At 5:00pm on Friday, at Customs House, Brisbane, Your Correspondent tied the knot for the third and last time and officially became Mrs Dreamboat.

The incredibly handsome groom was resplendent in full Scottish regalia and observed all the proper traditions, as Your Correspondent discovered immediately after sticking her hand up his kilt. The Best Man also respected the custom and, as the night wore on, generously invited many of the female guests to confirm the authenticity of his claim.

The bride wore pale pink and a thin layer of cigarette ash. All assembled were stunned to see that for once she actually looked quite presentable, thanks to the sustained efforts of dedicated and talented professionals who'd laboured mightily all morning to make it so.

The ceremony was a restrained and elegant affair, all the more special for being totally out of keeping with how the bride and groom usually conduct themselves. I like to think it was also a very happy occasion, although it was hard to be sure, what with all the crying going on. The groom blubbed for most of the proceedings and was accompanied at different times by his parents and many of the guests. Even the celebrant cried, for god’s sake.

It's true that Your Correspondent did tear up slightly at the ‘husband and wife’ bit, but the Dreamboat's kiss put paid to any thoughts of serious weeping. I'd been expecting something chaste and loving and almost spiritual in its purity. What I got was a tongue in my mouth that insisted on remaining there for thirty seconds longer than the bounds of decorum deem acceptable.

It was a perfect wedding. Absolutely perfect. Everything -- ceremony, dress, flowers, venue, food, cake, music, speeches -- couldn't have been improved upon. Any dramas associated with the event happened in the lead-up (who else but Your Correspondent would wake up 24 hours before their wedding with the flu?), but the day itself went without a hitch. Most special of all, though, was the fact that so many people we care about were in the same place at the same time. That's not likely to happen again anytime soon.

Of the fifty-five guests who attended, only two couples are currently living in Brisbane. Everyone else travelled, either from overseas -- Scotland, New Zealand, Switzerland, Singapore, the US -- or from within Australia: New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, West Australia. I tell you, superheroes, it's bloody moving when you know so many people are prepared to go to so much trouble and expense to share your day.

There were lots of magical moments before, during and after the event, but one that stands out in my mind concerns a very dear childhood friend of the Dreamboat's. She's an accomplished musician and she composed a piece of music in honour of the wedding. She performed it for us at the reception and gave us a framed copy and recording.

Even people not directly involved with us or the wedding were terrific. There was the lovely couple in their 50s sitting in a nearby cafe, watching us having our photos done. They'd got engaged only the day before and called out their congratulations to us before falling on each other and sucking face like a couple of fifteen-year-olds. Then there were the folk (and, believe it or not, there were quite a few) who walked past Your Correspondent, smiled and said, "You look beautiful." And, at the end of the night, there was the kindly concierge at the hotel who overheard me complaining about my aching feet and persuaded me to sit on the floor and take off my shoes.

It's such a euphoric experience, your wedding day. There's nothing quite like it. When we entered the reception, everyone stood, applauded and took photos while the Dreamboat turned to me and whispered, "Now I know how it feels to be a rock star." I understood exactly what he meant. Even though I didn't want to buy into all the 'princess for a day' crap, I certainly felt like one last Friday.

There was food, there were drinks, there was dancing, there was bribing of the DJ to play an extra half-hour. The limo arrived for us at 11:30pm and so, with the light gleaming on Your Correspondent’s newly-resurfaced front tooth and bouncing off the bare backsides displayed by the Dreamboat and Best Man to the wildly cheering crowd, we sallied forth to live happily ever after.

Our communal honeymoon starts in a couple of hours’ time, when we pack up my brother and the Dowager Empress (mother) and drive to Noosa to meet up with the Dreamboat’s parents and musician friend. We’ll also be reuniting with bridesmaid Sam, her partner Chiz and her parents to celebrate her birthday tonight.

The plan is to stay in Noosa for a week and then head back to Brisbane for another week before flying to Vanuatu for nine days on Honeymoon #2. And after that, following two or three more weeks in Brissie, we’ll be packing up and moving to Townsville.

So there you have it: the story of a bloke, a sheila and the nuptial knot they tied. Tales of marital bliss will no doubt follow. And yeah, I’m very happy.

P.S. We got a congratulatory card from the dentist. I guess he really did care after all.

P.P.S. There's been an eleven-year gap between each of my weddings -- 1982, 1993 and 2004. I blame sunspot activity. The Dreamboat is already making contingency plans for 2015. Somehow, I don't think he'll need them.

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For better, for worse ... in drunkenness and in sobriety ...

