In case you missed them:

Chapter one
Chapter two
Chapter three

It was a short and simple ceremony, but Bill wasn’t sure he would remember all of it. His hand shook slightly as he guided the ring onto Allie’s finger, but she seemed to be in control as she pushed his ring over his knuckle. 

As the registrar wound up, saying that they were now man and wife and that Bill could now kiss the bride, Kiki joined in with “Kiss the bride. Kiss the bird. God save the King!” at the top of her lungs before Jack could stop her. 

Bill paused, raised an eyebrow and said dryly, “You know, Kiki, old girl, I will certainly agree to God Save the King, and I certainly am going to kiss the bride, but I cannot be persuaded to kiss the bird!” 

The children giggled, even Jack who was bright red at Kiki’s interruption. There were a few laughs from the congregation. Bill looked at Allie and with a smile, added, “May I now kiss the bride?”

“Only as long as you keep to kissing the bride and not the bird,” teased Allie gently as he pulled her close for a kiss. Bill chuckled and gently kissed Allie as everyone else laughed at the exchange and clapped. 

Anatoly took over the photography from this point as Philip and Jack slipped out of the room to go and decorate the car with the tin cans and the signs they had made. The guests then began to make their way out of the registry office and down to the steps to shake confetti over Bill and Allie as they made their way to the car.

“I’ll get you two for this later,” Bill called warningly to Philip and Jack who were doubled over laughing at the look on his face. 

“Anatoly was in on it as well!” Jack called back as Bill shook a menacing fist, obviously trying to spread the blame around.

“Traitor!” Anatoly said, taking the camera from around his neck and, in Jack’s opinion, swinging it far too recklessly on its strap in retaliation. 

“Oi! Be careful with that!” Jack shouted as Anatoly pretended to almost drop his precious camera. 

“You’re in enough trouble as it is without destroying our wedding photos,” Bill reminded him, eyebrows raised. 

Anatoly smoothly handed the camera to Jack and then cuffed him on the ear while the boy’s hands were busy examining it for damage. 

“Shall we go before anyone else gets into trouble?” Allie asked, smothering a laugh. 

“Girls?” Bill looked at Dinah and Lucy-Ann, who although smiling at the boys’ antics, were keeping themselves apart from any of their nonsense. “There’s nothing you’d like to tell me, is there? No surprises lurking in the car or at the reception?”

“Of course not, Bill,” they chorused, the picture of innocence. He looked at them suspiciously and then shrugged. Bill knew that whatever the girls may have planned, it would be less embarrassing than the boys’ decorating of the car. He held the passenger door open for Allie before he got in himself, turned the key in the ignition, and waved to everyone as he drove off. 

Anatoly used Allie’s car to transport the children, Kiki and Allie’s aunt and uncle to the reception in the village hall, as she had insisted she was fine to drive herself and the girls to the registry office. Bill had paid a local catering company to set up and do the food and the wedding cake. It was worth the money so that Allie hadn’t had to make it all herself with her daily help. 

As they pulled up, Bill spotted the sign that the girls must have put up on the front of the hall. It was a nice sign, if not slightly embarrassing to have their union declared to everyone in the village. The sign read “Congratulations, Bill and Allie on your wedding!”.

Allie sighed and laughed, “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised but at least it doesn’t make a noise!” 

Bill grunted and shook his head a little, and offered up the idea, “It’s the thought that counts?” 

Allie nodded and took his hand. “Indeed, and I think it just goes to show how fond they are of both of us that they want to show off that we have gotten married,” she said softly. “And they are just excited. Let them have their moment and don’t be so grumpy,” she teased. 

Bill lifted her hand to his lips and planted a kiss on the back of it. “You’re right of course,” he agreed. “I’m just not used to having things so out in the open. Come on then Allie, let’s go and make sure everything is how we want it before the hoards arrive!” 

The catering company had done a lovely job, and so there was little for them to do in the hall, but Allie went around checking everything nonetheless. They had only had a brief head start on the other guests, and soon everyone else was arriving. Most of the guests had walked the short distance over, but Anatoly took the car back to collect Bill’s older cousin and his wife.

“Is that everyone here?” Bill asked, doing a headcount after Anatoly’s passengers were inside, everyone having congratulated him and Allie again as they arrived.

“If there was anyone else they have missed their chance,” he said with a shrug.

Bill grinned. Including he and Allie there were 21 people and one bird in the hall. A small wedding by anyone’s standards but just the right number for them. Allie’s friends had come on their own – a girl’s night out they were calling it – and his colleagues had also come alone, so the numbers were fairly even for dancing later. 

In the meantime, the food was waiting. Bill cleared his throat noisily. “Thanks for coming, everyone. I know that at least some of you came mostly on the promise of food,” here he gave a raised eyebrow in the direction of his work colleagues, “so I declare the wedding breakfast open!”

“Hooray, I’m starved,” said Philip, heading straight for the plates at the end of the table before Aunt Polly caught his arm. 

“Let the bride and groom fill their plates first,” she scolded.

Despite the delay Philip still managed to be near the start of the queue. After piling his plate high with at least two of everything on offer he joined Jack, Dinah and Lucy-Ann at the end of one of the tables which formed three sides of an open square. Bill and Allie were in the middle of the top table but had said they weren’t going to fuss about seating arrangements, leaving it a free-for-all. 

After a minute Anatoly dropped into the chair beside him, but immediately turned towards Johns. Philip rolled his eyes. Once upon a time he and the others had been quite friendly with Anatoly but, especially if anyone else was around, they were apparently beneath him now. 

“Did Bill not eat this morning, or something?” he heard Anatoly ask his colleagues. “Only it is not breakfast-time, and this,” he indicated his plate of sandwiches and sausage rolls, “is not breakfast food.”

Johns and the other agents guffawed at the question.

“Not been to many weddings?” Johns asked, trying to keep a straight face.

“What?” Anatoly demanded. “What did I say?”

“It’s always a wedding breakfast,” Bentley explained. “Even if it’s at night. That’s just what they call it. Something to do with the bride and groom fasting before the wedding once upon a time, then breaking that fast with a meal after.”

Anatoly snorted. “People should just call things what they are.”

“But where’s the fun in that?” Thompson asked with a grin. This wasn’t the first time they’d had to educate Anatoly in the English language, despite him having grown up in London.

Dinah and Lucy-Ann were talking as they ate, but the boys were listening into the conversation next to them, wondering if they could glean any information on Anatoly’s high and mighty airs and graces now he was working less and less with Bill. Kiki was on the table, taking the odd grape or piece of fruit from the children’s plates and flexing her crown occasionally when someone ate something she wanted. 

“Three blind mice,” she said conversationally.

“I thought she’d forgotten that one,” said Dinah. “I don’t think she’s said it since you had that mouse a few summers ago.”

To be continued…