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Richard and Victoria Hammond got married a month ago.
Read this article about their future plans. As you read, fill in the box at the bottom of the page.
Considering their wedding cost over $20,000 and took a
year and a half to organize, you would be surprised to hear that Richard and Victoria Hammond now intend to forget it. Well, almost. “It was a wonderful wedding, an unbelievable day,” says Victoria. “But we have so much we want to do together now, we are both looking to the future.” Her husband, banker and amateur race driver Richard, agrees. “Both our minds are now fixed firmly on the future. I’ll never forget our wedding ceremony or the reception we had at a cliff-side hotel afterwards, but there’s so much we want, so many hopes. Our marriage is so much more important than the wedding.” “At the moment, we are still living with my parents,” explains Victoria, “so our first wish is to find our own place. We intend to start looking for a new house with all the modern conveniences in the suburbs in the new year.” Both Victoria and husband Richard have a lot of siblings. Do they intend to add to the extended Hammond family? “We plan on having two or three children ourselves,” Richard tells me. “Victoria is just wonderful with children, and I can get 3 years paternity leave from my work, which is just perfect.”
The young couple has just returned from a two-week
And what about the marriage itself? In a world with such a
high divorce rate, how do Richard and Victoria hope to avoid all the problems that beset so many other couples? Richard explains thoughtfully that “our ambition is to always talk to each other. If you stop communicating, what chance do you have?” His wife goes along with that completely. “I hope that we can speak about things, but also not expect everything to be easy. I think many people expect the wedding to be the end of getting to know each other. I think it’s the start.” Ambitions Mentioned Likes & Dislikes
Richard
Victoria
C Reading Comprehension
Now read through the article again and decide if the
answer to each of these questions is true or false.
1. Victoria and Richard have been married for about a year and a half. 2. They got married in a dramatic location. 3. The wedding was expensive. 4. Their first ambition is to find a house to live in. 5. Victoria wants an old-fashioned house. 6. They both have many brothers and sisters. 7. Richard can temporarily leave his job to look after his children. 8. Richard and Victoria have identical tastes regarding vacations. 9. Richard hopes to make talking an important part of their marriage. 10.Victoria thinks she now knows Richard sufficiently well.
D Vocabulary Find words or expressions in the article that mean the following:
A. Period of time in which a father can stay home from work to look after children. B. Holiday on which you can see animals in their natural environment. C. The process of finding out about another person, knowing more about them. D. Brothers and sisters. E. Number, frequency, quantity of something. F. Real, not false. G. Solidly, completely. H. Edge of a town/city where most people live. I. Party after a wedding ceremony. J. Continuously followed by problems. K. New, modern appliances e.g. fridge, microwave oven, etc. L. Holiday after a wedding.
Now find as many expressions as possible from the article that describe what Victoria and Richard want to do in the future:
First, the two families spent at least three weeks before the big day preparing all the food, from wonderful home-made delicacies to simple traditional breads and pastas. In my experience, in the UK that onerous task is left to the caterers! In the week leading up to the wedding there is a dinner or some form of celebration every day - training for the stomach, I guess. I know that we have the traditional Bachelor party and Bachelorette party, but this is more family orientated and certainly a little less rowdy. This particular ceremony was in a beautiful country church and afterwards the couple was driven to the reception in a wonderfully decorated classic Fiat 500, which was really similar to what happens in the UK, even down to the string of tin cans trailing behind the car!
The reception itself was also very similar until I realized that the seven tables in the hall each sat sixty guests (that's four hundred and twenty, for those of you who didn't study Math), an average number for Sardinia but would be considered a very large wedding where I'm from.
The wine flowed, as did the chatter - the famous Italian exuberance showing itself to the full. There were the five or six courses of wonderful food, screaming kids running wild, the ceremonial cutting of the cake by the bride and groom - but no speeches! Not one. In the UK it's traditional for the father of the bride to propose a toast, followed by the groom and finishing up with that of the best man. His is meant to be the highlight of the lunch \ dinner, generally having a good laugh at the groom's expense, but here the groom was spared that particular discomfort.
Instead, there was a delightful custom which I'd never seen before, in which six or seven of the male guests pass round the hall banging trays, drums, pots, pans or basically anything that makes a horrendous noise, selling pieces of the groom's tie which has been cut into tiny bits. The money raised is then given to the happy(!) couple to help them set up their new life together. Really nice. Finally the evening saw a lot of traditional dancing, a little disco dancing and some karaoke. Pretty much the part I like best, and again I wasn't disappointed. Can't wait for the next one.
Diane Warner's Complete Guide to a Traditional Wedding: Time-Tested Toasts, Vows, Ceremonies & Etiquette: Everything You Need to Create Your Perfect Day
Diane Warner's Complete Guide to a Traditional Wedding: Time-Tested Toasts, Vows, Ceremonies & Etiquette: Everything You Need to Create Your Perfect Day
