In which I contemplate a wedding to Richard Armitage
To some extent inspired by reflection Xenia’s post here, and pushed out a little by this RPF (slash — read warnings), in which Armitage makes a marriage proposal.
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Harry Kennedy (Richard Armitage) tells Geraldine that he knows they will be happy together forever, in The Vicar of Dibley: The Handsome Stranger. Source: RichardArmitageNet.com
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I always joke, when people ask me about what I’d say if Richard Armitage asked me to marry him, that I’d tell him we could get married as long as we skipped everything but the sex.
Servetus is extremely happily single. She’d possibly like to be having more sex, but that’s a theme for a different day. Take it as read that I’m happily partner-free, and I will explain the reasons some other time, if it becomes actual.
As far as the wedding goes, this is how I imagine the discussion would go, after the accepted proposal and the inevitably amazing post-proposal sex.
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Armitage: So, when can we set a date?
Serv: What’s the big rush?
Armitage: I thought you’d be eager.
Serv: Well, I mean, wait, families on two continents. Your shooting schedule. My work schedule. All our friends and getting them in one place. I think we can probably get everything coordinated in about five years or so.
Armitage: What??
Serv: I’m just trying to be realistic.
Armitage: Our parents aren’t getting any younger.
Serv: True.
Armitage: So do you think we can do it in less than five years?
Serv: I guess we can talk about it. [hopefully] Or we could have more sex.
Armitage [peeling Servetus’ arms from his chest]: You have heard of this little thing called a refractory period?
Serv: [laughs]. OK.
Armitage: So let’s talk. Where do you want to get married?
Serv [hopefully]: City hall?
Armitage: Do you mean the registry office?
***
John Standring (Richard Armitage) and Carol Boulton (Sarah Smart) obtain a marriage license in episode 3 of Sparkhouse. Source: RichardArmitageNet.com
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Serv: Sure.
Armitage: I would have thought you would have wanted a religious wedding.
Serv: [looks away shiftily]
Armitage: My parents might like one, as well.
Serv: That would be fine, I guess. I am religious. In the parish church near where you grew up?
Armitage: Do we really want to drag everyone to Leicester? It might be easier to move my parents to some other location.
Serv: Do you have another favorite church? There are so many beautiful settings in England.
Armitage: I thought you might know of one. You’re so church-conscious. Why not your parents’ church?
Serv: Neither of us is Lutheran. Unless you joined while I wasn’t looking.
Armitage: Right.
Serv: That’s what I thought.
Armitage: Why not a synagogue? That breaking the glass ritual is quite touching and joyful, isn’t it?
Serv: Yes, although technically it’s a gesture of mourning for the Temple. [brightens] But you could wear the Thorin Oakenshield boots and give it a nice big stomp! [tickles Armitage in ribs].
Armitage [grabbing Servetus’ hands]: I’m not getting married in costume!
***
Richard Armitage as Thorin Oakenshield. I think this would be a great wedding outfit!
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Serv: You don’t have to wear the wig if you don’t want. But why not, if I have to put one some thousand-dollar dress?
Armitage: You can wear whatever you like.
Serv: Jeans?
Armitage: Maybe not jeans.
Serv: It’s off, then.
***
Harry Kennedy (Richard Armitage) takes a moment of genuine pleasure in Gerry’s wedding costume — his favorite pajamas — in Vicar of Dibley: The Vicar in White. Source: RichardArmitageNet.com
***
Armitage: OK, jeans.
Serv: You can wear them too, you know. Whatever you like. Though you do look good in a tux.
Armitage: Grey t-shirt?
Serv: Absolutely.
Armitage: Done. But what about the place again?
Serv: My parents would never darken the doors of an actual synagogue, I fear. I suppose we could have a wedding out-of-doors with the chuppah and try to distract them from noticing that the service was going on Hebrew. It might be hard to hide the Chasidic rabbi, although I suppose Pesky could say the blessings. Aside from the religious problem, though, there’s the walking up the aisle issue.
Armitage: What do you mean?
Serv: In the Jewish service, after the groom is led to the canopy by his parents, the bride is led by her parents to the wedding canopy.
Armitage: Don’t you like that?
Serv: It’s as objectionable or unobjectionable as any other ritual that has its roots in a property transaction, but my father would never go for it. He thinks that’s his job and his alone. If he got his nose out of joint about it, my mom would dig in as well.
Armitage: But if you tell him he has to share duties with your mum or no wedding?
Serv: The point at which you tell your parents you’re finally getting married is not the moment at which to issue ultimatums.
Armitage: It sounds like you think the purpose of a wedding is to please your parents. It’s really to please yourself, isn’t it?
Serv: I think the wedding industry makes you think you’re supposed to have exactly what you want, or as much of that as you can afford. But have you ever watched anyone actually get married? The second an engagement is announced, everyone they know calls them to tell them how they just have to do it. And they cave.
Armitage: I don’t think of you as giving in very easily.
Serv: I try to be strategic. [laughs]. Anyway, you might also have some issues yourself with a Jewish wedding.
Armitage: Like what?
Serv: You’d have to sign a contract in Hebrew called a ketuvah.
Armitage: My agent would want to look at it.
