The Wedding banned

It's been about six and a half years since we were married. It was a lovely day, which was pleasant, considering the weekends either side of the one we booked were absolutely vile. Mind you there was one vile thing about our wedding day - my head. As the morning went on, my head grew progressively worse until I found myself trying to cope with a near-migraine level headache.

Toffed up, me and my best man got a taxi to the hotel where we got married, and began the process of meeting and greeting various friends and relatives. It was the first time I had met many of the younger ones, and I was pleased to note that they were a fairly well-behaved bunch. I'm not much for children at the best of times and I definitely didn't want any excitable kiddies that day.

Our home-made table centrepiece. Hedgehog, of course!

Apart from our tying the knot, we both agreed that the highlight of the ceremony was when my foster brother, who is severely disabled, acted up at precisely the point I had predicted.

Before the wedding, we had to drop by the registrar's office to discuss things. I was adamant that I wanted Jim to be there, so I was making sure that there would be no objections on the part of the officials. However, I did warn them that Jim has a broad sense of humour and, while unable to speak, he uses his laughs to communicate some things very well. And, being mischievous, he responded well to the question, "is there anyone who objects to these two being married.?"

Cue the snigger.

The registrar hadn't quite believed me when I warned her, so this snigger came as something of a surprise; I knew from our first meeting that, while efficient, she was also officious and patronising.

There was another incident concerning the registrar.
When we moved to discussing some of the finer details of our ceremony, the matter of restrictions was raised. Now, I had heard something about this. If you were to be married in a non-ecclesiastic manner, then the music played should have no religious references. This ban included Robbie Williams' hit 'Angels'.

I objected to this. Not so much for the banning of a Robbie tune (which I rather like, actually), but that there were restrictions being placed on our special day - one we were paying for. Nevertheless, argued the registrar, angels are a religious construct and therefore cannot be played at a civil ceremony.

Ridiculous.

The registrar went further; we were not allowed to choose any music that was inappropriate for such an occasion, and we would have to submit which songs/tunes we had in mind. Julie was also unimpressed.

I burst out laughing, but the registrar was none too happy, and gathered up her papers, saying, "well, I think that's all we need to discuss for today," before bidding us 'Good day' and leaving.

In the end, this was the music we chose for the ceremony. Approved, of course.

• Bride's entrance: 'Horizons' by Genesis
• Signing the documents: 'The Rose' by Bette Midler
• The couple leaves: 'Handbags & Gladrags' by Stereophonics (it's Our Song)

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PS - apparently, the ban on ecclesiastical references in songs has since been lifted.