The shit blog of Paul Chris Jones

Dear Diary. Today I went to a wedding. One of Girlfriend's best friends was getting married. Girlfriend only has two best friends so this wedding was a big deal.

The bride is called Ester Bertran. Ester is somewhat of a celebrity here in Catalonia. She presents a daily segment on an afternoon TV show called Tot Es Mou. It's on the main Catalan TV channel, TV3. So I was hoping the wedding would be a red carpet event, perhaps televised from a helicopter and with special appearances from Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes (or whoever their Catalan equivalents are).

I don't normally get invited to weddings because I have no friends but since I was the boyfriend of one of the bride's best friends, they had to invite me.

The wedding was at a place called La Joia in the nearby town of Llambilles. It was a no-kids wedding so we left 2-year-old with his grandmother and 6-year-old with a family friend.

We arrived at the wedding. It was at a big country house surrounded by a lush green lawn. Strings of fairy lights hung overhead. People milling around wearing fancy clothes. I wore trainers, a cheap pair of trousers, and an unironed shirt from Primark. The trousers worried me the most. They were a light grey colour, nothing at all like the dark denim jeans I usually wear. If you accidentally wee yourself then everyone's going to see the patch of urine. I made a mental note to shake out my willy fully every time I went to the toilet.

Glasses of orange juice sat on a white-clothed table. I got two glasses because I have ear infections and orange juice is good for your health. I drank one glass. It tasted nice. There were bubbles in it.

“Paul, you know there’s alcohol in that right?” said Girlfriend. "It's cava mixed with orange juice."

The ceremony was about to begin. There were a hundred white seats. We sat down. Three women wearing matching dresses sang love songs. They reminded me of the muses from Disney's Hercules. I think I was the only foreigner at the wedding, everyone else was Catalan. I felt like an outsider. I felt like a researcher doing an ethnographical study of Catalans.

The best man gave a speech. The best man was the groom's brother. They're identical twins. They look identical except the best man has short hair and the groom has long curly hair like Bob Ross.

Then the bride's sisters gave a speech. The older sister looked just like the bride, just more wrinkles, slightly bigger teeth, different clothes, and a bandana on her head. The sisters talked like each other too: fast and full of enthusiasm. So far the wedding was like a science fair exhibit showing the effects of genes on phenotypic traits.

I couldn't understand most of what people were saying. My middle ears were blocked with mucus, making me deaf. Flies were buzzing around me and landing on my face, hands, and bare arms. I don’t know if the flies were landing on anyone else or just me. Sitting across the aisle from me was a 40-something milf wearing a thin flimsy dress. Her dress was backless, and she wore no bra, so I could see her entire beautiful back. Her skin was olive-coloured.

Then the little two-year-old daughter of the bride and groom came down the aisle in a miniature white Cadillac, which was remote-controlled by a man walking behind her. The girl looked scared. The Cadillac drove to the end of the aisle and stopped. The bride picked up her daughter. Then there were the "I do"s and the ceremony was over.

I saw my reflection in a window. I looked how a 37-year-old man should look: stiff lower back, hair cut to a sensible length, short beard, and shirt tucked into his trousers. I was impressed. Also my chest is bigger than my waist now thanks to going to the gym. All in all, I might be a solid 6/10.

After that was the lunch. Waiters went around with food on silver platters: anchovy on toast, croquettes, lobster skewers, salmon canard, and mini chicken burgers. Girlfriend and I sat with her group of friends from school. Normally I don't remember their names but this year I'm making a real effort to remember names and details about people. I write it all down on my phone. I took out my phone and typed in the web address of my People database but one of my fears came to pass: the remote country house had no internet signal and I couldn't access my database. I was tapping the refresh button but the webpage was still blank. In the end, I had to relearn everyone's names again.

There was an open bar but as I was driving later, I abstained from alcohol and drank only water. Girlfriend's friends were mostly the same. They were in their early 40s and they don't drink hard anymore. Instead, we stood around talking. It was hard for me to participate in conversations though with two blocked ears. In a strange way though it was also relaxing. Being deaf took the pressure off socialising, so I was free just to stand there and say nothing. A couple of times I even went to the car and read a book.

There was only one black person at the wedding. She was a nubile young woman with a pretty face. In my imagination, at the end of the night, we would steal down to the beach, she would hike her dress up and I would fuck her against a rock. It seemed a complete injustice that this didn't happen in real life.

Weddings are nothing like you see in films and TV. In films and TV, weddings are magical, everyone's dressed in their finest, and Hugh Grant gives a poignant speech about love. There's always some kind of drama. Questioning of love. Feelings of angst. Whereas now we're in our 40s there's no drama left in our lives. Real-life weddings are mostly boring. We just standing around. One man was wearing a baseball cap and another man was dressed in a denim suit.

I wouldn't mind going to another wedding though. If you're reading this and you want to invite me to your wedding, I'm in.