Serv: Does he read Hebrew?
Armitage: I’m not sure, actually.
Serv: Also, I don’t care for the wording of the old-style ketuvot, so if we were to go that route, I would need you to agree to a clause that in the event of a civil divorce, you would agree to give me a Jewish religious divorce as well.
Armitage: We’re not even married and you’re building the signing of a divorce agreement into the wedding?
Serv: Your agent is going to urge you to sign a prenup anyway.
Armitage: True. [pauses] Would you mind?
Serv: You know that I don’t want your money as long as there are no children.
Armitage: I wouldn’t abandon my own children financially.
Serv: Or otherwise. I know you wouldn’t. And I told you before we got serious that I wasn’t having children.
Armitage: Right. So no one will be abandoned.
Serv: Right.
[silence]
***
Miss Latimer (Lucy Brown) and Mr. Thornton (Richard Armitage) at his sister’s wedding, in episode 4 of North & South. Source: RichardArmitageNet.com
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Armitage: So we’re back to the church. We can find a C of E Church.
Serv: I’ve always like that text. “And thereto I plight thee my troth.”
Armitage: “With my body I thee worship.”
Armitage dives in to give Serv a really, really enthusiastic kiss.
Serv [surfacing]: What happened to the refractory period? [giggles] I wouldn’t say “obey,” though.
Armitage: That’s not a problem for me. I’m not asking you to lie before G-d. Just to marry me.
Serv: It just could be harder than you think. My parents aren’t cool about these things. They won’t go to Catholic weddings because they can’t take the Eucharist. They only go the parties afterward. I’d also have to read the service to make sure there’s nothing in it that’s theologically incorrect for them.
Armitage: So you’re not a Christian but your parents won’t attend your wedding in the wrong church for them?
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Harry Kennedy (Richard Armitage) speaks his marriage vows to Gerry (Dawn French) in The Vicar of Dibley: The Vicar in White. Source: RichardArmitageNet.com
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Serv: Probably not. But really, we’re letting this get away from us. Did you want a church wedding?
Armitage: No, not particularly. I thought you would, and my parents wouldn’t mind.
Serv: I would only be doing it for the parents, but with mine, I don’t see how it could ever work out. So, we’ve settled that. Great! No church, no synagogue. How about a bikram yoga ceremony?
Armitage: All the guests would eventually want to take their clothes off.
Serv: I could see where that would pose a problem for my parents, too.
[both laugh]
Armitage: The registry office is so sterile, though. I thought you’d want a day to remember for the rest of our lives.
***
John Standring (Richard Armitage) and Carol Boulton (Sarah Smart) are congratulated after their registry wedding, as Lisa (Holliday Grainger) looks on, in episode 3 of Sparkhouse. Source: RichardArmitageNet.com
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Serv: It’s about the day, I think, not the place specifically. But this time, you must have noticed that my romantic gene has remained inexplicably dormant.
Armitage: [laughs] True. Though you’re not as hardboiled as you think you look.
Serv: Some of your roles are rubbing off on me.
Armitage: [laughs] But what about somewhere really beautiful?
Serv: A destination wedding?
Armitage: Why not?
[silence]
Armitage: You have qualms.
Serv: You’re thinking New Zealand.
Armitage: Why not?
Serv: It’s so far away from everywhere, which means fewer people would come.
Armitage: That is a disadvantage.
Serv: I was thinking that would be an advantage.
[both laugh]
Armitage: I’m starting to see why you said “five years.” You thought we could just put it off indefinitely.
Serv: Kinda.
Armitage: You’re good at avoidance, aren’t you?
Serv: One of the best!
Armitage: Why didn’t you just say you didn’t want to get married?
Serv: Because that’s hard on a relationship. Also a mood-killer. Are you ready to have sex again now? [hopefully]
[both laugh]
Armitage: What is your ideal wedding?
Serv: What’s yours?
Armitage: I assume that the woman has her priorities in order and I just want to be given a schedule and show up and not have too much hassle and have a great party.
Serv: How classically male.
[Serv leans over and kisses Armitage on the nose. Armitage laughs.]
Serv: That kind of wedding sort of assumes the bride’s parents picking up the tab. I’m sure my father would want to, but I would never ask them.
Armitage: No, naturally we’d pay for it ourselves.
Serv: Which means you’d have to pay for it yourself, moneybags.
Armitage [laughs]: Seriously, for you I would finance whatever wedding you wanted to have. So what’s your choice? Justice of the peace, like in those American western films? Las Vegas?
Serv: No, although a close friend of mine who I always thought was the only person on the planet less likely to marry than me did that, and her description made it sound really appealing. They just walked up to a counter outside a building and seven minutes later they were married. Then they had juicy burgers to celebrate. She got a ring that lit up if you twisted the fake plastic jewel.
Armitage: I can see a scurrilous charm to that. Do I understand you correctly? Did you just say that you are the least likely to get married person on the planet, now that your friend has gotten married? After I asked you to get married? What does that mean for me?
Serv: I really don’t want to have a wedding. But if there’s some compelling reason to get married, I would be willing to do it at a government office and send everyone an announcement afterwards.
Armitage: Parents?
