One ring to beat them all

Well, I have gone and done it!
After 42 some-odd years trucking happily (and, at times, not so happily) along in life on my own account – I have finally got myself hitched.
To tell the truth, I am really happy about it – as I know I have found the person whom I want to share the rest of my life with.
Quite frankly, I had got to a stage in life where – being over 40 and still single – I thought that the good ship marriage had passed me by. But fortunately for me, about 18 months ago I met Jo and some18 months later, when I popped the question to her she said - yes.
Now being a bloke – and admittedly rather unobservant and non-plussed about all the rituals surrounding weddings and the associated palaver – I stupidly thought that since I had asked the question, the major hassle was over and the rest of this marriage nonsense would look after itself.
However, just as talk-show host David Letterman has recently and rather inadvertently discovered that porking all the female interns on his show is not conducive to a long and happy marriage. I too have found that popping the question is just the first step in a long and harrowing journey to one’s wedding day!
Firstly there is setting the actual date. Now any reasonable person would think an educated, intelligent, independent couple could just look up a calendar, pick a date and bob’s your uncle – wedding day sorted! Yeah, right! They could make a Tui billboard about that one!
Apparently, the date of one’s nuptials is not that easy. I am learning this is because you also need to consider some, part and/or all of the following:
When you will get married; what time of year you will get married; where you want to get married; if it will be a church wedding or not; if so, is the church you want available; who you will invite, who you will not invite; who you are going to marry (no – that one is sorted)? What kind of catering do you want; where you will have the reception; what kind of reception will you have; which priest will marry you; when is he available? Yada, yada, yada! It is a bit like the Japs during WW2 – questions like these just keep on coming!
But to tell the truth, that is the simple stuff. If you really want to make your head spin – then try sorting out the rings.
And I say rings – plural – because not only is there to be an engagement ring. Some big, bedazzled, diamond encrusted masterpiece – that is worth the equivalent of the GDP of a small, African nation. But there is also the wedding band for the woman – which must of course match the aforementioned engagement ring ensemble. But then there is the vexed question of the bloke’s wedding band.
Now I must to confess that yours truly is no fan of male jewellry. In fact, it makes me uncomfortable. I come from a rather conservative, rural background where men who wore rings were either considered camp as a row of girl-guide tents or a wannabe used car salesmen. Neither proposition is all that appealing.
There is also another problem and this one, I am afraid, is genetic! Males in my family are blessed – or more correctly, cursed – with fat, sausage-type fingers. I come from generations of farming stock, where working the land (and perhaps a dash of in-breeding) has somehow mutated the male members of my family fingers’ into short, fat stumps stuck on the end of our hands.
As you can imagine, this does not make them ideal vessels for the wearing of rings. In fact, a ring on my finger is about as elegant to the sight of an All Black prop in a mini skirt – it is just not pretty.
So, I am in a bit of a quandary as Jo is keen on me wearing a wedding band, but on the other hand (no pun intended) I have the issue with wearing rings as outlined above. Who knows what the outcome will be, but all I know is that ring or no ring I am happy to be getting married.
Now, is there anyone out there who knows a good place to hold a wedding reception around the greater Auckland area?