It is hard to think of a more enticing date in the calendar than a teacher’s wedding in late July. What’s not to like? We are there for a close friend’s happiest day. Many of the best people we know are going to be there and it also follows the start of our magnificent summer break. Such an event is going to hum from start to finish, though I especially relish:

1.    That “I do” moment (at hotel check-in)

Taking up residence in a hotel is an increasingly rare luxury for most of us working in schools.  There was, admittedly, the recent case of the chief executive of an academy trust who spent over £7,000 on expenses on an impressive 79 nights in a four-star hotel, but, generally, this is not a familiar habitat for the average educator.     

However, many of us agree to make an exception for a wedding. A hotel means that we can make a weekend of it with similarly-placed, pay-capped friends. I especially enjoy the moment when I can say “yes please!” when Reception pops the question about whether I would like a Sunday paper delivered to our door. It’s a little thing, seemingly, but it is saying that Sundays are all mine once again -  at least for the next five or six weeks.  

2.    Preacher workload

Another small but significant pleasure at the wedding is that I can, at last, sit back and watch someone else sweat in front of a variously-focused, mixed-ability gathering.  Are preachers assessed in the same way as teachers?  Are they mindful of differentiation? Does that rather closed form of questioning of the happy couple (“yes”/ “no”/ “I do”) really encourage a more developed response?  How much measurable progress do the couple actually make from start to end of the service? 

3.    The non-teachers at our table

One of the tables at the wedding reception will be mainly designated for teaching friends. However, there will always be one couple who are not teachers. They have probably been allocated the spare two places on account of their gregarious nature and assumed capacity “to get on with anyone”. All goes smoothly with this jovial pair for a while. In fact, their mere presence keeps us mercifully away from too much teacher talk. But then one of them (usually male, if we’re being honest) makes the kind of ill-judged quip that was probably last made in a staffroom in about 1983.  There follows an awkward moment of silence, similar to… 

4.    “Here comes the head”

The head may not always be at the wedding itself but headteachers often appear for the later do in the evening.  There is always a delicious hush from our quarter of the room when the head is first spotted, as each of us contemplates greeting our leader in our current state of toxicity. The truth is that we are all too soused to realise that the head doesn’t give a damn right now. They are simply in a mood to celebrate, just like the rest of us.

5.    Free dancing  

The last time we all partied was probably in front of many a bewildered youth at the end-of-year prom. But now we can dance away without worrying about what some of our more mean-spirited students might be thinking and tweeting to each other.  The floor is ours and the nearest student is - in so many ways now - a world away. 

6.    The midnight bar 

We know we should go to bed instead, but we also know that we have got five or six weeks to recover. Besides, this is where various things might start to kick off and give us the richest pickings for… 

7.    The hotel breakfast the next morning

I love the quiet serenity of that morning-after breakfast. Variously hung-over friends come down in dribs and drabs (mainly drabs) for coffee, croissants and perhaps a devil-may-care “full English”. All being well there will be the unspoken memory of some colleague’s calamitous faux pas at the midnight bar to occupy our fragile heads. This might have involved either a parent of the happy couple or an indelicate misunderstanding involving the senior bridesmaid. This is the perfect end. The rest of us can leave comfortable in the knowledge that someone has made an utter fool of themselves - and that, this time, it wasn’t us.

Stephen Petty is head of humanities at Lord Williams’s School in Thame, Oxfordshire. For more from Stephen, see his back catalogue

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