Serv: No parents. My best friend from college, because I ran interference for her when she had her wedding.
Armitage: Anyone else?
Serv: You.
Armitage: Sounds good. How do you want to word the announcement?
Serv: Isn’t this post long enough already?
Armitage: I’m starting to get the picture. You don’t want to get married.
Serv: No. I don’t.
Armitage: Not even to me?
Serv: I admit that you are pretty spectacular. But can’t we just be lovers forever?
Armitage: Sure. If that’s what you want. I’ve always described myself to the press as a total people pleaser.
Serv: You sure are!
[fade to black]
***
Maybe the conversation ended better than I thought it would. Hmmm. Fantasy Richard Armitage is so agreeable.
Me + Richard Armitage 
Is it offensive if I say I found this a hilarious read? Not trying to make your fantasy and your very real objections sound like a joke. Totally with you on it all. Marriage is an anachronism, anyway *shrugs*.
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hilarious or horrifying, depending on your standpoint 🙂 starting with the prospect that Armitage would actually propose to me 🙂
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This indeed hilarious!!! Servetus you really crack me up at times…LOL Of course if Richard Armitage proposed to me there is no way the conversation would go like that. The only thing that we have in common is that I am not interested in having any children at this point. Quite frankly I don’t feel that RA would object much to not having children.
There is no way I would turn down a wedding to RA! Besides, even though I have never been married I DO want to be married some day.
Thanks for the laughs!!!!!!!!!!!
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Gee, and I didn’t even get around to discussing bridesmaids’ dresses 🙂
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I was already dying and then you said “bridesmaids dresses”! If I had it to do over again, I would totally skip the wedding and go straight to the honeymoon!
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There were outtakes here, as well — a part where I told him that my father would expect him to ask for permission to marry me or possibly not speak to him for several years, but that if he asked my father for permission to marry me, the engagement would be off. I also wanted to do something on him saying he just wanted to have a big dance at his wedding (which I couldn’t figure out how to write).
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And here I was already going through my jeans to see which ones would a) most likely still fit (ahem be in fashion) in 5 years and b) making plans to convince you that you wanted me as a bridesmaid even though we’d only just met. *pouts* *tries puppy dog eyes* Couldn’t you reconsider? For bridesmaids’ sake?
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OK, but only if you wear your absolute rattiest, most comfortable jeans 🙂
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YES, yes, YESSSSSS. 😉 Cool. No problem with the time frame then. They will always fit – being stretchy pants. I’ve never been a bridesmaid, it’s not really a tradition here. But they always look so delightfully wretched in the movies. The best one for me will always be the 1980s “Bridesmaids” with Sela Ward in it. Where they totally revamped the dresses. Btw… I also have a lovley ratty grey shirt to go with the jeans. Will that do? Daughter calls it mom’s potato sack that no self-respecting potato would be seen cooked in.
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Like a lot of things in the U.S., it’s neat idea that got out of hand. OTOH, most people don’t have weddings the like ones in movies … they can’t afford them 🙂
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I so could imagine you in that proposal argument ;o)
New Zealand had me laughing out loud. I think I was 17 years old, when people started to invite themselves to my wedding. Fortunately, I did not have one and was able to avoid them all 😉
(Strangely people did that only with me and not my sister who actually married.)
I am a bit like Margaret; going to a church on a sunny morning just would be fine. No fuss, no flitter, just the mere necessities. So a faraway place where one can marry in peace sounds really fine and the only doable alternative to staying single 🙂
Fortunately, my parents would not make any fuss about the choice of church or anything about the procedure, though they would check the groom to pieces, before they would allow him to come near me ;o)
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This is why I only ever let my parents meet people that I think I will be with more for than two years. The recovery from the background check is hard on the relationship and takes a while.
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I used to think that my parents were rather strict – clearly I was wrong… When they first met my husband (boyfriend as was) they didn’t have any problem with our sharing a room (of course we were 29) They might have taken pity on him because he was clearly suffering from culture shock coming from Philadelphia to small town Wisconsin. Maybe they should have been stricter – our son was a 9 month old guest at our wedding 15 months later – you do the math 😉
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Only married people have sex in my parents’ house. Maybe that’s why you have children and I don’t 🙂
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I think the horse may already have been out of the barn at that point, but that’s splitting hairs. You should compare notes with my friend – her Dad was a WELS minister – I laughingly asked her once (she’s 46 and definitely living her life happily single) if her mother thought she was a virgin. She didn’t laugh – I took that as a yes. AFAIK, in the 25 years we’ve been friends, she has never introduced a potential partner to her family – way too much vetting from her POV.
