This is where I ramble on about the most important day of my life and the most overwhelming.  The events of 2002 seem pretty comical now but at the time I was a bit stressed out, just had the dental work done after constantly grinding my teeth in pre marital anxiety dreams.

Planning the Wedding was pretty straight forward, I'd invite everybody whom I'd ever met or been friends with.  Hmmmm not so easy, I was not paying for the wedding so I was limited to my choices for guests, some annoyingly did not show or had some other commitments (fair enough).  Some friends I never gained a reply from so they are either dead or ignorant, or perhaps dead ignorant.  Between me and my wife to be we whittled a list of 70 guests together that included family as well.  As every good wedding planner knows the list always grows as people somehow get forgotten or invited as a "sorry but can the uncle of an uncle of your cousin kevin attend" letter.  This grew particularly annoying as I was embarrassingly having to ask Dawns parents whether this was ok every other week.  In the end we thought that we would end up having more guests there that we didn't really care for than friends we had omitted due to costs.  This did actually happen and I was pissed off that a member of our guest list ie the extra invite promptly told me "your bride isn't up to much" "you could have done a bit better for yourself" comment.  Tact.

Ironically this coming from an overweight single ginger and pretty pasty young madam made me chuckle.  Somehow she disappeared from all of our wedding shots (now how did that happen?).

Anyhow back to preparations and choosing a best man was first on my agenda.  This however was never going to be a clear cut decision, I needed somebody that wouldn't let me down, and I literally had made a short list.  Jonny lloyd was a good favourite, so was Chris Mann but the problem was I hadn't seen either of them in 12 months.  It seemed a bit unfair to appoint somebody best man whom I had not seen for so long.  The obvious choice was Paul Hextall, after all he had helped me during my time of illness and I wanted to show my gratitude as had it not been for his solid support throughout my months of back pain and time off work life would have been different. The real quality about Hextall was I was not sure what I was going to get (this is a man whom thinks mullets are the hairstyle of the gods).

He gladly accepted and we met for a few sessions of planning our dress ware, it actually ended in two and a half days of "Brian lara" cricket on the playstation and 30 mins bombing around Nuneaton looking for a cheap suit.  If you have ever had the indiginty of visiting Nuneaton the you will know this is possible.  The first disagreement occurred when my mother suggested a £30 suit from greenwoods.  I thought about possibly spending a 100, not 30 quid (after all I was to be married! not a illegal immigrant facing a county court judgement).  As my mum had promised to buy my outfit I felt obliged to go along with her choice.  Then reality kicked in and somehow I managed her to part with £270 for a designer suit from Debenhams.  This is when I thought it was plain sailing, wrong!!!!!! Mr hextall is convinced the best man should be identical to the groom and wear the same shirt, tie, suit and shoes!! I ring Dawn on the mobile and she tells me that in no uncertain terms that this is to happen!  If it does I will not be getting married!  My mother somehow agreed with Paul and bought him the matching tie (which to this day hasn't been worn).  The saga of, is the best man going to clone the groom went on for many weeks, and led to many disagreements.

Im kitted out and feel somewhat peculiar looking so goddamn smart.  Afterall I have worn loose clothing for the last 5 years.  As the wedding was fast approaching I was suffering from morning sickness and terrible stomach cramps (which had been plagueing me for about 18 months).  The doctor had diagnosed me as having IBS, after skewering me on a camera the size of the M1 and having nurses peering at my back passage on a giant telly saying such pearls as "it looks a bit red, Stuart, is it sore???"  I HAVE A CAMERA UP MY ASS IN MY STOMACH BLOWING WIND INTO MY INTESTINES , WHILST SOME CALIPERS ON THE END OF THIS CAMERA RIPS  BIOPSIES THAT I AM VIEWING,AND I AM WEARING A REALLY GAY PINK BACK TO FRONT  DRESSING GOWN.  "Its ok you take your time and don't be gentle just fire it up there next time, oh and by the way could you please lubricate your sony viewcam!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! because im fucking sore".  Although I always wondered what having something up your bum was like, or feared such an unholy thing of happening, I am even more bitter to realise that I do not have IBS but an Intolerance to Yeast and Cows milk.  However I have to thank my good friends Mel and Bob for previously telling me that they knew people whom had "the camera" and said it hurt like buggery!!

All this in mind I am preparing for a wedding with a mysterious stomach complaint.  Hence what happens if I feel sick on my wedding day.  I go to the docters with a high defintion of paranoia regarding stomach problems around the big day.  The Doc prescribes me Valium.

