Yeah, we went to another wedding. Here's a picture.

In fairness, we had a good time, but we are glad that we aren't invited to another one for a year or so.

This weekend just past was part 5 of our 6 part year of nuptial madness, and what a crazy weekend it was.

It started on Friday night when a crowd of us headed up to Grumpy's for the official celebration of Karen's 30th Birthday. This was once one of my favorite drinking venues, but sadly, skyrocketing prices and mediocre service of late have taken the sheen off of this place. Nonetheless, it was a good night, and Karen managed to get herself all partied out, so to speak.

Saturday morning came, and strangely we found ourselves trapped in some bad romantic comedy about a wedding.

Karen was supposed to duck around to Leanne's mums shop to pick up her dress which had been altered. The shop is at Modbury, which is about 15 minutes from our house. However, since Karen spent half the night sleeping on the bathroom floor, she was clearly in no state to do this. No problem I thought, we'll just get them on the way.

There were other sore heads floating around our house from Friday night as well, most notably myself, Steve and our friends Karen and Torsten, so things were a bit lazy so we weren't making great time getting ready. Things took a turn for the worse when Steve let out and almighty F*CK!, having left the pants to his suit in Clare.

By this time, it was 11:15. We had to be in Tanunda (in the Barossa Valley) by 1:30. Karen still hadn't surfaced from bed.

So Steve and I ducked down to the local K-Mart so he could get pants, and I could get some Berrocca to jump start Karen. Sadly, K-Mart had just finished a big sale, and had no suitable pants for Steve. At this point, Steve would have just decided to wear his jeans to the wedding, had he not been the M.C. ! Another thing to get on the way, as well as Karen's dress and the PA from PBA-FM.

We left our house at 11:55, and thanks to a mix of luck, clever navigation from Steve and a healthy disregard for the speed limit from me, we made it to the Church with 5 minutes to spare, having gone via Target for new pants, Modbury to pick up Karen's dress and Salisbury to get the PA.

At this point I guess I probably should mention that the main participants in the wedding were our good friends Matthew and Laura.

Once inside the church, Steve and myself, being photography geeks, sat in the spare seats up in the balcony by the organist, to get the best vantage point for happy snaps.

Up here, the comedy continued.

At one point, towards the end of one of the hymns, I noticed that the dear old lady playing the organ started to get an inordinate number of the chords wrong. I thought nothing of it, until I the end of the hymn when I noticed that the poor old dear had dropped her glasses. They had fallen between the pedals of the pipe organ, and had slipped underneath one and out of the reach of any human hands.

When the pastor started speaking again, the organist got down on her hands and knees and started foraging for her glasses. While she was trying to get her hand under the pedal to get them, she managed to put a nasty gash on her hand, which made things a bit interesting.

All the while, the service continued relentlessly towards the next hymn. Another helpful lady up there attended to the organists injured hand, while Steve tried to fashion his program into a crude glasses retrieval tool. We managed to retrieve them eventually, and the organist had them cleaned and on her face about 5 seconds before she was required to play again.

More hilarity ensued as another lady on the balcony managed to drop her program over the edge onto the crowd below during the last verse of the hymn.

Finally, just to prove that god does have a sense of humour, the pastor incorrectly announced the new Mr and Mrs Anderson as Mr and Mrs Armstrong.

After all was said and done, rings exchanged and kisses kissed, we had a couple of hours to kill before the reception so a few of us ducked down the main street of Tanunda for caffeine and salt replacement.

As for the reception itself, it was an absolute masterpiece of wedding artistry. Meticulously organised, great food, a very tight jazz party band, and an attention to the little details on the tables that would impress even Tonia Toddman. It was romantic without being gaudy, and seeing as they organised it all from Tasmania, you really have to hand it to Matthew and Laura.

My little brother Andrew was the best man, and considering the stories that Matthew let go at his wedding, let Matthew off pretty lightly on the speech. Following this, Matthew had every woman in the room (including his new wife) in tears when he surprised Laura by belting out a rendition of Van Morrison's classic "Have I told you lately that I love you?". It made my glad I am already married, it is a tough act to follow for any future grooms.

They are now off on there honeymoon, a world trip with a very similar itinerary to our trip in 2004. Bastards... I am so jealous! Read about it on their blog.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. It's an in gag, and I'm not going to explain it, but click here for Gazungas!