News / Surprise turn from Jupitus caps ‘absolutely fantastic’ wedding night for Neil & Valerie
A COUPLE from Lerwick enjoyed an unforgettable bonus when one of their friends arranged for renowned UK comedian Phill Jupitus to gatecrash their wedding at the weekend.
Neil and Valerie Inkster, who tied the knot at the Shetland Museum and Archives on Saturday, are fans of the comic and would have been at his stand-up gig at Mareel that night if it hadn’t been for a more important engagement.
Their friend Mags Waldie, from Universal Stores, had contacted them when the show was first announced to see if they wanted to go, before they realised the clash. She decided to get in touch with local promoter Davie Gardner on the off chance that he might be able to pay the happy couple a visit.
Speaking from Aberdeen on Monday morning – the newly-weds are off to Miami and then Mexico for their honeymoon – the couple said it had been an “absolutely brilliant” way to round off their big day.
“It was certainly a bit of a surprise, the last thing you’re ever expecting!” Neil said.
Following supper at the evening reception in the Shetland Hotel, Neil and Valerie were ushered to the middle of the floor and “we thought they were going to make us do some sort of weird dance or forfeit” – only for Jupitus’ arrival to be announced.
“He did a couple of jokes from his routine that he was doing, a bit of a poem for the bride and groom. It was absolutely brilliant – so off the cuff, not something he could prepare for, something that he had just made up on the spot,” Neil said.
Valerie said they were “just blown away” and Jupitus was a “lovely, lovely guy” who offered them his congratulations and then happily posed for selfies with them and the wedding guests.
“Mags from the Flower Shop was one of the guests at the wedding, and she had contacted us when the gig was announced to see if we wanted to go,” Valerie said.
“We said yes, we’d love to go with them. When was it? It doesn’t matter, there’s something else on that day! At first we were disappointed, but thought never mind. We started joking – I wonder if our guests would miss us for a couple of hours if we went to the gig!
“Lo and behold, she had contacted Davie on the off chance that he’d be able to come along after his gig. Davie said ‘I’ll see what we can do’ and it just happened after that.”
It was “a bit like the icing on the cake, if you’ll pardon the pun”, Valerie said, while Neil added: “It certainly was a very, very unexpected present. We had an absolutely fantastic night, and I think the guests were pretty impressed with the show he did as well – a lot of people that would have gone to the show but had committed to coming to our gig instead!”
On his Twitter page on Sunday, Jupitus posted: “After tonight’s Mareel Shetland show, (FUN!) I did a turn at Valerie & Neil’s wedding as they missed the gig!”
On Monday, he said: “A very resourceful member of Valerie and Neil’s wedding organiser knew that they were fans of mine.
“They had already booked their wedding before I announced my gig at Mareel. So their mates tracked me down via Davie Gardner, my Shetland fixer. So I went along and read a poem out and gave a toast during a cellidh. I haven’t invoiced them yet.”
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