5th June 2027
Volunteers
Kitchen A, Kitchen B (Both report to DJ (as the Kitchen PM), Kitchen A will manage the kitchen, Kitchen B will support Kitchen A. During the serving of the first and second courses Kitchen B will act as Wait C when handing out the food unless they would be more useful in the kitchen).
Wait A, Wait B (when dinner is over they will ocassionally relieve Kitchen A and Kitchen B for breaks).
MC – Charita
Kitchen PM – DJ
Games Master – Scott
Best Man – Tomek
12:00
Start getting dressed
14:30
Access to building
Kitchen A and Kitchen B get the sauces inside (Beef Ragú, Sweet Potato and Chicken stew, Bigos) begin heating them up.
Wait A and Wait B begin placing the tables in the hall. With the long table across the entrance and the 6 round tables in the shape of the 6-side of a dice.
Each round table has set up as follows:
- Table cloth
- Centre piece, with four cards: photography links, activities/ice breakers, menu and day’s plan (for after dinner).
- Informal scattering of different sizes of Candle, 3 per table around the centre piece.
- Informal scattering of different lanterns each with an electric candle inside, 3 per table around the centre piece
- One bronze item
- Entire ensemble encircled by gold leaf lights
- Surrounded by 3 bottles one red wine, one white and one shleor.
- 10 chairs around the outside each with 1 wine glass, one knife and two forks and a dessert spoon laid out consistently around the table and napkins
The long table will have
- Table cloth
- Two Centre pieces, with four cards at each end: photography links, activities/ice breakers, menu and day’s plan (for after dinner).
- Informal scattering of different sizes of Candle, 3 per end around the centre piece.
- Informal scattering of different lanterns each with an electric candle inside, 3 per end around the centre piece
- Each ensemble encircled by gold leaf lights
- Surrounded by one red wine on one end, one white on the other and one shleor in the middle.
- 10 chairs around the outside each with 1 wine glass, one knife and two forks and a dessert spoon laid out consistently around the table and napkins
Needed
6 round table cloths
1 long table cloth
8 centre pieces
6 pieces of brass
8 tall candles
8 medium candles
8 small church candles
10 small lanterns
10 large lanterns
20 electric tealights
8 gold leaf light strings
7 white wines
7 red wines
7 bottles of shleor
100 Napkins
100 small forks
100 large forks
100 knives
65 wine glasses
100 flute glasses
8 menus
8 photography link cards
8 puzzle / ice breakers cards
8 plan cards
In the bar
Put the peg basket with its sign to the left as you come in.
Put the sign with the faces and seating plan by the door to the main hall.
Put the bucket list towards the bar end of the room.
15:00
Pre-Photography
16:00
Bar opens
Prepare to receive guests
Graeme and Luke stand by the door as people come in and we say hello.
Kitchen A + B
Air frier on with mozzerella sticks covering the bottom for 18 minutes. Put the marinara sauce on heat.
Put as many bowls of salad on a tray as you can fit. Zig zag balsamic glaze over the top.
When the Mozzarella has finished cooking, put them in the hot cupboard and put in the next batch of sticks if more.
Put three mozarella sticks on each plate, slight fanned out, with a crescent of marinara sauce around the closed end. Fit as many as you can on a single tray up to 10.
Put water on boil and lower a colander of pierogi into the hot water until warm. Place the colander to drain over the sink for 2 minutes until slightly drier. Put three pierogi on each mini-plate close together and zig-zag cream over the pierogi. Fit as many to a tray as possible up to 10. Prepare the next batch of pierogi to be heated.
16:25
Graeme and Luke disappear to hiding spot behind the bar.
Charita announces that people should check the seating plan and go through into the dining room.
16:30
Once they have all gone in and taken their seats, then charita announces “Ladies and Gentlemen please stand for our Grooms Luke Urso and Graeme Chetcuti”.
We walk in and our seats will be immediately in front of us as we go in we will stand for a moment.
Charita says thank you and now for a speech from Luke, passes Luke the microphone…
[Luke’s speech]
Once Luke has finished his speech, Charita goes to remove the seating plan and put it in the hidey hole.
Kitchen B joins the wait team ready for serving. During serving, if anyone makes special requests where possible say “you will see what you can do”, but ask them kindly to wait while you get the food out for the other guests, if there is a pause in the availability of trays then it can be taken care of while waiting for the kitchen to catch up.
