Supposedly the Best Day of My Life

The Loving My People Issue

2005-07-28T11:47:00.000-07:00

OH dear, am schmooziewooozie tail-shakingly, claw-needingly, purrrrrfectly slushy about all my wonderful friends and family at the moment.Now we are in the final furlong of the much-awaited event I have never felt so supported and loved and made to feel like a special princess, like a fluffy kitten getting its tummy stroked while lying in the sun, outstretched having just eaten some roast chicken.
It’s weird that there’s been SO MUCH love, so much support and so much incredible good will towards David and I, not because we didn’t think that people liked us, but just that they liked us ... well, that much.
For months, I have to confess this whole wedding thing was veering between a highly-expensive inconvenience, a necessity to get to go on the holiday of a life-time (have I told you we have a private villa in the Caribbean, have I?), and a hysterical systematic conspiracy designed to subjugate womankind into every hideous stereotype known to man.
But, now, like any good vessel, I am coming about, I’m yar, I am about as ready for this journey as I could long to be - and it’s really all down to my people.
For example, my best friend Mollie, who, after much teary self-absorbption and pent-up wailing by me about having to organise my own hen do took me by the arms, gave me a good shake and shouted through the hysteria: “I SAID I WOULD DO IT BEFORE AND I WILL STILL DO IT NOW!”Which kind of stalled the tears pretty much as I looked at her and she smiled and said, “This is meant to be a happy time. You shouldn’t be feeling like this about anything!” So, I handed over the reigns and she has since been a star. To the point that, as she works for a national newspaper and was covering the bombings in Egypt, she was calling from there to ask about email addresses that had bounced back and saying in her distinctive Hampshire accent: “I just don’t have time for these bloody terrorists, I’ve got your hen do to organise!!”
Then there was the case of my friend who has a home cinema who has sorted a girls night in with Dirty Dancing, pizza and face packs, another group of friends has sorted a pink champagne and underwear evening and my parents have promised to bring over four crates of champers from France for everyone to dig into on the week running up to the wedding.
Another friend has hired out an entire tartan shop so her entire troupe (she and her husband have three sons and her dad is also invited) can wear kilts. And just today my pal Jenny helped put a smile back on my face after David and I had an argument.
Put this in with a friend who is making the cakes, buddies who printed off our invitations, our wonderful three mates who have offered to DJ - and one of them is bringing his own decks - and a whole host of other things that are acting like a big cotton wool hug, it’s already becoming one of the best days of my life.
God, I can’t believe I just said that!! My cynicism is waning, I can feel it draining from my body, I am practically willing to roll around in table confetti and stick a veil on.
Well, nearly, but not quite.

