Here I still float, grinning on the crest of my son’s upgrade into the premier league – i.e. his marriage to my favourite daughter-in-law (FDIL) last weekend – but wondering how best to blog about the occasion without breaking any weddinquette boundaries.

Admittedly I have lost my nerve. While I was contained enough to not post photos of the bride and groom until they had first done so, once they had shown their social media hand, I fell at the first hurdle; I was so giddy to ‘go live’, that the first image I posted did not appear as I intended. I was immediately messaged by my son en route to the airport for his honeymoon, ‘Mum, you have just posted a great photo of you and me outside the church but you have cropped your new daughter in law in half .’ Great start.

Consequently, knowing that I am still tired and emotional, I have made the decision to share only my Mother of the Groom musings in this blog and not my usual stolen gossip and conjecture. Reader, I can behave when I need to. (However, naturally, if you were at the wedding and want to add your black market memories into to the comments below, feel free!)

Any future MOG may find the following useful (this is doubtful, but I like to think of this blog as a public service):

• If, like me, you have dithered about what you are going to wear to your son’s nuptials, take all four (ok, five) outfits with you and then drop said outfits into inappropriate outings so that other guests can see your full repertoire/clock your eccentricity i.e breakfast, trip into local town, taxi service to the station etc. Lend outfits to your daughter, so that she can showcase them properly and you will not feel so guilty that you have made so many purchases that may not see the light of day.
• Note that a fascinator may seem like a good idea at the time, but really they are just flying frisbees, primed to skim off your bonce every time someone attempts to air kiss a greeting. I was honoured to witness the signing of the register (along with the Mother of the Bride who had the good sense to wear stylish and secured millenary). When the official photos come out, I fear that the whimsical angle of my fascinator will be different in every photo; in the vestry, when my son moved in for a hug, my fascinator sprang across the room and was unceremoniously shoved back on my head by the friendly vicar before we processed back to the congregation. It is good to wear head gear at a rakish angle, but I feel that style points are only awarded if you know which is the back and which is the front of your fascinator. I did not.
• One packet of tissues is never enough. Invest in man sized handkerchiefs or t-towels. My eyes had started leaking during the Friday rehearsal, so I stood no chance during the ceremony itself. In my experience, Himself’s words of advice were a useful reminder on the big day, ‘pull yourself together woman, you are in the front row and the photographer (opposite) will not want your snotty features backdropping the bride and groom’s happy faces’. Thank goodness for waterproof mascara.
• If you are delivering a little speech to honour the bride and groom, check that you have your glasses with you and that the lighting is good. I am convinced that I had some great one liners added as superb additions to my speech cards, but because I scrawled them in pencil at the last minute, they were invisible when I stood up to take the stand. I could have been great.
• As MOG you really have a VIP guest pass to the most amazing party. I had absolutely no chores to complete before the wedding ceremony so used the whole weekend as a little mini break. Himself and I managed to sneak a morning in Richmond (Yorkshire) which has to be the friendliest place on earth. Despite living four hours away, we now have a loyalty card for the best coffee/chocolate shop in the market square, on account of their discovery that Himself was stationed nearby over 40 years ago. Another young man with hi viz and clipboard patiently answered all our questions about market square parking and even went to get us a free parking disk, before admitting that he was not a parking warden, just a student completing a local survey. Richmond, we will be back.
• Prepare yourself to have a moment – many of them – when you see your son’s friends, those who used to come around for sleep overs, bacon sarnies and to try and break the garden trampoline by playing ‘catch the flag’, are now suited and booted as the warmest, wisest young adults you could hope to spend a day with.
• Allow yourself to have an additional moment, while looking at your Favourite Daughter who is appearing as bridesmaid on this occasion yet knowing that she will be the bride next Spring. I love that FD can hold a bouquet, a bottle of beer and still negotiate the dance floor stylishly; parenting goals achieved.
• Finally, if you do go for a little pre-wedding/post wedding run to calm your nerves/clear your head, do not assume that any other runners have to be attached to the wedding party. I now feel embarrassed that I may have velcroed myself to a group of thirty-somethings out for a morning jog , believing that they surely must be part of the wedding party and that they must recognise this MOG even without full make up. I thought they were running fast, and in hindsight, realise that they were trying to shake me off.

My final observation about seeing your child marry is that it is a bit like running a marathon, not in terms of effort, but that you start boring for England on the subject. The question goes, ‘how do you know when someone is running a marathon?’ The answer? ‘They will surely tell you’. It is the same for weddings. I feel like I have dined out on telling random strangers that my son has just got married. ‘Sorry, I did not see the light change green, I was day dreaming about last weekend when I gained the most amazing Daughter in Law’; ‘Year 13, I know we need to discuss Language Change and that you want your marked essays back, but did I tell you that my son just got married?’; ‘No, I won’t have that instant coffee thanks – this time last weekend I was eating canapés and drinking Bollinger. Did I not tell you that I was at a wedding?’

If anyone does need a fascinator do drop me a line. If anyone wants to see some wedding photos, please do wait until the bride and groom return. If anyone does want another wedding blog, I feel that you will not be disappointed for we go again for Favourite Daughter next year. Did I not tell you that I am going to be Mother of the Bride..?