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Posted by Kirsty, July 29, 2014

The Bride Who Loved School Dinners

They’re an old married couple of three weeks now but on 3rd July, Pamela Butchart, author of Baby Aliens Got My Teacher!, married her boyfriend, Andrew Cunningham, in a beautiful old byre in Fife. By coincidence, and as something of a very good sign for both ventures, Pamela’s second book with Nosy Crow, The Spy Who Loved School Dinners, was published on the same day. And best of all (for me) is that I was lucky enough to be invited to the wedding.

Both Pamela and Andrew are teachers, and Pamela’s books are all about the crazy things that happen at primary school, so it could be said that the wedding had a natural theme. The invitation threatened detention for those not RSVPing in a timely fashion, and on the morning of the wedding, I caught a school bus from Dundee along the amazing coastline to St Andrews. It was a lovely service in a lovely place, and I felt very honoured to be there.

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Sadly, Pamela and Andy’s cats, Carlos and Bear, couldn’t make it in person, but they made it in standee.

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There were lots of firsts on the day. It’s not unusual for people, when they find out what I do, to admit to having a children’s book in them, but it’s never been a vicar who’s just officiated at a wedding before. I’ve never been offered what I thought was a cup of camomile tea only to discover it was in fact Prosecco, and I’ve never been more delighted. And I’ve never found myself sat in the back of a bridal car with the bride and groom (though not in the middle, that would have been intrusive) whizzing off to a bookshop in St Andrews, as the bride takes half an hour out from her wedding to go and sign copies of her new book.

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Having newly weds sweep through their door was a first for J & G Innes, and I don’t think the small girl who was busily drawing in a corner has ever been handed a bridal bouquet and asked to hold it for a minute. And it was a really-very-lovely-to-witness first for Andy, when Pamela showed him the dedication and illustration printed in the front of the THE SPY WHO LOVED SCHOOL DINNERS, something that she had kept a very stressful secret since the advance copies came through.

The Bride Who Loved School Dinners

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I’m also fairly certain that while it might have been the first time that Andy became a human signing table, it won’t be the last.

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Back at the wedding, (school) dinner was served. And it was delicious (unlike the shepherd’s pie so beloved by the ‘spy’ in Pamela’s book).

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Thank you, Mr and Mrs Cunningham, for inviting me to your wedding and I hope your photographer took better pictures. I had a lovely time, and we all send our love and best wishes for the future (and for future books).

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