Earlier today, Edith was quite innocently using our network to connect from her PC to the server PC to put on some music. Suddenly, both her PC and the server went rather strange, freezing up for around half a second every three seconds or so. The activity lights on both machines’ network ports showed enormous activity, but the system showed no data at all leaving or entering either computer. The internet and network were not accessible from either machine.

Reboots, System Restores, etc. failed miserably, and all the signs point to it being a hardware issue, which is really bizarre - is it even possible for an awkward packet of data to kill the ethernet ports at either end of its path (but not the ports on the hub halfway along its path)? The server had another port, which I’ve enabled, but I’ve now rediscovered the reason why I had disabled it and used the other one in the first place - it drops the connection after an hour or so and you have to disable and re-enable it - fabulous.

So the upshot of all this overly detailed technical moaning is that the server is currently sadly incapacitated, and will probably remain so for the next several days, meaning that the main zoolyweds site will have to be offline until it’s sorted out. I suppose if you happen to go there when I’ve just fixed the connection it’ll be fine, for an hour, but don’t hold your breath. Apologies for the inconvenience, etc., etc. Of course, it could be more inconvenient for you - you could have just had half your networking capability taken out by an inexplicable occurrence.

00:51 update

I’ve found an old USB-ethernet adapter, so hopefully the site will stay online now after all. I did manage to snap the port in half in the process of setting it up, but a bit of cardboard and a lot of sticky tape have sorted that out. What an exciting night it’s been… I look forward to finally getting some sleep now.

I’ve been looking forward to writing all about the wedding day, but at the same time put off by the epic nature of doing so. I’ve decided to try writing it as stream-of-consciousness with headings and see if that works.

This post covers only waking up to getting on the coach to the zoo. Too much detail, perhaps? :)

Waking up.

God it’s early - 6.30am, but excitement means we manage to get up by 6.45am as planned. Paul knocks on the spare room door to make sure Martin and Rosy are awake. Feeling oddly normal so far.

Breakfast.

We bought croissants especially as we had guests. I’d normally eat two, but nerves plus the early time means I can only stomach one. Having said that, I was convinced I wouldn’t be able to eat anything, so I can’t be as bad as I’d feared.

Getting ready stage 1.

Everyone has showers and puts on slobby clothes as we all need to go out before getting ready proper. So far everything’s going well - the only early mishap was our bed drawer jamming, which made getting Martin a towel rather difficult! Martin goes off to get his hair cut - I take a picture of him pre-haircut to see the before and after. Mum shows up earlier than expected; she got an early train because she was up so early.

The hairdresser.

Paul stays behind as we’re awaiting the delivery of replacement trousers for Martin, so Rosy, mum and I walk to the hairdresser. Martin’s just finishing off there when we arrive - his hair looks a good length, but a bit, erm, big. He later explained she’d put loads of gunk in his hair, which he washed out as soon as he got back! Anyway, I’ve had a trial at the hairdresser so know what to expect. Rosy and mum take occasional photos, while I’m getting worried that Paul still hasn’t arrived, which might mean the trousers still haven’t arrived. Eventually he turns up, and after what seems like forever he tells me that the bloke’s rung up for directions so they’ll arrive imminently. Paul gets his hair trimmed, then goes to pick up the flowers.

Still at the hairdressers.

Paul comes back with the flowers just as my hair’s being finished off. I’m wearing a tiara, we have a box of buttonholes and a bouquet, and it still hasn’t sunk in that anything unusual’s happening! Flowers look a little shabby close-up, but I soon realise this is what all flowers are like and they are lovely really. Paul drives us all home.

Proper getting ready.

Boys use downstairs to dress, while girls get upstairs. Rosy gets ready in the time it takes me to apply my minimalist make-up - less in fact, as she comes through to help me out with it! Mum takes photos and Rosy helps me into my dress. Once the dress is zipped up I suddenly start looking like a bride, but *still* don’t feel like one!

Meeting the boys.