Last Sunday night, we invited a couple of friends over for dinner. At the end of the evening, the damage amounted to four -- yes, four -- empty wine bottles. This greatly surprised Your Correspondent -- which, in hindsight, is probably a greater indicator of how much she'd consumed than anything else.

After chatting for a while over a nightcap (another bottle of wine), the Dreamboat retired to bed, with assurances from Your Correspondent that she'd be along shortly. Here's part of a conversation we had on Monday morning:

DB: You fell asleep on the couch last night.
Niki: Yeah … I woke up five hours later and went to bed. How did you know?
DB: You turned on the TV with your head.
Niki: What?
DB: Your head was on the remote and it turned on the TV. It was very loud.
Niki: So, I take it you got up and turned it off?
DB: Yeah.
Niki: Then why didn’t you wake me up so I could go to bed?
DB: Babe, the TV was blaring and you didn't wake up, so what chance did I have? Nothing can wake you up. You know that.

He has since decreed that this is to be an alcohol-free week in the White House. Not to be outdone, I retaliated with the demand that we both do gym work-outs for at least an hour every day leading up to the wedding.

So this afternoon, while sweating on an exercise bike for the third day in a row, I finally realised why it's so fitting that the Dreamboat and I should get married: it's because we both know what the matrimonial state's really all about ...

Punishment.

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In Which Your Correspondent Suffers for Her Insecurities

While it’s true that I’m ravishingly beautiful, abundantly gorgeous and criminally sexy, there are a couple of teeny bits that Mother Nature somehow overlooked when she was putting the almost-perfect package that is Your Correspondent together. And even though I’ve tried hard to resist the hype that goes with an imminent wedding, it’s somehow managed to crawl into my head and shine a bloody great spotlight on my physical flaws … which is why I found myself in a dentist’s chair last week, begging some bloke who specialises in cosmetic dentistry to do something about my smile.

I actually have a lovely smile … it’s just that my teeth don’t do it justice. Despite the crowns, the fillings, the resin veneers and the thousands of dollars I’ve lavished on the little bastards over the years, my pearly whites are a mess. Your Correspondent’s teeth are the sort of teeth that dentists tut-tut over. Never mind that nearly all of the stuff-ups were made by their fellows in the first place. Nope, they’ll poke and prod and gasp in horror and say things like, “That’s … um … interesting.” Then they’ll make suggestions … the sorts of suggestions that involve taking out a mortgage, hocking the family silver and selling one’s relatives into slavery.

The guy I saw last week had a slightly different approach. He still tsked and tutted, but he cared. Everyone in the place totally cared -- they with their broad smiles of perfect porcelain, gleaming whiter than a hospital toilet bowl. They cared and they pitied.

The most caring of all was the female Practice Manager, who’d obviously spent years perfecting the art of ‘solicitous hand-squeezing’. She entered towards the end of the examination, smiled in a radiant and saintly way, took one of my hands between her own and gazed compassionately at me as if she had the power to forgive sins and bestow life everlasting. When the dentist told me he'd be willing to transform my smile into a thing of glory for a paltry $10,000, I could barely prise her off.

This all changed soon after the consultation, when I confessed I couldn’t afford $10,000 or even $5,000 but could possibly stretch to afford the re-surfacing of the front tooth that I’d originally requested. She relinquished her grip with alacrity. I didn’t even get a brisk pat on the arm.

By the time we were arranging the next appointment and I’d declined the invitation to have x-rays and fillings and other assorted marvels of modern dentistry, she wouldn’t even look at me. I was feeling a bit starved of human contact by then and thought she might perk up a bit when I agreed to see the dental hygienist … but no. I’d had my chance and I’d blown it. She no longer cared.

The hygienist cared, though. She cared all through the hour-and-a-quarter she spent scraping, grinding, flossing, and blasting Your Correspondent’s teeth with lemon-flavoured baking soda. She cared so much she gave a running commentary on her progress:

Hygienist: Hmmm … (squeal of grinding machine) … there’s quite a lot of staining on those back molars.
Niki: (thinking) Who gives a fuck? No-one ever sees them anyway … except dentists.
(half an hour later)
Hygienist: Oh, it’s not staining at all. It’s something else. Something that probably happened when you were a teenager. It’s to do with decay that started and then stopped. We call it (some dental terminology). I won’t be able to get it out.
Niki: (thinking) Great. Wish we’d realised this half an hour ago.
(end of the session)
Hygienist: (picking up grinder) I’ll just try one more time to get rid of that mark on your bottom tooth.
Niki: (thinking) Oh god … must you?

Next Thursday – the day before the wedding – I’ll be getting my nails done for the first time ever. My nails are only marginally better than my teeth, so heaven knows what I'm in for. Whatever it is, though, I’m sure it’ll be executed with care.

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