From Somewhere in Time

|It never occurred to me to have an Alice wedding, but perhaps if they'd had Pinterest in those days I might have beentempted. I've been having fun browsing this collection of Alice in Wonderland wedding pictures, here. and it set me off searching for sites with Alice themed wedding ideas.

Here are a few of the things I found. I wonder what role this trippy Caterpillar was playing in the "Alice in Wonderland on Acid" wedding featured on the amazing Rock n Roll Bride site.



Actually the wedding had sword swallowers, drag queens and Tea-quilas too and I really loved reading about it in detail, here.

I'm always most interested in the wedding cakes - perhaps that says something about me - and after looking through these and other sites I decided that this was my favourite cake, partly because its attractive old fashioned colouring reminded me of old book illustrations.



It's from Catherine's Cakery, a Canadian site.

One of the big difficulties about an Alice wedding, I'd have thought, is that you definitely CAN'T have the bride as the Queen of Hearts, for obvious reasons, and the nearest anyone gets to this fearsome character on the wedding sites I have seen is this pair of pretty heart shoes



I've always thought it says something about Lewis Carroll, that he transformed what ought to have been the loveliest character in the book into something frightening. You could take the view that this offers the chance to be more creative, though.

Anyway, I decided that even though I couldn't have an Alice wedding, I might one day give an Alice themed tea party, and if so I'd use Carlton Walking Ware, a range which dates from the seventies and can seem really surreal, specially if there is a lot of it on the table. This link goes to the eBay site where you can buy the stuff, and I spotted this teapot from the range recently in Norwich Castle Museum, spotlit and looking surprisingly impressive.


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After Lewis Carroll's father died in the late 1860s, he took a house for his six sisters to live in at Guildford, in Surrey. He went there for many of his holidays and considered it to be his home away from Oxford.

After the sisters died, many Dodgson family documents and personal possessions were left to what is now the Surrey History Centre. This Dodgson Family Collection, as it is known. is a very good place to start any research into Carroll.



After years in rather unsatisfactory accommodation, it is now well housed in the Centre's modern and well designed building in Woking, not far from Guildford.

As part of Alice 150, the centre's website has had some useful new additions. The "People" web page for Lewis Carroll now features more images, links to other collections and sources held locally, nationally and internationally.

A new sub-page has been created called "Anniversaries of Alice", which chronicles Carroll, Alice, and the impact of the book across the decades.

The latter page was created by Surrey Heritage and Prof Will Brooker at Kingston University. It is illustrated using many items from the Dodgson Family Collection and Lewis Carroll collections, and it can be updated on a regular basis. You can book
at www.surreycc.gov.uk/heritageevents, in person at Surrey History Centre or in any Surrey Library, or phone 01483 518737.

There he was, lurking in a corner.

I heard today from Canadian animator Jennifer Linton, who has made this cool Alice-inspired animation, with a twist at the end, about a girl on a streetcar....

Toronto Alice from Jennifer Linton on Vimeo.

Voice of Alice by Nicole Bauman
Voices of Tweedledee & Tweedledum by Matt Speirs
Sound recording and design by Karl Mohr
Stop-motion animation, post-production, editing, and direction by Jennifer Linton
Adapted from "Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There", by Lewis Carroll (published in 1871).

This animation was made possible by the financial support of the Ontario Arts Council, and by the generosity of my Indiegogo contributors. Thank you!

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