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I should admit that I had sex behind the pole barn once out of defince, but it wasn’t worth the mosquito bites 🙂
For various reasons, I told my mom when I gave it up. It was not pretty. I brought guys home to introduce twice. After the second time I said never again. Ex-SO showed up to surprise me (flying from Frankfurt) on doorstep of my apartment the night before my dissertation defense, so I couldn’t avoid introducing them at the party afterwards. Two days later my mom called to say how much they liked him. He overheard and he saw the look on my face and said, “Does this mean our relationship is over?” 🙂
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LOL – I hate when defiance costs me itchy bug bites! Jeez- What a dilemma! I’ve only ever brought my husband home – (College boyfriend would have majorly freaked my parents out – he was in a band) He bonded with my dad over football…despite the fact that he was a Cowboys fan at the time. 🙂
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You make me feel calmer about my parents, actually. I had been thinking I’d sketched them as unreasonable …
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Not really, given generation and location, I’d say they were maybe just on the conservative side of average…my mother missed being a hippie by a whiff…and my dad must have been a bit of a rebel since he was Catholic and married a Protestant (although she did whatever classes she had to do to be married in the church) – Iconoclasts 😉
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As my parents would be only one of the hurdles to take, it could take a while till we get to the interesting stuff 😉 My choir master certainly would want a say in that decision as well and I don’t think her checking would be any more lenient than that of my parents.
I think, your estimate of about 5 years was really very realistic ;o)
Fortunately, not one ever took my own hurdles and got that far 🙂
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actually, my high school piano teacher’s opinion would be as important to me as my mother’s — and less self-interested. 🙂
Did you want to be married?
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No ;o)
Never came across someone who could tempt me 😉
But like your piano teacher, my choir master’s opinion is one I would really want to hear. She was teacher for long years and her experience with people is immense. She knows me for most of my life, so, like my parents, she would have a quite good idea of who I really am, not what I show to the outside world.
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I thought it was fabulous, a great back and forth dialog thing going on. My imagination can’t go much beyond staring at him from a distance, Or maybe rescuing him from drowning in the Pacific because I think he is a crappy swimmer.. Talk about repressed! My fantasies don’t stray far enough from reality. But I am working on it.
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I agree with you re: the swimming. Swimming rescue = mouth to mouth resuscitation?
There’s no requirement to fantasize, of course, but it is so productive … and can be truly enjoyable.
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Fifty lanes every day and scuba diving training for CA? Far from crappy swimmer.
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Well, 50 lanes isn’t exactly the ocean. I think he did those things because he was afraid of the CA shoot.
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I don’t think I have ever seen you post so many pictures of Harry! I have loved the vicar of dibley since it started so to have RA in it was just wonderful.
I love your one on one conversations that you have with him. We obviously know what he sounds like but whose voice do you sound like?? I’d go with Katherine Hepburn rather than Fran Dreschler xx
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🙂
Here I am speaking
and here I am reciting a sonnet in English:
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I think your voice sounds refined, soft ,feminine and clear., also young. Thanks for sharing. And when you laugh, it probably sounds like the tinkling of tiny silver bells.
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Aaaw, thanks, Kathy Jones. Tinkling of tiny silver bells? 🙂 How do you sound?
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I am loud (unintentionally) , Hearing myself induces cringing followed by denial. My voice is low but not pretty. It has a range, going up and down depending on my emotions. I can be dramatic, so the voice goes with that. Full disclosure, the “silver bells” description is from one of my favorite books, Lucky Jim. You would love it. It’s a hilarious take on academia.
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I don’t care for how I sound either (and I had had two margaritas when I recorded the second one). I’d love to hear your “dramatic” voice. Lucky Jim has been on my list for years and I’ve just never gotten around to it …
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Thorin boots at a wedding would be something to see. I liked the dialogue between you two.
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If I could wear a Hobbit out fit 🙂
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Is it weird if I suggest the long Thorin wig and the fur pelt must make an appearance during the honeymoon? Or the prenuptial (or never-nuptial, as the case may be) festivities? 🙂
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I should have told him that we could get married on top of Mt Ruapehoe (Sp?) and he could ski down dressed as Thorin. That would have gotten him to wear the Thorin costume to the wedding. Of course, there’s the problem of how *I’d* get down, as I don’t ski …
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Helicopter?
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I was thinking I could just put on a snow suit and roll down the mountain. A helicopter is a hassle 🙂
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LMAO – no control there….maybe a sled or a toboggan…or better, a saucer…weeeeee
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Saucer!!! That’s it.
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On a saucer, you might even beat him to the bottom! (those things fly – hopefully not into trees…)
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Snowcat — ever tried one of those? They come in different sizes, they’re fairly stable, and they can go up and down most ski runs.
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!!!
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Mt Ruapehu 🙂
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Thanks, Jemma40! 🙂
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Oh please do talk about bridesmaids’ dresses. I have a big white wedding coming up. (Mom of groom). Bridesmaids are wearing green, with orange touches. My complexion can not wear either colour. How do I dress to support son and dil? I got married in a pink mini-skirt at City Hall, walking past felons paying traffic tickets (or worse). Big White Weddings are not quite my thing. (But I adore my daughter-in-law, so we have to make an effort.) And there is a shopaholic, clothes-horse friend, who is acting as something like a “stylist”. She loves it, is currently looking for a “clutch” type purse with a shoulder chain. (I do need hands-free, no ladies-in-waiting, to accept flowers.) But I asked all your questions, Servetus. Did, actually. Including that his family were practising French Catholic, and mine were (not particularly-practising Anglicans. ) So, it was a civil ceremony….
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I guess you still can’t have a High Mass if you marry a non-Catholic? I haven’t followed that so closely.
