by Hilary Hughes

There aren’t many occasions when I feel that my hair is too low-key but last week at a pagan wedding I was totally outclassed: purple and pink were the norm, with garlands of flowers, several guests had green hair, there was one amazing do in three shades of blue and the bridegroom’s dreadlocks reached down past his waist. The dress code was come as you wish. My husband chose pirate and strode about in his green frock coat, pirate boots and tricorn hat, the tip of his cutlass capped with a champagne cork as a concession to health and safety. Other guests wore smart, tailored suits in Harris tweed, flowing bright skirts, lacy boleros, or gothic black. There was a Saxon storyteller, oh, and a few more pirates. Dogs were very much welcomed.

The bride and groom arrived in a horse-drawn cart, which had wound its way through the narrow streets to reach Boiling Wells, the original site for Bristol’s dyeing industry and now re-imagined for the 21st century as an off-grid oasis at the heart of the city. Once they had welcomed us, we gathered round to witness their handfasting, an ancient ceremony where the wedding celebrant binds the hands of the bride and groom together with a cord before they make their promises. The guests joining in with “And so it is”, to echo each declaration.

Next came afternoon tea, with homemade cake and tea served in delicate china cups, non-matching but with gilt rims and patterned with flowers – roses, bluebells, forget-me-nots – and older than most of the guests. We mingled with strangers, swapped stories and admired each others’ outfits. The farthest travelled had come from Germany and hadn’t seen the groom since he’d left Nottingham for Edinburgh University 30 years ago. Watching them together, hugging and laughing and jumping about, was like seeing the boys they had been all those years before.

Kids raced past, burning off the sugar rush from too much cake. A little Japanese girl, small as a doll and dressed in a boy’s pink silk tunic bought from an Indian wedding shop in south London, played at her mother’s feet. The bridegroom’s son, smart in his skinhead suit, with his beautiful six-foot trans partner, who was dressed in a short, short skirt that showed off the black lines of the cobweb tattoo covering their left knee. The pony and trap offering rides to the kids. Them piling in and a snapshot of their chatter, “When you hit puberty, you know you’ll stink,” followed by a chorus of disgusted “Eeeew”s as they clattered past.

We saw Beowulf performed with puppets – so good, I went twice – laughing and booing in mostly the right places and watched the monster Grendel decapitate a soldier with all the dogs in the audience wondering if the puppet’s head on the floor was a new kind of treat.

Food followed. All home-prepared, vegetarian and beautiful. There was mead, plenty of mead, sweet and earthy, very strong and homebrewed in a giant drum; the perfect accompaniment to the Pirate Band – Davy Jones’ Lunchbox – who sang and played until late into the evening. Then came the first of the fallers, his feet tangling as he attempted some nifty dance steps. Shaking his head and blaming his shoes – checking their soles – before trying again, and again, with the same result.

More dancing, more mead, much laughter, as the sun slides behind the trees. Our taxi arrives and we take our leave, reluctant, exultant and very content.