Wedding Reception Fun

As part of my 'recovery', I've been saying "yes" to lots of recent invitations. These included a wedding reception over the weekend and a trip to Ladies Day at Plumpton this coming Sunday. I thought that the wedding reception would be a nice, friendly occasion in which to meet and chat to some new people. It turned out to be an enjoyable and interesting evening.

I took a female friend of mine along to Saturday's evening reception and we arrived shortly after the scheduled start time. The evening didn't start off too well. As we walked in, an old work boss was sitting at a table across the room and he waved us across. He isn't someone I particularly like or get on with, so I really wasn't enjoying it. We sat with him for a while, whilst he talked... and talked... and talked. I was beginning to curse my luck, when the canapes came out, which made life a bit more interesting.

We didn't have the usual canapes for this function, oh no. These were mini, traditional favourites like banger and mash (dip), fish and chip, welsh rarebit and jacket potato (all miniature). Great fun, and very pleasant. After devouring our fair share of canapes (or MORE than our fair share, in the case of my friend), I made the decision to go and talk to a few people. So I went across and sat down with an old friend from primary school, that I recognised. That was when the evening started getting a bit more interesting.

An interesting guest to this wedding reception was a well-known local TV presenter. She is very attractive to look at, and she knows it, and you could see the men gawping at her all evening. At one point, she was standing quite near to a bald guy who looked a lot like Harry Hill (it wasn't him). So I was tempted, though didn't find the courage, to go up to her with a camera and say "hi, I would really love to get my photo taken with a famous person..." then pass the camera to her, grab the Harry Hill look-alike and say "Harry, come here a sec...".

What was impressive, was that the brother of the groom went up and started talking to her casually and they chatted for quite a long time. She ended up giving him her phone number (he didn't ask for it). With all of my reading of The Game (the pick-up book by Neil Strauss), I was interested to hear about his technique, so I spoke to him about it later on. I was expecting him to tell me that he had used some kind of cool opening line on her. But he said that he didn't do anything special. He told me that he was thinking about going up to talk to her for a couple of hours before he did. Then he just went up and introduced himself as the brother of the groom - "Hi, I'm x, I'm y's brother". That was it - they just chatted normally from then on. It just shows - if you just act natural and show an interest in the person and talk normally, that really can work.

As a funny side to all that, the friend, that I took with me, managed to accidentally spill white wine on the TV presenter's jacket (which was left on a seat at our table) when her handbag caught on the chair as she walked past it. I was trying to tempt her to drop some wedding cake in the lady's handbag as an 'added extra'...

From the point of view of getting out, meeting and confidently talking to people, the event was a success. It was a great help having a couple of people there that I knew, as I was able to go and sit down at their table and be relaxed with them before introducing myself to the other strangers around them. It would have been more difficult to go and sit down with a table of people who I didn't know at all, and that is a challenge that I am looking to succeed with in future. I also learned something else from that evening - that I don't need to drink to become relaxed. I drove to the event, so I had one glass of champagne when I arrived and was on soft drinks for the rest of the evening. My mind felt clear and I felt confident, without drinking alcohol.

As I mentioned earlier on; this Sunday I am off to Ladies Day at Plumpton Race Course for a friend's 30th birthday. It will be a bigger challenge for me, as the only person I will know will be the birthday boy himself. So this will be a good opportunity for me to meet and talk to new people.