I’m comforted that my parents are not the only ones that asked this question. I can’t imagine what green with orange dresses would look like, honestly. Maybe you should wear … taupe? bluish gray?
I love you marrying in a pink miniskirt. LOVE! I think Armitage would totally be up for that. And then he’d come home and fix your house afterwards.
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Well, why else would I think of marrying him? I’m hopeless at DIY. Bluish grey sounds reasonable, Thank you, my other stylist. Main thing is to keep in the background. The bride and maids are the focal point. Grooms are just so much wall-paper. Moms of Grooms are not really on the radar. 😀
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If men get married for housekeeping, why not 🙂
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Giggles! But honey, I would want the hot sex with him and his “seed”. We could plant it in me via in vitro–the Gyne always said I had great eggs–or a stand in. *wink* And the man is so handsome, gentlemanly, and talented, those good guy genes need to be shared with the world. If not with me, with someone. Ha!
P.S. I could see RA’s responding as Harry in your fic. So adorable!
And you are such a tease, lady. Ha!
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Is this Grati after Dark again? 🙂
You’ll have to ask him about his “seed,” and what he wants to do with it 🙂 I always joke in my mind about him making sperm donations as a struggling actor in order to earn money, as my grad school boyfriend The Physicist did at times … maybe there’s a crowd of all unknowing offspring out there 🙂
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GAD. That’s me. Ha! Golly, unknown and “unknowing” Armitage offspring out there in the world. That would open up a can of worms. Ha!
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It is your fantasy you do what you want. I still want the wedding, 22 1/2 years later I still want “it’s your big day”. I am legally married nothing else. Our witnesses don’t even remember being so. My new MIL took us if she would have known she would have made my new FIL birthday cake our wedding cake, ya right. We got married in the living room of our 1st house with my parents pastor. No honeymoon, just a called up to duty the next day.
So you see I want a do over. I do tell everyone getting married to do it the way they want to. My BF is still thinking about it and it has been 4 years, to her it is spending all that money on one day. At one time my husband wanted to do a toga theme wedding where everyone is dressed in a toga, at the time I would not go for that. At the time we got married we had been engaged for 1 1/2 years and living together for 15 months, not much changed but my last name.
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25 is coming up — any chance for a “renewal of vows”?
I agree everyone should get what they want 🙂 Would you have the big white wedding?
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At the time I wanted the white wedding and if things would have not pushed us, I might still be just engaged. There was no money, my parents could not pay for it and since we where “living in sin and having to much fun” his parents would not pay, we where young and broke. I did go try on some dresses with his brothers wife, I at lest got to go and do that. The dresses at the time 89-90 where big and the few I tried made short little me look like a marshmallow, not cool.
I have thought about a renewal at 10 years and was pregnant with son3. I would like a renewal at 25 years but not in November and the 1st weekend of deer hunting, my husband would be there but no one else. Have been asked what fools get married during hunting season. At my age I think white is out, maybe cream. I have also giving the thought of going over to England, that might be fun. I still look at dresses very once in a while, I come up with new ideas as I get older, even got a dress in mind now. Maybe some of this comes from never being in any wedding, my husband has been in 3 and son1, 1 and 1 next year. Who knows what will happen.
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I have sewn for so many weddings that I really don’t want to do all that engineering-cum-dressmaking anymore. If I were ever crazy enough to consider marrying again, I hope the groom would be okay with something very simple and pret-a-porter, maybe even his favourite pajamas.
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PJs! Love it! Echoes of….
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katie70, if you renew your vows, don’t do it on opening weekend. The only people in WI I know who have that wedding date were people who “had” to get married and they never celebrate their anniversaries. No reason you couldn’t celebrate the renewal sometime when the weather’s nice and all your friends will come.
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Leigh my MIL made my SIL wedding dress by taking hers apart. She said never again, now her oldest granddaughter is getting married in July and asked grandma to make her mom’s work for her. She is taller than her mom and I asked my MIL how that was going to work, she is not sure. My niece also picked up a dress at Goodwill for $25 if my MIL can’t figure out how to add inch’s to the dress, then she will have to add something to the neckline as she thinks it’s to low. The dress I did get married in I made and my now MIL I think made me take it out about a 100 times, but it is perfect. She also gave me some of the left over lace from her wedding dress for the sailor collar, to bad it don’t fit anymore. I also don’t sew much, wonder why.
We did have a date picked before we got married June, 19, 1990 got married on November, 19, 1990. Time will tell if we ever do, the party would be fun.
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Never had any fantasies about a wedding. Good thing since I’ll never have one! LOL Well, never say never, they say. 😉 And a wedding with RA. ROFL I would surely hope he could do lots better than me! But as a fantasy I would opt for the civil route, not church. Never. Unless his parents insisted. I would do whatever they said. Yes, Mrs. A., whatever you want. 😀
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She probably is a woman of steel. You don’t want to get on bad terms with your future fantasy MIL, after all 🙂
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Hee hee! That’s what I say! Esp. since she seems to have a lot of influence over her son, the fantasy groom. Presumably.
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But how can you resist that appealing expression when RA tells you you’re going to be happy forever??!!! Love that RA picture.
