the hippie wedding

So I arrive at the station in a makeshift floral shirt and shorts combo, and book my ticket. It was Brighton pride in the city which to others meant a party, but to me meant fighting through glitter clad strangers. It was then I saw them, a couple in smart clothing lugging freshly purchased camping gear and walking away from the party. They had the vibe of “how I met your mother” characters, so I did what I do. I talked. Turns out the couple were going to the wedding too, my theory was right. So I tag along with them, the redhead and the scotsman. She was a tattoo artist and enriched the journey with stories about the matching couple tattoos of the couple and the brides infamously bad reaction to pain.

When the cab from the station arrived I collapsed with my bags to find a couple of friends, one of which was in a wide brimmed almost witchhunter-y hat, enjoying a drink at the café. It was them, along with the people I was yet to meet that really made the wedding. After a bit of hugging and handshaking with new guests and a tent setting up moment with a gold clad cartoonish friend of the groom’s that was torn straight from a carry on film, the 20-

somethings huddled together as a tribe to avoid the adults. We drank and one by one, branched out to the adults one by one starting with the father of the bride. He was a tall gentleman in a thick green coat and an ‘alice in wonderland’ top hat adorned with a bird skull and a beetle stuck in a crystal. Despite the mad hatter appearance he almost definitely played the role of the white rabbit, fussing about time and leading his party through hedges and fields.

The sermon was hosted by a short, facepainted older woman named River. She encouraged us to welcome the elements into the relationships and had a family member represent each element (complete with props) and ask questions related to each element – lines about keeping sparks in the relationship and letting the love flow etc. eventually we were given a ribbon and told to tie it to a giant master ribbon before tying the couple up (I didn’t get it either) and scurrying to the processco table.

It was then that I really got to meet people, including a blue haired older lady with what I can only describe as lesbian water-spirit vibes. Short choppy white and blue hair and a set of mermaid scale legging shorts. She was lovely and apparently one of at least four old paramours of the brides mum. It was almost a queer version of Mama Mia mixed with a look stolen out of the legend of Zelda. I wonder if I’d unlock some kind of achievement if I met them all. Most iconic adding to this vibe was the main couple.

The bride wore a guacamole green that seemed slightly ethereal and the groom’s look was very much “if willy Wonka was a gameshow host”, complete with a bold purple jacket and enough glitter on the eyes to satisfy the groom’s deep craving to become a disco ball in human form. The venue was cosy, a small beer-garden style park area, a river of ducks and pondlife, and a cute little barn with a bar on site that served drinks at prices only available with a faustian bargain.

I went to check on the others in the tent field, only to find a gaggle of others by the borderline sacrificial fire pit – no really it looked like it was stolen from the set of buffy – and a few minutes later a tiny Italian with a dramatic head scar, and the gold lipsticked pantomime man nose deep in a powder spread across a copy of catcher in the rye … officially the most Brighton thing I’d find that trip, earning their tent the nickname “the pharmacy”. Later someone asked the Italian about his scar and he told us of a brutal parkour accident, even going as far as to show us the giant spinal scar on his back and the spider tattoo he had spindling down it to make the scar a spiderweb.

My friends from Chester discovered that gold lipstick was massage trained and proceeded to collapse into the panto man’s lap, making moans and reactions like that of a porno made in the 80s. she gushed to her boyfriend as the golden stranger quizzed them about Chester life, getting the review of her declaring that her boyfriend “needs to learn to do this”, before the golden stranger carried on to the remainder of his guests.

Later that evening I met the bride and the groom again, who were in a fake sobriety that I was completely convinced by until the bride offered me drugs. Not how I’d do a wedding but each to their own. I also witnessed the bride’s dad in low-cut rave clothing and the gold lipstick guy in a kimono that gave him the aura of a hedonistic Greek emperor – his 3^rd change of clothing that day. There was a silent disco with neon headphones that changed colour depending on the radio channel, and a DJ set hosted by a pair of middle aged women in classic 50s housewife pin up gear laughing and dancing along with a feather duster to classic 80s hits. The fire burned into the night and I crashed into my tent.

The morning after, I was tasked with getting to the station before a hellish journey home. luckily the Italian and the now goldless masseuse had room in their car. I bundled my stuff in the boot and was warned that I was a walking crime scene of evidence for my sins the night before. In order to be subtle I snuck into the barn to retrieve my charging phone, except on the way back down to the round floor I missed my footing and animal instincts kicked in. I found my arm deadlocked in an anchoring position around a banister until I found my footing. The station was a sweaty battlefield of forgetting baggage and bumbling through a London station connection, but I arrived alive and steeled myself for the grand university move waiting for me in the wings.