The Dress/Weight/Fear Issue No 304

2005-07-28T01:38:00.000-07:00

I woke up at about 6am this morning. I found my hand was groping my sweaty throat and there was a chill in the pit of my stomach, I looked wildly around and listened for the jangling of bells and the rustle of masses of black taffeta, but, to my great relief, all I could hear was the gentle snoring of my fiance.
God, it was a beautiful sound and the calm creams and chocolate browns of my boudoir was a lovely sight to behold - because I was not looking at myself in a burnt orange, creased, pinafore-style wedding dress that seemed to morph into a Mortitia-style gown and back again every two seconds.
My dreams should be banned. Seriously.It had all started in the living room really. David was there reading his book, I was sitting on the sofa trying to ignore him reading his book and successfully ignoring me. I turned up the volume on the TV, fussed around with a newspaper, sloshed around the dishes, banging them on the side ... still he read.
When I had first met David I had made a pact with myself to never be one of those women who walks around saying “I’m so fat”, “I’m so ugly”, “I’m so unattractive”, because by inference and over a period of time a man would actually come to believe he was going out with a fat, ugly, unattractive woman (not that there’s anything wrong with that, but it’s all terribly bad for one’s self esteem).
And I’ve stuck to my guns quite well on that. But I have to say I haven’t really stuck to my guns on any kind of diet or fitness regime. AND I HAVE TRIED. But I just like wine and I like my mates, who all like wine, and I do feel that to reduce one’s size for a silly big day and a silly (big) dress is ... well, silly.
This has been fine, but I have been struggling with the fact that I am actually going to be the largest, ugliest and most hideous bride that ever did trip down an aisle and it’s weighing on my mind. I can’t really believe it myself but there we have it, and last night my mind decided it had had enough of the extra weight.
I knelt down on the floor next to David, pretending that this would be the most comfortable place to watch the tele from. Slowly I started to finger the pages of his book, nonchalantly, as you do. He looked up under raised eyebrows. I smiled wanly.“ ‘Lo.”
“Hello,” he replied and went back to the page.“Good book?”
“Sadie, that’s the fourth time you’ve asked me that. Yes, it’s a good book.”Perfect.“GOD!” I jumped up. “There’s no need to have a go at me!”
“What?” he looked angry. “I’m just sitting here reading my book and you’re fussing around like a maniac. What’s the matter?”
“I’m, fat and ugly and hideously unattractive and you’re a bloody idiot for wanting to marry me!”
Now, I don’t know why I need to go through this rigmarole when I need to talk about something, but sometimes I do. I’m sure he loves it really. Anyway, after a few more sharp words, came the tears, came the hugs, came the talking and it transpires I’m TERRIFIED about the wedding and it’s ruining the run up to it (and by the way - we’re talking WEEKS here).
Any advice would be so gratefully appreciated. I need to make the mental transition from grime to prime, from black to wack. I need to feel like a bride. Is that too much to ask?

The "Because I'm Worth It" Issue

2005-06-27T17:15:00.000-07:00

I leaned back in my first class armchair on a Great Western train to London Paddington and smiled benignly across at Gill, my dress maker, as she poured the champagne and opened the M&S brie sarnies. We looked out at the burgeoning Enligsh summer countryside and chatted, feeling pretty smug with ourselves - and I was starting to think there were distinct advantages to this getting married business.
As reported in a previous column Gill is a jewel amongst women and, as if I needed proof, I was speeding towards the metropolis with her on my way to one of the most prestigious hairdressing awards in Europe - the L'Oreal Colour Trophys.
The 50th anniversary bash, no less, was taking place at Earl's Court and Graham Norton was compering. But, MUCH more important, than that Central Studio on Colston Street had won a place in the final and Gill had made the dresses for the model, herself and the salon manager - it being the perfect stage upon which to flaunt one's wears in front of fashonista bods. I couldn't bear to let an opportunity like this slip from my fingers and, as soon as I was invited, I procured a (£250!!) ticket.
So, here we were, sipping fizz, discussing the minutia of Gill's global clothes emporium and proclaiming that Central Studio will be jetting off to New York for the L'Oreal first prize of a photographic shoot with Vogue - no doubt expanding to Toni and Guy proportions within the year.
It suited me all this high living, I couldn't help but think, as I nestled further into the big blue padding. I like it when the train guards smile and ask if you're ok. I love it when you get free juice and coffee and the attendant asks if she can get an ice bucket for the champagne and it does seem that there.
So we swanned into Paddington, tube to Victoria, out to Pimlico in a taxi and to the appartments we were staying in - and apartments really are the way forward - hotels are so last year. Anyway, as I was hanging out smoking cigarettes (extremely bad for wedding complexion, I know) and drinking rose in the living room of said flat and it suddenly dawned on me that I had become the woman I always wanted to be.
Here I was Living the Dream Baby! It was like having an out of body experience and for a moment the worries of the world seemed far away.
Who was this person I had become and how had I managed to pull it all off? How had I suceeded in bagging a fabulous man AND had him propose to me? I have wonderful friends, a great job and have amazing experiences with groups of glamorous people, I was wearing a designer outfit, my hair had been ironed straight like glass and, for that moment, everything was clear blue skies.
Surely someone was going to burst through the door screaming "Gotcha!". Instead, it was a half naked gay man running past me with his hands in the air shouting "Is my fake tan streaky? It is, it's streaky!"itals that broke me from my reverie and back to the brain crushing worry of whether my nail polish was too pink.
An hour later we were at the party - and what a party. It has to be said, the event surpassed my expectations. Bigger than an airplane hanger, it was decked across the ceiling and down every wall with white chiffon, glowing pale vilolet in UV lighting, the reception room was alive with air kisses and clinking champagne glasses that appeared as if by magic at your side.
Gill's pale gold corset and multi-layered tuille skirt, which had a knee-length front and scooped calf-length back with a pale gold silk lining, was truly original and stunning, while Sally, the salon manager, had effortless film-star glamour with a powder blue fishtail full-corset dress, complete with draped silver chains across the body. This was topped with a miasma of loose ringlets. As they walked around together, they turned every head and at one point had to run and hide from a Japanese TV cameraman determined to film every stitch on their bodies.
It was a magical night and I was so proud of Gill and everyone at Central - everyone was fabulous, fabulous, FABULOUS. The next day, on two hours sleep, things weren't quite so fabulous. The contrast from the day before was decidedly marked. We trudged around the underground, going in the wrong direction at one point, slumped onto the train and made like vegetables. But through the mists of the hangover and my big brown shades I remembered that for a moment back there I really did get what Andy MacDowell has been banging on about in those L'Oreal adverts for so long - because I am actually worth it.