I test the valium and all is ok with the world, or what I recognise of it, no pain just euphoria for a few hours.  I am told that these pills are highly addictive and can cause emotional instability.  Fair enough. However upon Paul arriving at my house on the 5th of september (two days prior) I am lying down feeling incredibly sick.  Everytime the word wedding is announced I want to vomit!!  I am sick 3 times and refuse to answer the phone or eat.  At this point Dawn is phoning Paul every 2 hours checking I am still alive.  I can't do it. I burst into tears and ask Paul to cancel the whole thing as best man.  He told me to calm down fetched me a sick bucket and started to play on the playstation.  My dad then arrives.  I feel and look like shit warmed up and Hextall is wearing minimal clothing, if it weren't for the marriage my dad would have disowned me there and then.  After small talk my stomach is killing me so I lie down.  I am convinced that I have a weird bug.  We have to meet Jonny tommorrow at sheffiled station and meet Sally and Paul, but alls I could think about was getting away from all this madness.

The next day I somehow wander into its not happening denial mode and manage this until midday and then im sick again (I have now passed so much diahorrea that it is painfull).  After sleeping in the afternoon we go and meet my dad and his partner Jane, Dawns parents and Sally and Paul at the hotel where we are due to be married.  Although perhaps the comment of the night was my dads question to Sally and Paul of "Are you bikers by any chance?" was lost on such a nervous apprehensive mood.  We jet off to meet Jonny (whom was 3 hrs late) we get home at 1am and order a curry.  I have a nan bread and chicken curry, jonny curry and chips and hextall some garlic beast of a hot mutha (hence wafting of my suit out of the window to get rid of the eggy garlic meat smell).

After retiring to bed, I couldn't sleep, I was constantly thinking of things that could go wrong or that I would be too ill.  I slept for about 2 hours. Then got up at five and basically kept eating valium pills until the time arrived (by this time I was so zonked I could hardly remember why I was playing snooker half an hour before my wedding, with an increasingly nervous looking Hextall whom was by now chain smoking and kept telling me to chill out).  His nervousness actually helped me to soothe my own feelings of nerves.  Jonny was just Jonny.  You have got to love the little bugger for that!.

After doing my 98th toilet stop in 48hrs I got showered and changed and shook hands with endless amounts of familiar faces from my past.  The photographer arrived (whom looked oddly like Peter Stringfellow) and snapped me and Hextall together.  Then the car arrived and Im whisked off to fill out some forms by the registrar!!  Whom I notice has only one arm.

We gather in the room and wait for what seems to be ages, the naseua is bad now and I have to sit down.  The music starts and Dawn arrives, one look at her beautiful face in that dress and my throat swells large and im choked up with emotion either that or its an anaphylactic allergic shock and Im going to die.  A tear runs down my face and I realise my ass is going to be married and soon.  We go through our vows and again it settles me to see Dawny as nervous as I am.  We are announced man and wife and sign the register, we pose for pictures and I feel like David Beckham, Steve (Dawns dad) reminds me that im better looking or more skilful or something like that I cannot exactly recall.

Photographs and filming now seems to take an age and all I can think about is eating my meal and getting my speech over with.  We pose for some more photographs in some gardens. Then we congregate into the restaurant for our Wedding breakfast.  I try not to eat too noisily or outrageously as I have 70 guests watching me, a weird feeling nonetheless.

Speeches are announced and I have mine scrawled on a piece of A4, just in case I forget my lines.  It is that this point that I realise I am in deep shit as Steve (Dawns Dad) starts to reel off one of the best speeches I have ever heard.  Not the intro I thought I would have been following but as ever I thanked everyone and tried to get it over with as humanely as possible.  I remember seeing Hextalls face it was like a hamster that an unscratchable itch, he too was nervous, this settled me down.  The best mans speech was written in under 10 minutes and was done by Hextall most expertly whilst munching on a sausage sandwich in his underwear (stinking of garlic from the night before's curry).  He was also in the shadow of Steve the speech meister, he pulled it round by mentioning the Playstation??? and an amazing sentence of how we used to camp together as scouts "we spent many a night under canvas".  My dad's fears were probably returning by the second.

Doing my speech was not too hard, the hardest thing was to ignore Lee with the camcorder as half of the time It felt like I was a dodgy salesman being investigated by Roger Cook.

After much nattering and the classic trying to talk bollocks to everyone in the room before they kick us out had consumed me.  I went for a piss and as soon I returned the evening guests had arrived,  the buffet was laid out and Hextall whom best described as a panther or leopard (or maybe another wild animal) was diving and ripping into sausage rolls and chicken legs as fast as his claws could manage.  He later had the audacity to deny this completely. Hmmm.

