was in motion, and there wasn’t really any turning back now. Well, sure, I could bottle it and save the ring for another occasion, but really, honestly, our in-game ceremony felt like an ideal time to do it.

I set to work determining how I was going to do it, including worrying rather more than I probably needed to about whether I should actually ask the question in the game’s text chat function, or just disappear from my keyboard for a few moments and ask her in person. (When we’re both playing, she’s on her computer upstairs while I’m downstairs in the living room, so it’s not as if I could have just turned to her and asked her.) Eventually, I wrote a speech that I felt expressed what I was feeling adequately (albeit perhaps overdramatically) and resolved to deliver it during the twenty-minute period of the in-game ceremony where you are invited to exchange your vows with your partner. Most players who are doing the wedding thing for fun skip over this part or just allow their friends to set off some fireworks, cheer, whoop and holler, but it seemed like the ideal moment to me. So that was what I decided to do.

The day came, and we both logged on to play as normal. While it was tempting to surprise everyone with what I was up to, I decided that it would be prudent to share my plans with at least a couple of people so that I could ensure we had a decent turnout to our ceremony, and that people knew they had to behave themselves appropriately. I sent a “whisper” (private message) to my friend Cyra (aka Phil; we actually met him in the real world a while back when he happened to be in London the same day we went down to see the Distant Worlds concert) and informed him of my plans. He squee’d a bit (well, in a sort of manly way) and then told me to leave it with him; he’d inform some of the other regulars in our Free Company (guild) and between them they’d make sure people were 1) at the ceremony and 2) behaving themselves.

The appointed hour came, and Andie and I rode to the Sanctum of the Twelve in the East Shroud. Our friends were already gathered outside, and one had been crafting multiple copies of a hat that Andie’s character habitually wears, then handing them out to the guests, so we were confronted with a crowd of people all wearing flowery hats. Then it was time to go in; Andie and I were escorted to our separate rooms to get ready, while the guests were taken to their separate waiting room to wait for us both to indicate that we were ready. We both changed into our wedding dresses, rang our Eternity Bells to indicate that we were ready, and then the ceremony began.

Conveniently, Cyra/Phil recorded the whole thing. You can watch it on his Twitch page, because WordPress doesn’t want to embed the video for some reason. 🙂

And, well, this happened.

1787: Eternal Bond

I’m pleased to report that today went somewhat better than yesterday. I feel like I’m still shaking off the aftereffects of the stomach bug I’ve had, but things aren’t quite as bad as they have been, which is nice. I also bought some new headphones (which I promptly forgot to take with me today) and got a new ID card lanyard, which was also nice.

Andie and I got engaged, too.

Hah! That made you look twice, huh. We didn’t really. Well, we sort of did, though not in the traditional sense. Instead, taking full advantage of the new Final Fantasy XIV patch which came out today, we both signed up for the new Eternal Bond ceremony: Eorzea’s take on marriage, with no restrictions on the genders or races of the two people involved. We didn’t actually get “married” in-game today; doing so is more than a simple throwaway thing to do when you feel like it. Instead, it involves a number of different steps, none of which are difficult, but which do demand you demonstrate a certain amount of willingness to help each other out as a couple, which is nice.

First up you have to acquire “Promise Wristlets” by signing up for the ceremony on the game’s website. There are three tiers of ceremony, ranging from the free one (where there’s only limited customisation of the ceremony available) to Platinum tier (where you have the most possible customisation options, a prettier dress and free gifts to offer your guests). Gold and Platinum weddings cost real money, though not very much, and because Andie and I are both idiots, we went for the Platinum ceremony.

After making our intentions clear and being issued with our respective pretty dresses, we were informed that we’d need to prepare our own wedding rings. We worked together to acquire the materials necessary to do so — thankfully the ring itself isn’t difficult to create — and soon enough we were ready to begin our preparations in earnest.

What followed was an enjoyable if straightforward “pilgrimage” quest where we had to visit all the main regions of Eorzea together, find the symbols of the Twelve — the gods of the lands — and pray before them. In doing so, we blessed our respective wedding rings with divine power, ready for the ceremony. We then had the opportunity to talk over what kind of ceremony we wanted and given the ability to customise the chapel to our liking. We had to actually agree on what we wanted, too, otherwise when the big day comes the officials simply pick one of your options and run with it.