The Three Months To Go Issue

2005-06-15T09:12:00.000-07:00

"It's coming around, isn't it?" my mum's oldest friend said on the phone. "Yes," said I. "It's coming around right enough." The conversation warbled on the other end of the line, warble, warble, I warbled back, but I wasn't really listening. I was looking at a speck of ivory paint on my newly white-glossed skirting boards.
"Sadie?" a sharp tone brought me out of my contemplation. "Sorry, Aunt Pauline, what did you say?"
"I was asking about colour schemes, darling. What shouldn't I wear? And I'm unsure about my hat? Are they terribly passe? Is your mother wearing one? I don't want us to look middle-aged in the pictures, and hats are very middle aged on women of a certain ... well, you see, I just couldn't bear it. We were soooo gorgeous in our youth, turned every head ... "
I stared at this speck. This tiny little innocuous speck was doing my head in. Aunty Pauline's issues of bygone years were nothing compared to the problems this ivory blob was presenting me with.
"Pastels - don't wear red. Thanks for calling, then, see you soon," says I, before hanging up and dashing through to the utility room to find an unused paintbrush and the last bit of white gloss that I knew we had - somewhere.
About half an hour later, David walked in to find our ridiculously wide-ranging collection of paint pots, kettles, various other jars of nuts and screws, four extension leads and three Ikea baskets of dust sheets spilling out of the back of the house into the kitchen and me turned upside down looking under a shelving unit.
"What are you doing?" he asked. I spun round and looked past him down the hall. "Oh, hi there! Em, yes, there's, um, some paint, on the skirting boards. Ivoryitals please paint. I can't believe we didn't see it. It's under the radiator by the table. Looking for white gloss, but I can't, well ... what? Why are you looking at me like that?"
He reached out to a shelf directly in front of me, moved a candle holder and pulled out a tin of white gloss. "This what you've turned everything upside down for is it?"
I looked at it and looked at him, suspecting he was not entirely in the mood to discuss DIY. "Yes. Thankyou." Standing up, unsettling several vessels annoyingly filled with brushes soaking in toxic liquid, I took the pot and held it in my hands. "Oh, there's a brush. Perfect." And I lifted one of said items from its pool of white spirit, stepped over the obstacles and tottered down to the hall to find the speck.
I was just passing the dining room, however, when I stopped. I felt David's eyes burning into the back of my head. Hmmm, there was a pile of things on the table in there, next to them was a list with "Three Months to Go" at the top, and naggingly I knew they had something to do with me ... and ... what was it again?
Oh my GOD! I whizzed round and met my fiance's eyes, only just managing to keep the paint pot in my grasp. I looked at the clock, it was 6pm. I looked at the pile - of unwritten wedding invitations! - the list had no ticks next to any entries. I ran into the bathroom that sparkled through two hours of bleaching, I saw the hoovered floors of my newly-manicured home. Suddenly I realised I'd spent my precious day off in the highly-unlikely pursuits of cleaning and baking brownies and not, as I was meant to, finalising details that we are running out of time to sort out.
I looked at the list David had pulled from his pocket, marked with his name and saw precise little ticks down every line.
"Oh." Was all I could manage. "Yes." He said, leading me by the hand into the dining room, taking the brush out of it and replacing it with a pen.
"Write. Names. You want people to come to the wedding. Remember them?" I smiled wanly and opened our wedding book. The one I bought a year ago and have been studiously filling in all the right things at all the right bits. The pages blurred in front of me - all these things to organise, all these people I staggered back slightly. "What? Who? Why?" I asked, making for the door, but it did no good, it had already closed firmly behind me.
I picked up a hand-made sheer gold and ivory invitation. Had I just completely lost the plot with three months to go? Maybe there's some kind of terrible post-modern irony in the fact that I, a proud feminist 21st Century Girl, have avoided all the cliches of house-wifely domestic behaviour for years, and then a curious hysterical urge to avoid the stressful details of my own wedding sends me running for a Delia Smith cookbook and my rubber gloves.
It's either that or I am becoming a modern-day Lady McBeth, seeing spots where there are none, losing my mind because I fear all my best-laid plans for matrimonial world domination may fail. Out, out damned spots.But I should clean the whole house again just to make sure. Yes. I will do that now. I think I can see one over there ...