It was at this point that I noticed people congregating and gathering into their own little groups.  Myself and Dawn were no longer the centre of attention (the lasso's around our necks had been loosened at last), The Disco was just starting and my legs were killing me due to the new shoe syndrome.  Funnily enough I don't remember an awful lot about the evening as I was so tired I was yawning into peoples faces and I spent the next couple of hours jibber jabbering like a fool.

Finally Me and My Bride went to bed, well Dawn went to bed I was phoning my mates in the other rooms in the Hotel.  Russ was awake, so I legged it to his room for a coffee (except we couldn't find the kettle) so we ate Jonnys chocolates instead.  We watched some godawful Nicolas Cage movie then decided to call it a night, I crept back into my room, secretly listening into the room opposite to hear whether Hextall and Sam were asleep, Thought about playing a practical joke but then thought better of it.

Basically the next day was one big comedown, I watched Billy Connolly with Jonny after I had been back to bed.  I felt exhausted and emotionally drained so Dawn whisked me to the Nhs direct whom claimed I'd simply over done the Valium tablets and I would be less emotional in a few days.

The bags are packed its time to go to Bruges.........................

Bruges, history fueled, nice old buildings and more importantly chocolate!!!  Before we get to Bruges however I have to get down the stairs with our suitcase (which is no mean feat with my spindly frame) and into the Taxi.  Knowing that we are off to a foreign country is exciting but yet daunting, those of you whom know that my diet has been all over the place the last few years, this initself may be difficult in a foreign land.  Anyhow more by luck than judgment we are on the way to London on the Coach, Im travel sick before we even get out of Sheffield but I'm determined not to moan about it as its our holiday and we deserve this.  The coach journey was unexpectably pleasant on all accounts, I'd eaten my lunch already however to settle my stomach.  We reach London by midday after setting off at around 7am, we trawl around the streets desperately trying to locate the Bed and Breakfast (I call it this as it claimed to be a hotel but was nowhere near).  An hour and 20 minutes later with one increasingly heavy suitcase we find our B&B.  I bomb straight for the TV to see if they have Sky Sports, nope, so we decide to watch ITV football Channel aftersome Honeymoon afternoon action.  Dawn was happy Hartlepool beat main rivals 4-1 and I was gorging on our chocolate supply surrounded in wrappers that scattered the room.

The first meal of our Holiday consisted of munchies bought from a local newsagents!!!  We were on a budget and were not paying London meal prices, what's more I would just stock up on breakfast in the morning.  I slept unusually well considering Dawn goes to bed really early due to her ME, I watched Match of the Day with the sound down then crashed out.  Why are hotel rooms always boiling hot???

Woke up alive but poached, we had a shower in what can only be described as a plastic half caravan insertion into our room that resembled itself en suite.  It echoed aswell,  we didn't have many nights here thank goodness.  Breakfast was shocking, no wonder the French hate our country, the shitty bread that was stale and horrible Netto cornflakes were unreal.  There was areal air of dissatisfaction about the place.

Having diced with death at Breakfast and negotiated the tube in order to get to Kings cross we arrived at the euro tunnel with time to spare.  Almost by coincidence as soon we were away from London our trip became much improved.  The train itself was immaculate, with plenty of space to sleep and for your luggage.  I was playing spot the foreigner,  it was too easy a game as all the foreigners were reading books and all the English (Cockneys and Mockneys) were guarding their luggage as if it were gold plated.  I was reading for most of the trip however and eating luxury sweets.  The journey was long but efficient I hardly noticed the passing under the sea.  4 hours it took to finally reach Belgium.  Alls I could think about whilst passing through France was about Jonny (how he had been in England at the wedding a week earlier and now he was in France at home and now we were as well).  France seemed very peaceful.  Belgium seemed very tourist orientated with signs in many languages,  by luck we found a local train from Brussels to Bruges.  It was now around 5pm and we were knackered.  Although I was amazed at how clean the trains were.  A taxi and a stingy tip later (I thought a euro was the equivalent to 2 pounds) and we found our hotel.  Good job we got that Taxi too our hotel was hidden down a backstreet.

 Upon entering the Hotel a smell of freshly cooked Fish entered my nostrils, ahhh, before dealing with my obvious hunger I wanted to check out the room.  I think there has been some kind of mistake as we enter our room. It is the same rating as our Hotel in London but is about 100 times better.  It has a safe, multiple lighting, a desk with complementary gifts, sattelite TV and a minibar.  The absolute bonus is the monster bathroom.  I give Dawn a big hug and tell her that we have dropped lucky in finding this place. I rip out my belongings and begin to make the place look like home (ie a mess).  We then decide to eat which became quite an ordeal as the town was busy there was cyclists everywhere!! Eventually we had Belgian chips and waffles and we sat in the square admiring the city knowing that over the next few days we were going to be blown away by this gorgeous place.