That’s all we could do for now; bookings for the actual ceremony — yes, you have to actually book — open on Friday, so we’re going to have to get in when we can and find a suitable time and place to get virtually hitched and invite our virtual friends to come and watch and cheer us on. I’m actually very curious to see how the whole thing goes down; I know a number of massively multiplayer online games in the past have had the ability to get married in them, but I’ve never been in a position where I was actually able to get married to someone, whether “seriously” as Andie and I are doing so, or just to see how it worked with a friend. (I’m a bit of a traditionalist, though; while a virtual marriage isn’t legally binding, of course, I do actually kind of believe it has a certain degree of meaning, and as such I’m glad to be able to do it with Andie; it wouldn’t have felt right even just “trying it out” with anyone else if, say, she wasn’t playing.)

I tell you what, though, even with all the charging past hordes of kobolds on chocoboback on the way to find another pilgrimage stone, getting virtually married is nowhere near as stressful as arranging the real thing!

1055: Tim’s Wedding Day

My friends Tim and Sophie got married today, and I’m sure they’ll be delighted I’m marking the occasion with a blog post hastily composed on my phone because the Wi-Fi at this hotel doesn’t seem to work properly.

It was a very nice wedding, all told. I know people always say that weddings are at least “nice” if not “beautiful” and “wonderful” and so on, but it really was. Taking place at Cain Manor, an old big house (remarkably similar to the one Tim grew up in) near Farnham in Surrey, the whole affair was pleasingly compact in nature — the ceremony started at 4, was over by 4.30 and after not too much milling around we were sat down waiting for dinner. An electrical mishap delayed the food a bit but even with that delay, it didn’t feel like there was too much standing around doing nothing, which was a blessed relief.

Tim and Sophie also decided not to have an official photographer either, which meant there was no standing around waiting for all that shenanigans either. I was relieved about that — one of my least favourite things about other people’s weddings is standing around in the cold while waiting for some person with a camera to finish shouting “Friends! University friends! Obscure cousins neither the bride nor the groom recognise!” Don’t get me wrong, wedding photographers do a great job and I know several people who make a good living from it, but man, that waiting around is dull. I can only imagine what it must be like for the bride and groom, having to pull increasingly-false smiles as their fingertips slowly succumb to frostbite and they’re surrounded by relatives they don’t know the names of.

Andie and I are back at the hotel we’re staying at now. It’s about 4 miles away from the wedding venue, and is called The Devil’s Punchbowl after the nearby park. It seems like a pleasant enough place, though it would be nice if we couldn’t hear all the drunkards in the pub part of the hotel doing karaoke, and it would also be nice if the Wi-Fi worked properly. The room also smells like a dental surgery for some reason, but that’s all right.

It’s been nice to get away for the day. There’s a super-stressful week coming up for both of us — I have jury duty and we’re moving house. I also have to squeeze my usual work in somewhere! Still, I’m not thinking about that right now. Just going to have a nice rest and return to stressing out tomorrow!

#oneaday Day 698: Congratulations Mr and Mrs Burvill

It was the marriage of my two friends Simon and Jennie today, now to be known as Mr and Mrs Burvill. It was a great wedding and I wish them all the best for their life together ahead of them, especially given today’s surprise announcement that a baby is on the way too. Congratulations to them both.

Attending weddings for me is a bit strange these days. Anyone who has been through the breakdown of a marriage will likely know what I’m talking about. On the one hand, you’re super-happy for your friends making a bold and very public statement about their love for one another. But on the other, you can’t help the odd bit of cynicism creeping into your mind.

Don’t get me wrong, I have absolutely no doubts in my mind about Simon and Jennie’s marriage. They’re clearly made for each other, and they’re going to make brilliant parents too. I just can’t help making comparisons to my own failed marriage, now mostly a memory left in the past save for the actual legal bits — a process of healing helped immensely by the lovely lady I now live with. Thank you, Andie.

I know the things that went wrong. Blame lay on both sides, despite things I may have written at the time when it was all collapsing around me. But as with so many things, the dubious benefit of hindsight allows you to look a little more objectively at what happened and realise what went wrong. In some cases, it could have been fixed; in others, the end of it all was an inevitable, unavoidable eventuality.

In my own case, there were elements of both. I shan’t get into specifics here, as that’s not fair to Jane, who isn’t here to say things for herself (obviously), and it’s also not something I particularly wish to dwell on in this particular format. Suffice to say that despite the fact the experience of splitting up nearly destroyed me completely, it’s probably for the best that we’re no longer together.

For what it’s worth, I’m sorry to Jane for my part in the breakdown of our marriage, and I forgive her for her part in it. It’s both our faults, and it’s no-one’s fault at the same time. It’s just something that Wasn’t Meant to Be, and I think in the long run we’re both likely in much better situations than we were in together.

Enough maudlin musing on the past. I have a future to look forward to. While it’s not the rosiest it’s ever been at the moment, things could certainly be much, much worse.

To those who have helped me through difficult times, whether or not you realise it, I thank you.