The kitchen hatch is opened and Wait A + B + C (Kitchen B) take the trays to table 1, while the next three trays are laid up ready for table 2. When they return they swap the half empty trays for full trays ready for table 2 and go to that table, the half empty trays are topped up, this is repeated for tables 3-6, when returning to the kitchen with some food still on the tray offer it to anyone on the top table.
Wait staff C returns to Kitchen B after the starters have been served.
Wait team A + B clearing plates when they’re done with them, but not putting them in a place that is in the way for kitchen team.
Kitchen A + B to prepare the main course. The Bygos is ladelled into a bowl with a rustic roll on a small plate placed beside it, a dry clean cloth can be used to wipe any of the bygos that splashes up the side of the bowl.
The pasta is heated in the same way as the Pierogi, once dry the pasta is served in the centre of a plate and any moisture or starch is wiped from the edges, the beef Ragú is carefully ladeled into the centre of the pasta only allowing it to take up 2/3s of the size.
Once every table is served. Prepare the dessert trays to be placed on the tables, each table will have a tray of cream cakes and cake pops on it. Clear the plates and cutlery ready to go into the dishwasher.
If there is time before 6pm, Kitchen A + B and Wait A + B can consider eating at this point as long as someone is clearing the tables, this person can change to give them all a short break.
18:00
Graeme and Luke return to the bar and if necessary change into fresh shirts, they remain in the bar to greet any more guests who arrive just for the service.
After the meal everyone is asked to return to the bar or the outside area. The last plates are cleared.
The large box for the decorations is recovered from the hidey hole. The lanterns are collected ready for later and placed in a separate box in Graeme and Luke’s hidey hole. The other decorations are returned to a box. The table clothes are turned inwards to avoid dropping crumbs and placed with the decorations. One clean table cloth is retained. The tables are put away in the cupboard.
The seat layout becomes chapel style with rows of chairs. A pulpit at the very end of the room with room to stand behind it comfortably, in front of that space for two people to stand and then room for a small table to be slid in from the back corner. The table is ready with the marriage registry book open on it, the clean table cloth and pen ready to sign. The pen is checked for ink and a spare is placed near by. Two chairs placed behind the table ready. The chairs laid out with two small aisles down the side and a large two person aisle down the middle. As many chairs as possible leaving as much space at the back as possible for people to stand.
18:30
Other people arrive to join us.
The service
Charita invites the guests back into the hall.
Charita then confirms Cynthia is ready to begin, she then gives signal to our groomsmen who go to fetch us, who will signal to Charita readiness.
Cynthia says ladies and gentlemen once again, can we be upstanding for our grooms.
And then Charita starts the harp zelda’s lullaby, we walk in with our groomsmen, first Luke and Tomek who go to the right, then Graeme and DJ who go to the left, both down the outsides of the hall very slowly trying to and meet at the altar with our groomsmen / bestmen on the outside at the precise end of the poem. Music is Zelda-esque most likely harp mixed with wedding music.
While we approach the altar poetry is played over the music
Seconds before we enter music begins
[Luke enters with Tomek]
We might be worlds apart, my love,
Beneath an endless, velvet sea,
Yet when we gaze at skies above,
[Graeme enters with DJ]
I find you looking back at me.
Our eyes can span the miles of dark,
And in the constellations bright,
I trace your smile in every spark,
That guides me through the quiet night.
[half way down the sides]
For earthly distance cannot fade,
The tie that keeps our spirits true;
In every single beam displayed,
I see my destiny in you.
[Coming to the front corners]
So when the night feels far too wide,
Just look upon the starry gleam,
[Approach each other with grooms standing behind us slowly keeping eye contact]
We’ll see each other side by side,
And meet within the exact same dream.
Cynthia stood in front of large book on a pedastal with her words.
Cynthia welcomes everyone and explains what we are about to do and the importance of everyone there. Before we continue lets take a moment to consider the nature of love as our dear Joel reads a poem that Luke found touching for the ocassion, Our Souls Are Mirrors By Rupi Kaur
Some god must have kneaded you and I
from the same dough
rolled us out as one on the baking sheet
must have suddenly realized
how unfair it was
to put that much magic in one person
and sadly split that dough in two
how else is it that
when I look in the mirror
I am looking at you
when you breathe
my own lungs fill with air
that we just met but we
have known each other our whole lives
if we were not made as one to begin with.