Mark has arrived early to sort out some last-minute slideshow changes, so all three are there when I make my entrance - I think they were suitably complimentary ;) Paul and Martin look lovely (Martin’s hair much improved), and Mark looks unready due to the computer stuff. We take a few photos in our back garden, and Dave arrives just as we finish. I try holding my bouquet to see if the full get up makes me feel like it’s real - it doesn’t work.

Journey to Pat and Dave’s house.

We all load up the cars. I’ve got a really vivid memory here. Paul’s in the loo or summat, and the others are outside. I glance out of the kitchen window, and see Martin on the pavement outside. Martin, in a suit and tie, with a rose buttonhole. It hit me then - this is all actually happening, the wedding is today! I rush outside to tell Rosy and get hugs from her and Martin (I think) and get a little teary. Two minutes later though, my brain back-tracks and it all feels rather unreal again :) Soon we set off: I’m in Dave’s car with Paul and mum. I don’t remember much of the journey, other than getting partway out of the estate when mum mentions sneezing or summat and we realise we don’t have any of Paul’s hayfever medicine! A quick visit home, and then we head off to Pat and Dave’s house.

Pat and Dave’s house.

We arrive and see ‘congratulations’ balloons on the drive. Pat meets us at the door, and gets teary-eyed already! Inside are the Mackays and Emily. I’ve not met the Mackays much, especially Katie and John, and they seem really nice. I’m getting compliments already! I think we open a couple of cards, and then: lunchtime. There is a lovely big spread, but my appetite seems to have gone on holiday so I hardly eat anything. Paul has lots of sausage rolls, of course :) The loveseat is out in the garden, so we commandeer it! Gradually everyone else gets food and join us. Thelma and Jack soon turn up with Paul’s maternal grandparents, Joan and Ernie. Everyone looks very smart and brightly-coloured to boot! Lots of handshakes, hugs and kisses.

Still at the Spellers’.

Paul’s paternal grandparents, Bill and Margaret, arrive, as do the Bienkovs with partners, and briefly a couple of Merrimans, who will meet us at the coach stop. More photos in the garden, such as this group one. I like this photo of me with the piano. Being a bride is fantastic for self-confidence - not only do you get everyone telling you how good you look all day (and how well-organised/clever/great you are!), but there is some sort of undefinable quality that actually makes you look better for the day. Don’t tell me it’s just make-up, a hairdo and a pretty dress :p

Heading for the coach.

Rob Merriman plays a dirty trick by ringing the house, pretending to be the coach driver, and saying it had broken down! Mark answers the phone, and to start with we think that Mark is the one playing the trick, so I’m sorry for being annoyed at him :) We nearly left the camcorder behind - imagine the disaster! At the bus stop we spot Nick Merriman in his gorilla outfit! (well, gorilla hands and head, which made the effect even funnier :D) Sadly, we’re yet to see any photos of him in costume, as he overheated and removed it before getting to the zoo :)

Setting off on the coach.

The driver seems very professional and nice. We managed to do our register and check everyone’s on board, and put on our tape of music. The tape player plays back very slowly, so everything drops a semitone or so and we’re sure not to run out of music :) So, to the strains of Neil Hannon singing National Express even more deeply than usual, the coach pulls away and we sweep through Hextable. To the zoo!

Coming up shortly on dlog, in as many parts as it takes, Edith will be publishing a seriously epic write-up of the big day itself in as much detail as she can remember.

In the mean time, there are lots of new photos, pages, and other stuff, including the chance to look at and order prints of all the day’s official photographs, on the main zoolyweds site.

We are back at home after our honeymoon in Paris, which was very nice. We are now wading through lots of lovely cards and presents and lots of not-so-lovely pre-wedding mess, and suitcases of zoolyweds items that need sorting out and somehow preserving.

At some point, perhaps we will actually get around to writing about the wedding day and perhaps the holiday too. Not sure when that will be though…

We got married! Our guests had fun! We had fun too! We’re now so tired it hurts, and we have to be up at 7.30 ready to go to Paris! Goodnight!

3 September? Today? Now? Ooh.

So this is really it - the day that has been in preparation for a good two-and-a-half years is today, and it still doesn’t quite seem real.