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🙂 I don’t see his face because I’ve fallen down on the floor laughing hysterically the second he utters the words? 🙂
I really am not a romantic.
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Yep, that line of RA’s is a bit hackneyed. Ah well. I’d probably have the same reaction and end up laughing on the floor too. RA would be crushed and turn to you for consolation. 😉
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Harry’s the one who’s quoting Thomas Hardy, after all … he really deserves a true romantic, like you. 🙂
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Guess it’s all those Barbara Cartland books I read as a teen. *sighs* Plus Jane Eyre, Sense & Sensibility, Emma, Pride & Prejudice, Little Women……
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I read all those, too. I just had the wrong reaction, sadly. I never got why Darcy or Rochester were attractive, and I totally overidentified with Jo in LW.
Did you read Beverly Farr’s post about Barbara Cartland this week?
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No, but I’ll look for it. Thanks.
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Hmm. I did the big white wedding, don’t need to do it again – but since he’s never had one, he might want one; and for RA I would be a blushing bride. I’d even blush, for GoshSakes. Especially if you ladies are going to talk about “seed”. Gracious! We wouldn’t make it to the reception without his trousers getting significantly creased. Unless we had an extremely streeeeetch limo. 😉
What a lovely little daydream. Thanks for giving us all an excuse to think about this!! I really needed it today. 😀
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This was really Xenia’s daydream — I just riffed on it.
Admittedly, in my fantasy, he doesn’t want a wedding like that — another similarity with Harry Kennedy, who tells Gerry she should plan whatever she wants and he’ll be down the pub. Oh, and not let her friends interfere.
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My husbands exact words on wedding planning, “Just tell me where to stand.”
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That is all that is required of the groom. Just wear what he is told to wear. A TUX??? he says in horror. Be there on time, and smile, as directed.
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He did get to pick the tux…as long as it was black, no tails and a vest instead of a cummerbund – I’m not a total dictator 😉
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No, simply an absolute monarch to whom he owes fealty. 😉
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Precisely 🙂
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Ha! That’s right, I completely forgot about the links at the top. Too busy thinking about your wedding. :}
And Obscura, I love the way your husband thought. Mine was a bit of a princess.
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When he was supposed to be the prince? 🙂
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Something like that. Or at least not such a drama queen. 😉
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You have me ROFL, Servetus, and I haven’t even had my coffee yet! If not marriage, have you considered mutual durable powers of attorney (with lots of sex)? Were I to fantasize about marriage to Richard, it would not be nearly as funny, but it would definitely be fantasy! If he wanted me, he could have me, almost any which way his heart desired.
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Maybe. One thing I will never do ever again for any reason is mingle my finances with someone else’s.
I wonder if we could contract for number of bonks per week 🙂
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Amen. What the durable power of attorney gives you is the right to make decisions when your partner is incapacitated, usually re. healthcare, property, and finances, while protecting what you hold as “sole and separate.”. The power of attorney doesn’t take effect until/unless the partner cannot act. For example, I would want my partner to be sure that my healthcare directive was followed. You can set up a (revokable) trust so that the surviving partner is the beneficiary of the trust and is thus relieved of inheritance tax and death duties.
As for contracting for number of bonks per week, hmm. A specified minimum, no maximum, with an exception for ill health of either party… But that does not address quality. You wouldn’t want just a pro forma quickie.
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Yeah. I hold them for parents and vice versa. (and during my first year as a prof I had to work as a paralegal to make my rent — we did a lot of those trust / POA combinations: will, revocable trust, Durable POA, HCPOA and some other doc, I’ve forgotten. Slammed the basic combination out for $1200 back in the late 1990s if not language revision was required). I have mixed feelings. I suppose if you were someone’s closest person other than their kin you’d have to have one. Honestly, I’d prefer to leave it to his brother at this point. Maybe if we were together for a long time.
I’m such a cynic.
I’m doubtful that writing it into a contract would guarantee getting me what I wanted, as you note. I’m just thinking of the Talmudic provisions about how often a man is supposed to satisfy his wife, I guess. (summary — the more leisure you have, the more often you are required to do it. A man of independent means is supposed to satisfy his wife every day, but a working man must do it only twice per week.)
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I knew a Jewish man of comfortable means who married a Catholic woman. No wonder she was smiling like the cat who’d got a dozen canaries.
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I probably should have asked Armitage, seeing as he’s now a man of independent means, if he’d be willing to live up to the Talmudic prescriptions.
Gosh, that would have been a fascinating conversation. This just gets better and better …
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LOL!…*cough*..Excuse me:)
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This is why you should never marry a Jewish sailor. They are only required to satisfy their wives every six months. (not that there are all that many Jewish sailors, admittedly.)
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Hmm…I think, I married a Jewish sailor..:D
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O__o 🙂
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My husband asked me what time he should show up and what should he wear. And I picked the honeymoon destination. I also proposed to him. I never got the bended knee and I picked my own engagement ring. I guess I lam romantically challenged, Servetus, I think you should do a dialog on how Richard proposed to you.Was he shy, where were you? Did he kneel down? Were you surprised? In other words, what happened before you (foolishly) refused to marry him?
