The Celebrant

It was Saturday, James Mulville had been booked to take a very special wedding at the country hotel outside of town. He new the place well, and had been briefed on the special requirements for the day. Unfortunately, his assistant, Julie, had been taken ill and had called him early that morning to excuse herself. James called her colleague, Alison, to see if she could take Julie's place. Fortunately she could, but James forgot to mention that this wedding would be different from the many others they had led in the past.

James drove over to Alison's house to pick her up to take her to the hotel and he thought he would mention the dress, or is that undress, code on the way, however Alison had been to a concert the night before and didn't stop telling James about it until they got to the hotel.

As they turned into the hotel driveway, they saw that the barrier was down. James thought that was unusual, as normally, when he took weddings there, he was able to drive straight up to the hotel. He was just about to open the door when a security officer appeared at the window.

"Hi, I'm Samantha, I'm on duty today. Have you heard about the dress requirements for the wedding?"

"Yes." James replied.

"Well, they start here, at the gate. Please can you pull into the car park here and change in the gatehouse".

The gatehouse was a small house, just inside the gate which was used by the security service to check on everyone coming into the hotel. Just as Samantha had indicated, there was a small parking area next to it. James pulled into it and James and Alison were led into a side door on the gatehouse.

"As you know", Samantha started once they were inside, "This is an all nude wedding...".

"As you know!" shrieked Alison. "Why didn't you tell me before? I never would have agreed to this! You tried to trick me, James, didn't you! You just wanted to get to see me naked! You ..." her voice trailed off as she lost her momentum.

"No! No! No! I was trying to tell you on the way here, but you just kept on talking about your concert. I couldn't get a word in!"

"And I bet Julie isn't really sick either, she didn't want to do this, and you couldn't persuade her, so you called me last minute and dumped me in it!"

"Well, leave if you must, I'll try and manage on my own, but it's much easier having an assistant handling the paperwork, and FYI Julie really is sick and called me early this morning. She sounded really rough on the phone. Please can you help me out here. I'll make it up to you later."