Did we really go for a lovely meal with our friends last night in Leicester Square, or is it a false memory brought on through long-term planning and visualising? Well, if it did really happen, we had a great evening, and were only sorry that we had to leave earlier than most in order to get home in time to sort out some last-minute stuff. Thanks to everyone for coming, assuming they really did.

Before that, I think we had a meeting with the half of the best men who isn’t a doctor and could therefore make it, and all the bridesmaids, to talk through the day and make sure everyone knew what was happening when. And I believe that earlier in the day we’d dropped off all the stuff at the zoo and run through a few things there, including testing the music system, which could really have done with a bit more bass (bring on the Winamp Equalizer, hopefully).

What we know definitely did happen - which we can be sure of because it wasn’t something we’d envisaged or planned - was that Martin’s hired suit trousers were more skin-tight than an undersized leotard. (Although Rosy did compliment the appearance of Martin’s rear while he was wearing them, so it wasn’t all bad.) Burton’s informed us that they had another pair in in the next size up, by excellent fortune, so we raced over there in what little time we had, only to find that the bloke had just ‘assumed’ it was some completely different (and rather ugly) trousers, ‘when you said it was a wedding’. We weren’t exactly impressed, nor by his standards of customer service, telling us he couldn’t ‘promise anything’, but he’d see if they could order some in for today. He could, but he neglected to mention at this stage that they offered a home delivery service, which on the wedding day would have been rather useful. It was only when my mum had her excellent Mrs. Angry conversations with them, several times, that they finally agreed to bring the trousers out to us, personally (presumably as a preferable alternative to her final proposal of them paying for taxis for Martin to collect them).

So this morning we’ll be taking delivery of those, as well as having a mass trip to the hairdresser’s, picking up buttonholes and Edith’s bouquet from the florist and double- and triple-checking that we have every last thing we need for today! Oh, and putting on our wedding clothes.

This is all assuming the wedding is really today. The calendar may suggest that it is, as may a range of other evidence, but at least until we’re standing in front of a roomful of people, reeling off our vows, I’m not sure we’ll believe it.

If you’re reading this before setting off: see you soon, and we really hope that every one of our guests has a brilliant day. We’ve been honoured to have our wedding called ‘Best Wedding Ever’ by one guest before it’s even happened. If those are the kind of descriptions we get afterwards, our work here is done. Here’s hoping for a thoroughly enjoyable day for all concerned.

When you spend so long planning and thinking about something, it doesn’t quite seem real, but in a short while we’re off to London Zoo to drop off nibbles, drinks and exciting secret items for the big day tomorrow. Tomorrow! It can’t be tomorrow, can it? Extraordinary.

In the past few days, we’ve finally admitted defeat on the pencil sharpener front, so to anyone sitting on the top table, the sharpener there was meant to be different from all the others, OK?

We’ve also taken delivery of my finished suit jacket, which after a final tweak does now fit comfortably, and even does up without bursting ;)

Yesterday we picked up the Best Men’s suits from Burton’s suit hire, which we wouldn’t particularly recommend for various reasons. Unfortunately we’d only seen the suits in a brochure and they turned out to be interweaved black-and-white thread rather than actual grey, but they look fine from a distance, where the threads all blend into one, and should look fine in photos too. The biggest down side was that the silver ties we’d already bought them somehow managed to clash quite badly with the suits (who’d've thought that grey and silver could actually clash?), so we had to have an emergency shopping session around Bluewater to track down replacement ties. Fortunately posh clothing is about the one thing Bluewater is actually any good for so after some time searching we did find an ideal replacement. Of course, we did this immediately after deciding we were going to be there for the long haul and forking out for expensive drinks to tide us over until we ‘finally’ got home, but never mind :)

Oh, a quick aside I was meaning to post under some awful heading like ‘What you’ve been weight-ing for’ or similar. When the zoolyweds site launched, I weighed 15 stones and 6 pounds, which is firmly overweight. Let it be a matter of record that this morning I weigh 13 stones and 11 pounds, which is still officially overweight but not by much. A victory of sorts, and a fine testament to the diet regime which I really ought to patent - the Paul Speller Eat A Bit Less And Do A Touch More Exercise Diet. Revolutionary stuff.