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The reason I didn’t write that part was that I couldn’t think of a scenario in which I’d say yes (or at least not one that didn’t involve guns) and the fantasy kept going pear shaped because we got into an argument, so I decided to just assume I’d said yes and start from there 🙂
How would Armitage propose to you, do you think?
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Ok, here it goes. Richard and I have been (“just friends, no benefits)” for a long time. When he is in town (LA) we hang out and have fun. We have become increasingly attracted to each other and are exploring that aspect of our friendship with unexpected passion. Separations are horrible. We decide to have a ski weekend at Heavenly Valley, Lake Tahoe,with a long separation looming. We take a lift up to one of the highest runs and ski off to the side, avoiding clogging the piste. The view is spectacular, snow, forest and a shimmering alpine lake the color of his eyes spread out before us. We start down the run and his skis entangle with mine and we both fall down. I am teasing him about what a bad skier he is and he gets up and then helps me to my feet . After gently brushing the snow off my shapely butt, he gives me a huge hug, kiss and apology and we race to the bottom of the mountain. I win, I turn around, he’s down, flattened by a heedless snowboarder. I rush to his side, thinking he might be hurt, he pulls me down to him and says, “I think we should be married, I say “Let’s do it.” And we do.,
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Wow, I love this! This is the best kind of fantasy to me because of the “best friends” aspect.
And you say you have no fantasy.
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Thanks, The biggest fantasy in this piece is my shapely butt. It’s as flat as Richard’s stomach.
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They say the best curve on a woman is her smile, anyway 🙂
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I really like that fantasy Servetus *giggles*
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Thanks Herba 🙂
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*facepalm* *headdesk* *tears* This is not Dibley, this is a full half-hour episode of Seinfeld! (Why can’t they revive that show with Servetus as chief writer, if Jerry is out of puff? Hell, Serv, why don’t you devise your own TV series?)
Having read all the comments, and noting the wedding-averse as a sizable demographic, I reckon there’s a good niche business to be made from elopements. Elopements are good. They are all honeymoon and hardly any wedding. I eloped. Mind you, I botched the first attempt; we skipped to Havana, only to arrive just after the place had been torn apart by a hurricane, then found the stupid bloody Australian embassy had closed down. This was just six weeks after 9/11, when you’d think diplomacy of any kind would have been valuable. But we rallied and did the deed in Hong Kong 18 months later … OK, in the middle of the SARS crisis, but at least we didn’t have to book months ahead for the restaurant of our choice.
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I love these stories. Admittedly, it’s hard for U.S. citizens to get into Cuba without flying a sort of circle route around Latin America. (Or at least it used to be.) To me, this is the theoretical problem with an elopement — you run off, and into the middle of an international flu epidemic or something …
I didn’t even discuss the whole visa question. Geez. We’d have to get married in Denmark. I like Denmark, though.
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Denmark is great. Just think — Richard, Denmark, and dual (EU/US) citizenship, what a package deal!
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I don’t know, Britain has weird citizenship/immigration issues with the rest of Europe, at least for US citizens.
People who want to get married in Germany but can’t come up with the necessary “proof they are not married” from their home country which is required for a German wedding license usu go to Denmark. There’s apparently a whole industry right on the Danish side of the border. Then Germany recognizes the Danish marraige, I guess?
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Any EU country will recognize a marriage performed in another EU country, even if the requirements to get married are different. However, citizenship for the non-EU spouse is not automatic in most EU countries, although it is much easier and faster to obtain that way than by another means. There are plenty of “green card” marriages in Spain, for example, although the laws make it difficult and divorce can be very expensive.
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They will recognize the marriage, but the visa situation for partners of EU citizens is (afaik two years ago) not uniform. England doesn’t participate in a lot of the Schengen conventions because of its imperial history.
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sorry, Schengen isn’t the treaty I’m thinking of. But I know from personal experience that the visa laws for married partners are not the same in England as they are in Germany and that the general entry visa rules can be strikingly different.
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At least in Spain, if you are married to a Spaniard, you can then apply for residency and citizenship without the obstacles to residency you would face without a Spanish spouse or the ten-year waiting period before you can go through applying for citizenship. I would assume that the UK has similar rules, so you could enter on a non-EU passport, marry, and immediately begin the process of applying for residency. I know the UK does not adhere to all of the Schengen rules, but I would think that there was some kind of accommodation.
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I’m not going to research this, because I don’t care that much, really, and when I split w/my German partner, I swore I was never going to look at a visa permit advisory written in a foreign language ever again 🙂 I just know from years of navigating the system there and from many friends that the experiences I and friends have had trying to get residencies straightened out in the EU have revealed noticeable differences in England and Germany. I know that the treaties have different timelines written in them and the laws change regularly. I also know that the law about work permits converting to citizenship possibilities in the UK changed about two years ago in the spring, because a friend told me she got in under a line, and that in Germany at least a residency permit for marriage purposes does not make it easier to get a BRD citizenship or automatically put you in line to get it — it just puts you in a different queue.
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sorry to drag you OT. I guess it’s just my own struggles to obtain residency that get in my way.
