Oh What a Night....

Oh what a night it was! After a very stressful day of last minute things to do, collecting balloons, collecting trays of sandwiches for a midnight snack, people arriving all day - there we were with about 10 minutes to go before kick off and a few of Tommy's friends were still in my kitchen ironing their dinner shirts, while I was frantically putting out the name place cards on the tables (as Tommy changed the seating plan I had done)....but at the appointed hour we were in the garden, smiles on our faces and ready for the photographer I had booked to come for a couple of hours. I wanted some family portraits done before the guests arrived, I realised it would not work with me being on the other side of the camera trying to meet guests and take photos, and this is the last time we will get professional family shots - until a possible wedding one day?!

We had drinks in the garden and then finally went into the marquee for dinner. Tommy surprised us by standing up, saying a grace and thanking me for my efforts as a party planner - and presented me with the most enormous bouquet of flowers. After starters we had speeches - they were all brilliant - done by his father, his two brothers, and two close friends from university, with just the right tone being set where embarrassing tales about Tommy were said in the most nicely polite way possible.

As the main course was served I had a surprise up my sleeve for Tommy, which no one other than Gavin knew about - I had hired a 'singing waiter', where a singer pretends she is a waiter serving the food and then breaks into song. As per my request she sang a mix of opera arias and some well known tunes like Goldfinger. Tommy's face was a picture as he realised what was happening, that the waiter singing to him was actually a highly skilled singer with the most incredible and powerful voice. She went down a treat and everyone said it just made the evening, as she was very amusing and entertaining while she was singing. Xena was sitting quite close to me as she was a little unsettled by all these people in her home, and when the opera singer burst into song Xena was so funny, cocking her head at her, not quite believing the sound.

Tommy loved his party and so did his guests. The youngsters were all so polite and so well behaved, no one got ridiculously drunk, and they were all delightful. The saying that you judge a person by the company they keep, means that Tommy must be wonderful based on his friends! He had friends from school, university and even three friends from nursery where they met as three year olds!

We thought that the majority of them would be sleeping over, but in the end only about 10 of them slept over, the others got taxis home (no driving after drinking). We went to bed at about 1.30pm and actually had a good night's sleep with very little noise from the party revellers outside our bedroom window.

Here is a selection of images from the party last night - there will hopefully be some good ones of the family to come from the photographer. As you can see Tommy was so happy and was laughing and enjoying himself (and he stayed sober all night!)