The funeral service and reception went better than I'd expected. There were so many ways it could have been a fiasco.

DH's eulogy was really great.  He spoke eloquently about YSS's life and illness.  There were tears from YSS's exSF who got a mention from DH about what a huge influence he was on YSS.  DH also made sure that exSF sat with the family in the chapel.  BM wasn't keen on this but exSF saw YSS on a regular basis and BM hadn't seen him in over 4 years.  IMO, exSF had more rights to sit with us.

YSS's gaming friends came.  Dress code was casual or what you like.  The gaming crew are all very young and don't work in offices.  DH didn't want them buying clothes just for the day.  They did all turn up in lumberjack shirts in honour of YSS.  I'm not sure what the joke is but it was a fun gesture from them.

His work collegues came too.  They were really upset at the service but seemed to liven up at the reception.

Slightly hysterically, we had two mourning girlfriends.  There wasn't an overlap, thankfully.  I had met GF1 when YSS was alive and she was probably the love of his life.  They hit some problems that neither of them were mature enough to deal with and broke up but I think given time they would have gotten back together.  GF2 thought she was really in love with YSS but she'd been in his life for a very short time and she'd also broken up with him before his death.

MSS was in bits.  He is really guilty about cutting YSS out of his life.  He had a bit too much to drink and was very weepy.

My lovely friends came and kept my dad entertained so he didn't create a scene.  My sister helped to manage him too and then flew home with him that evening to their country.

BM was a bit spiteful. 

- She cornered my dad to tell him that it was YSS fault he died - not true and why on earth did she feel she needed to share this with my dad who she'd never met before.  I know why, she wanted everyone to know that it wasn't her fault. 

- She also tried to create a scene about not speaking at the service.  DH had offered to let her and she turned him down.  Then after the service when her friends asked her why she didn't speak she blamed DH.  DH sorted this out by getting her to do the speach at the reception.  He asked her to do it in front of her friends and mentioned that he thought if she didn't she might have regrets about deciding not to talk at either event. 

- She gave me a hug at the end to say thank you for looking after her baby.  I'm going to be nice about this because of the day.

The reception itself was lovely.  The venue was really beautiful.  The staff did waitress service distributing drinks and canapes which wasn't what we'd envisaged.  I thought they put the food out buffet style and that people who have to go to the bar for drinks.  We set up a slide show of YSS's photos that ran on a loop.  There were no fights or other misbehaving.  I was slightly worried about putting a bunch of people who don't really like each other in a room with free alcohol but good sense pervailed.

If you've made it this far, thanks for reading.  Getting this stuff out if really helping my emotions.