Grooms in Cornwall and Devon

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Grooms Column: Growing Up By Getting Married

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Do you feel grown-up enough to say 'I do'? Nathan Midgley ponders the matter of marriage and maturity...

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Do you feel grown-up enough to say 'I do'? Nathan Midgley ponders the matter of marriage and maturity...

The big problem with other people's weddings, I've decided, is that they so often leave you wondering whether you're mature enough to have your own. Have I got a case study? You know it.

It happened in slow motion. We'd been the first to the dance floor: me, Lucy and our friends Cathy and Steve. Cathy and I had gone over to the bar and, as she headed back to the others, an over-excited toddler tore out of the shadows, playing Run Around For No Reason, a popular recreation for people of that age.



I had one of those strange moments of premonition you get in car accidents, when you do a split-second calculation of speed, trajectory and stopping distance and realise collision is inevitable.

Cathy realised what was happening first because, after all, adults have a better vantage point: they're like lorry drivers, observing the road from on high, while toddlers scoot around like fragile little dune buggies in a world of sturdy legs and shoes and chair bits, just sort of vaguely hoping not to get hit. Nature has, on reflection, got the relationship between height and age the wrong way round.

She stopped to analyse things, which proved fatal. The kid saw her standing still and instinct told him to dodge round her. As he dodged, Cathy's brain completed its analysis, and told her to dodge too.

At the moment of impact she sort of tottered forward, as if trying to leapfrog over the kid like a traffic bollard - a marvellous piece of quick-thinking, but difficult to pull off in a posh frock. Time slowed to a crawl. And then, finally, she went over full stretch like a felled redwood.

The kid, proving far less fragile than he appeared, looked a bit perplexed and went back to playing Run Around For No Reason.

Just a random bit of second hand slapstick, right? Not so. In Cathy's hands were a vodka and bitter lemon for her and an amaretto and ginger beer for the bride. Now picture this: as Cathy goes over, she doesn't try to protect herself. Instead she tenses her wrists and holds her arms high. In the grip of calamity, instinct told her to save the booze. And she did. After ice had been applied to a swollen knee and forearm, she still had a voddy and lemon, and the bride still had an amaretto and ginger beer, which she promptly put away in under 30 seconds.

Is this the behaviour of responsible adults? Is it the behaviour of a responsible adult to have thought 'Ooh, this'll make a good bit for Wed' and have come up with that redwood line within minutes? Was it the behaviour of a responsible adult when, later that evening, Lucy accidentally swore in front of a twelve-year-old because she was just that impressed with his Batman cufflinks?

No, ladies and gents. We aren't ready. But here we are, marching gamely into our future together, with big smiles on our faces and our drinks held high, just in case. Wish us luck.

Copyright Wed magazine 2014