Thank you. Now we are ready to continue. So mote it be? (if a poor response, do a second time)
Does anyone know of any reason they can’t be wed? A beautiful silence! So mote it be!
Now before we proceed we will need the rings. CJ brings the rings down the middle and then CJ goes to sit with his mum on the front row.
We each recite the vows and then place the rings on the fingers of each other at the end of the vows.
By the power of all the people here, by the community we pronounce you married. So mote it be? (So mote it be).
You two may kiss!
We kiss.
As soon as this happens the Wait team begin to hand out glasses of prosecco and appletiser starting at the back.
Scott brings the table over and our best men Charita and Tomek bring us some chairs from the front and we sign the book together, while people take pictures.
The inside of the book is made to look like a marriage certificate on the second page. People will photo this moment.
Cynthia introduces John Chetcuti.
who gives a speech
John introduces Charita who gives a speech.
Charita will ask everyone to be ready to stand and applaud for us as we walk out down the middle and then once we have left if people who are seated could please take your seats and place them at the edges of the room facing inward and if possible they could stay at the edges of the room for the next few moments.
Music is played for us to march outward.
The airfriers are turned back on with the iceland party boxes in them and a tray of similar stuff is put in the oven.
A cake will be wheeled into the room immediately to the sound of McCarther Park or Sugar by Maroon 5.
Charita asks everyone to remain at the edges of the room to enable everyone to see.
We come back in to cut the cake, another photo opportunity, we do it slowly, to the side and have a bit of laugh to make some good photos. The cake is immediately wheeled out of the room.
The music is lowered, stopped and the song Ordinary by Alex Warren is cued up and the volume is raised again.
We go straight from that to first dance which as we finish and raise our hands in the air the music plays and hopefully people start dancing
Scott will go and set up games outside if the weather is okay and encourage people to play the Jenga, the skittles and stuff. The book we signed is moved to
After dance. Music 3 hour play list is left going, some of our favourites and some of the most well known songs especially anything that’s known in both UK and Poland.
We go outside and give skittles a go to encourage other people to get involved.
Around 9pm, people who are outside are asked to go inside by Charita who is helping us keep everything on time, DJ, Siren, Cynthia and Joan will take the lanterns from the hidey hole, lay them out in the shape of a path from the main doors toward a large circle. Cynthia, Joan, DJ and Siren will prepare the circle with incense, sprinkling of salt water, etc and invocations of the 4 corners and offerrings to Eshu and Oshun.
While this is going on inside I will announce to everyone that we will have our blessing now, why it’s important to me, welcome people to join, I will ask them to please respect that for us this is like a moving meditation, ask them to put away their phones, make sure they’re on silent and for just the next few minutes, please don’t talk. Anyone who doesn’t want to join us can remain inside. Inside there will be music played quietly and perhaps a powerpoint on the projector.
Dj and Siren will come to the large doors each holding a lantern facing away from the building. Perhaps wearing robes of blue and burgundy. “Everyone who is joining us please line up behind DJ and Siren.” When they both have a queue they will lead everyone to form a large circle or if when they complete the circle, if there is still many people in the queue going into the building, then they will cross over by both going to the right of the other one and blue on the left will form an inner circle and red on the right will form an outer circle. Then we will have Cynthia or Joan lead us to the alttar in the middle. Where they will read the ritual together.
We will put our arms together where we hold each others wrists, one priestess will rest the rope over our hands and the other will read the ritual. We will reach through the gaps of the rope and tie the knot. The ritual will end with So Mote it Be. Chris will hopefully get a good picture of this knot while the sun is setting in the background. Then when the ritual ends. Siren and DJ will lead everyone to form rows either side of the path inwards, giving out paper bags of flower petals and Cynthia or Joan will announce that as we walk back in they will shower us in “prosperity” symbolised by the petals for a good future. We walk back in with our arms tied, slowly, getting petals thrown on us.
When we return in the music is turned back up, and everyone is encouraged to return to the room. Once they are in, the circle is closed down. We can remove the rope and then at 1030 we let everyone know they can go to the pub, otherwise they will be roped into the clean up.