Anyway, as I said, we’re off to the zoo shortly, with a carful of stuff, knowing that the next time we’re there it’ll be with a coachload of guests, a handful of nerves, a headful of excitement - and a suit full of sweat, if the latest sweltering forecast is anything to go by.

When we have put so much effort into attending to every last detail of our wedding, what could possibly go wrong? The weather, of course.

Neither of us likes the heat, but for obvious two-hour-walk-around-the-zoo-related reasons we most certainly do not want it to rain on Saturday. Ideally, it would be a bright, sunny day (for good photos and an enjoyable walk), but not as hot as it’s being at the moment.

Well, if the BBC weather forecast is to be believed, that’s exactly what we’re in for! The coolest day of the week, but with clear, sunny skies all day. If this turns out to be true, we’ll certainly be delighted. Here’s hoping…

The forecast as it stands at the moment is shown below. You can click on it to go over to the BBC Weather site for any updates.

Oh dear, I appear to have caught the pun-based headline bug from Paul!

I have been very quiet on here lately, but that’s because I’ve been busy, not because I’ve had nothing to say! My stress levels are receding as my to-do list shrinks: the greatest relief for me is that after weeks, nay months, of procrastination, I’ve finally written my speech. When you hear it you’ll wonder why on earth I avoided writing it for so long, as it’ll only last about as long as a chocolate wedding cake will when faced by 60-odd guests waiting for pudding :)

My to-do list is shrinking rapidly - if I were to write it out afresh it would be no more than half an A5 sheet now, and thankfully most items left on the list are quite minor tasks. My main jobs have been the sorts of things that are extremely important but also very boring to write about, mainly consisting of endless organising emails sent to the zoo; to people with special roles on the day; or just to any guests with questions - keep them coming! Amy Vogel and colleagues at the zoo deserve a medal for their patience when dealing with our eye for minutiae and our madcap schemes!

Today we’ve finally finished making all the music playlists we could possibly need (fingers crossed), and we’ve started packing things up ready to take to the zoo this Friday…

…this Friday?! Oh my, I think I need a lie down!

(Oh, and to top it off, my library traineeship finished last week, and I start at university (for the second time) a week after getting back from honeymoon - the fun never stops ;))

With so few days to go, I am delighted to say that we are actually feeling on top of things at last now! My speech is ready at last, and even most of the music is sorted out now, and all in all it’s all feeling a bit more like we’re ready than it was a few days ago.

Saturday saw perhaps the most bizarre excursion of the preparations, though.

For reasons that will become clear at the reception, we wanted to procure seven pencil sharpeners. I first went looking for these a fortnight ago today, and in the first shop I looked in - Wilkinson in Bexleyheath - I found the perfect specimens - an appropriate shape in two appropriate colours. However, they were part of a range of four shapes and four colours, so there were only three that were suitable.

Since then, I have been returning to the shop in my lunchtime every day, and managed to get a further two on Wednesday. However, as the countdown on the right of the page suggests, time is getting rather tight, so towards the end of last week I started looking further afield - Wilkinson in Dartford, to be precise. No luck there, though - the whole range was completely out of stock on both Wednesday and Friday.

So the upshot of all this was that yesterday we embarked on a time-consuming tour of Wilkinson shops in the area, with the sole aim (and this is where it starts to sound ridiculous) of spending a grand total of… 30p. Yes, these sharpeners cost 17p each, but that just isn’t cheap enough, so for reasons I can’t quite work out, if you buy two you can save four pence. Amazing.

The half-good news is that we found one more ideal sharpener, in Thamesmead, but we had to buy a not-quite-so-good one as a fallback if I don’t manage to get one more ideal one this week.

Never let it be said that there is no attention to detail in this wedding. Although actually, I think that’s about the second least likely thing anyone would say about this wedding - after “Oh, it’s in a zoo - that’s a bit boring, why didn’t they go for somewhere more unusual?”