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I’m sure we both have our traumas 🙂
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One of my alltime favourite movies is Much Ado About Nothing in the version of the early 90ies, directed by Kenneth Branagh and starring his (then) wife, the amazing Emma Thompson.
There is a beautiful moment when Don Pedro (Denzel Washington) proposes to Beatrice (Emma Thompson). I have seen it 2 dozens of times and every time I am in tears.
BEATRICE
Thank the lord for alliances! So everyone goes off into the world except me, who stays in because I’m sunburned. I should sit in the corner and sing that song, “Heigh-Ho for a Husband!”
DON PEDRO
Lady Beatrice, I will get you one.
BEATRICE
I would rather have one of your father’s getting. Hath your grace ne’er a brother like you? Your father got excellent husbands, if a maid could come by them.
DON PEDRO
Will you have me, lady?
BEATRICE
No, my lord, unless I might have another for working days. Your Grace is too costly to wear every day. But I beseech your Grace pardon me. I was born to speak all mirth and no matter.
DON PEDRO
Your silence most offends me, and to be merry best becomes you, for out o’ question you were born in a merry
hour.
BEATRICE
No, sure, my lord, my mother cried, but then there was a star danced, and under that was I born.—Cousins, God give you joy!
Who could stand having RA as a husband every day? I guess it would be an exhausting roller coaster ride. Not only the aspects of living a celebrities life with tabloids breathing down your neck 24/7 – resp. trying to avoid to live a celebrities life as much as possible to be able to continue to fly under the radar. Have your husbands’ appearance and parts of his personality changing every few months as he dives deep into the characters he embodies. Either arrange your own life around his without limitation or agree on separations that last several months.
Hmm. I would need another husband for working days as RA is a precious gem, too costly to wear every day.
Or better – stay a happy single as I am.
All of you have a nice day out there – wherever you are.
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I didn’t know this dialog, but it’s great — thanks for adding it here!
I was addressing more the reasons that I couldn’t see getting married, period, but I agree that Armitage would be a challenging marital partner. I said something about this in a post last summer — that he would need someone who had their own goals, dreams, activities and was perfectly fine pursuing those in his absence. (I don’t think the “person who arranges their life around yours” is really a viable relationship model anymore, not least because the person making the arrangements sacrifices their selfhood and potentially loses precisely the things that made them an attractive romantic partner in the first place, but that’s a separate question.)
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“A star danced….” That is one of my favourite plays. I was Claudio, in full production of the play, at thirteen. We were living in England for a couple of years, and my class produced an entire WS comedy every summer term. We threw ourselves into it – costumes, learning lines (I believe we all knew all the lines of every part. Claudio is a wimp. But what of it? The experience was rather wonderful.
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LOL, that could have been me! I don’t want to marry RA the actor. But if alternate universe RA the architect were my partner I would like him to want to marry me. Mind you, not on his knees and with a ring. But I would like him to love me enough to want to stay with me. And that’s it. Proposal respectively seriously discussing the possibility would be enough. I wouldn’t say yes.
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I think it’s a tricky discussion — if you move out onto that terrain and there’s any disagreement about it, it can really be a bomb. Almost better not to have it …
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Ha ha ha..it was great,Servetus! I’m sure you would be happy:)
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🙂
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Of my BFF and I, I was least likely to get married. I did. She didn’t. *shrugs*
I could never marry Richard aside from already being married, because I’m too in love with Guy. *laughs uproariously* Now if he would play Guy for me for the rest of our lives………..
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That may be why he’s not married — maybe all the women he meets want him to be Thornton or Guy or something 🙂
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You definitely have a point there. 😉
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Uproariously funny again! You could work this into a hilarious skit…
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hilarious or horrifying 🙂
Thanks.
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[…] disturbing to myself that I’m afraid to publish it. I pick up the strand of my own story via a humorous post in which I make people laugh but also realize that I’m pointing fingers at my …. I end up feeling worse for not having been honest. And then I say nothing of substance while I try […]
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Dean O’Gorman in “When Love Comes” (1998), or: Truth, no matter what language you say it in | Me + Richard Armitage said this on June 6, 2013 at 4:59 am |
[…] All of the posts — the biographical ones, the psychological ones, the analytical ones, the fanciful ones, the joking ones, the sexy ones, the hypothetical ones, the speculative ones, the supportive […]
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Reading Richard Armitage, or, Assumptions I have made | Me + Richard Armitage said this on July 6, 2015 at 4:40 am |
Wie gut, dass du das verlinkt hast, sonst wäre mir das entgangen.
“…..or we could have more sex” 😀 Schluss mit den langwierigen und ermüdendenden Diskussionen.
Und dann der letzte Satz: “I’ve always described myself to the press as a total people pleaser.” Es ist und bleibt eine begleitende Konstante…..
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or we could have more sex: Servetus’ solution to all relationship dilemmas. 🙂
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Da ist was dran. Auf jeden Fall kurzfristig eine äußerst befriedigende Lösung 😀
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[…] My struggle with self-esteem, which I was examining through fantasies about Richard Armitage encounters. I found this really productive but those posts were ones perceived as most offensive by some […]
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Finneganbeginagain | Me + Richard Armitage said this on September 10, 2021 at 4:41 am |