Something old. Something new. Something borrowed. Something Foo.

NME 2003

Eight months in the planning it may rank as Dave Grohl's greatest performance. Around his LA house, 30 or 40 people are setting up lights, laying down carpet, hanging chandeliers and, as Grohl puts it, "cleaning out the piles of unwanted crap". Outside, he says, "It looks like they're setting up the main tent at Reading in my backyard right now."
A few days ago, The Hardest Working Ex-Member Of Nirvana In Showbusiness got back from a long tour around the States. In a couple of weeks, he and the rest of the Foo Fighters will make the annual visit to the European festival circus. To fill in the hours between gigs though, Grohl and his girlfriend Jordyn Blum - currently employed as the Foos official "documentarian" - have decided to get married. Two hundred and fifty people are popping over to their place for the ceremony; your invite must have got lost in the post.
Later this afternoon, Dave's mother's coming to organise the guest bedrooms and one of his groomsmen is swinging around to help him move some patio furniture. But now, he's taking time out to tell us what the ingredients are for the perfect wedding. The first one is, it has to be said, a bit of a no-brainer....

Fall In Love
"There's a big difference between falling in love with someone and falling in love with someone and getting married. Usually, after you get married, you fall in love with the person even more."
What a romantic thought.
"Well, y'know, I'm quite a sap actually. I've never felt like I have some fucking hard rock image to uphold. Most people think of me as a big fucking geek anyway."

Be Prepared To Change Your Life
"I've settled down quite a bit, that's for sure. A couple of years ago I had an epiphany when I relaised life is very delicate. It's too short to wait for anything to happen to you. It's too short to waste it on anything superficial or unimportant, you have to fill your days with things that are meaningful and real. Getting married has a lot to do with that.
"And I would just love to have a family. That's the one thing I don't have. I love children and I love my family and shit, I love being at home. There's nothing better to anchor you at home than a couple of rugrats."

Go Crazy At Your Bachelor Party. But Don't Talk About It
Dave's stag party took place at the end of the Foos' US tour when 60 mates joined him for a very long night in Las Vegas. "It went...just fine," he says cagily.
Details?
"Use your imagination then multiply it by ten. It was a bachelor party, y'know? I made everyone promise they wouldn't talk about it. Hear this cough? This cough came from the bachelor party. I'm almost done with the antibiotics. No more bachelor parties for me."

Have A Proper Wedding
"It's not a Vegas thing, man," says Dave of his nuptials. "It's not the Elvis chapel here at the Grohl residence. It's definitely a party. And you only do it once...or twice. There's not a massive celebrity guestlist or anything, just a bunch of my friends from Virginia, relatives from Ohio and Louisiana, my fiancee's family from California and Baltimore. I think Jack (Black) is probably going to come, and maybe Kyle (Gass) might show up. Krist Novoselic is representing. The ushers are my buddies Jimmy, Richie and Mike from Virginia, people I've known since I was five years old, and then Taylor. We go down the day after tomorrow to have the tuxes fitted."
Did you ever think of having a barefoot, edge-of-cliff, new age kind of ceremony?
"Have I ever seemed like a hippy to you? No? Good."

Choose Your Music Carefully
"We're having this Beatles tribute band called The Fab Four play. They start in Hamburg, wind up in the Sgt Pepper suits and before you know it, they're doing 'Let It Be'. At one point I was considering calling Al Green and asking him to marry us. But I figured it would turn into an Al Green show."

Don't Invite Your Ex-Partners
"There comes a time when you have to close certain chapters of your life and put the memories somewhere in a safe place far away, not staring you right in the fucking face in the front row of your wedding.
"Pretty much every girlfriend that I've ever had has been relatively insane, OK? If I were in a roomful of women, I'd find the biggest fucking nutcase. I love being the provider emotinally and otherwise - that's what I do.
"I never met anyone who could take care of me, but I finally found one. And this person makes me feel like I'm the crazy one that needs to be taken care of. I like that, it feels good."

Make Big Plans For The Honeymoon
How do you feel about spending your honeymoon at V and all those other European festivals?
"We get a little bit of a honeymoon before we come over there. We're going somewhere tropical - don't worry, I'll be tanned. I'll be nice and bronze for the Germans, I'll look just like George Hamilton!
"it's basically just honeymoon suites and wonderful flights to tropical places and a good seven or eight days of, um, tantric sex. That's what I'm looking forward to. I figured it out years ago, even before Sting. You don't have to be a genius to do tantric sex, you don't even have to do yoga. It's all about the give and take, y'know what I mean? Stop and go and give and take and slap and tickle."

Make No Plans For The Aftermath
"After we're done with the festivals, we don't have anything planned. I'd love to have another band with Taylor and my buddy Nick who produced our album. And I'd love to do a solo acoustic record."
Where's your fiancee now?
"She's out there telling everyone what to do while I'm in here paying the bills."