By Noel Donaldson

WEDDINGS can be fraught affairs and prior to the big day can spawn a host of uncertainties.

Will the sun shine, will the best man remember the ring and what will he be saying in his speech, will those pre-wedding butterflies get to the groom?… will he turn up… have we invited “everyone”?

Often, many of these fears are unfounded and everything goes according to plan.  But few could ever imagined a hitch that cropped up at a Wick wedding many years ago.  The calamity was told to me by my journalist father, John Donaldson, who ran a successful press agency in his native town for many years.

The unfortunate episode happened in the Nethercliffe Hotel, Wick.  When?… I don’t have a date but reckon it must have been post Second World War and probably in the 1950s.

Anyway, the couple had tied the knot and had arrived at the hotel.  When it came to cake-cutting time…horror of horrors!…the top tier was missing.  The wedding party was understandably upset and the police were called in.

The officer noticed a trail of crumbs and dutifully followed it upstairs.  Under a bed, clutching the aforesaid top tier, was an unrequited  suitor of the bride. The sight of the woman he had set his cap at, marrying another, was more than he could bear and, doubtless fortified by a dram or two, he embarked on this pointless prank.

The cake was more or less intact and as no-one wanted a further fuss on such a big day, it was decided not to take any action against the hapless cake pincher.

Did you have an unexpected hitch to overcome at your wedding?  Tell us about it.

My mother Elizabeth Donaldson, also a journalist covered a wedding at the now defunct Bridge Street Church, in Wick back in the mists of time.  In those days, some national newspapers covered weddings in detail and mum was waiting for the happy couple to emerge from the kirk.

In the best of traditions, confetti was thrown and out of one packet shot a lady’s gold watch. Caused a bit of a sensation and the question on everyone’s lips was –  “Where did that come from?”

The daily newspapers ran with the story of the golden confetti and believe it or not, they managed to trace its owner, presumably there was a clue on the confetti box to its manufacturer.  The timepiece belonged to a woman in an English. confetti factory.  She had taken off her watch at work and it had which slipped onto a conveyor belt and into a packet.