The Hen Do Issue

2005-05-25T14:57:00.000-07:00

I'M having nightmares. They are big, scary skirt-in-your-tights, walking-through-the-office-naked, eating-chicken-that-turns-out-to-be-spiders nightmares - but, surprisingly, they are not about my wedding, they're about my bloody hen party!
Well, both my hen parties to tell the truth because, being of dual nationality, I have to go to Scotland for one too. It all seemed to be going quite well really, I don't have an adult chief bridesmaid or a sister, or even a friend that isn't so busy with motherhood, high-flying career, or splitting up with long-term partners that I feel I can ask to take charge.
So, now I am faced with putting together both hens and the small fact of a wedding kind of struggling for space in the special Moet and Chandon Wedding Book that I have dutifully bought.
Because of my love of all things wine and champagne, in fact, I have chose the Hotel du Vin's Ashe Banquet Suite for my Bristol night out and am hoping that about 30 people are going to attend. The evening comes complete with a champagne reception with canapes, a three-course meal with all your drink pre-paid and I've also booked a Derren Brown-style magician and a Spanish guitarist.
For this I have asked people to pay £80 for the whole evening, which considering David has 25 friends travelling to Prague for a three-night bender at the cost of £300 plus, I didn't think it was that bad.
However, a couple of women - who I actually consider to be family and who have known me since I was knee-high - are the only ones who email me back to say it was too expensive.
One of the reasons they were unhappy was that the boys were going to Prague - they asked: Wasn't this a guideline of sexual politics now and wouldn't it be value for money to go and spend a few hundred quid for a weekend instead of £80 on one night?
No, I responded, that doesn't even make sense. I was only just reeling from this particularly horrible blow when the double whammy came in the shape of my mother.
I have to say, however, I'm feeling a bit for my poor mama at the moment as she's been on the receiving end of a slightly stressed out Sadie recently, which is bad and I have to make it all up to her somehow.
That said, it's pants what she's gone and done to her only child. It all started when I was trying to work out a hen date for the Scottish contingent, which is going to be in Dundee - where I grew up, and I had put forward the idea that the weekend of June 10.
My mum, who lives in rural France incidentally, said she would attend this one, as she could see some of her friends and also it would mean two of my aunts from Edinburgh would be there, without my mum there it was silently acknowledged they wouldn't feel comfortable with a bunch of raving 30-year-olds braying on about the old days and getting smashed.
But THEN she goes right ahead and books her plane tickets to Edinburgh on June 10, and I can't make it then because another friend is getting married on that day. Now she's telling me she can't do a single other weekend in the whole of the summer! This has actually made me cry, which is pathetic, because we've shouted at each other and my mum hates arguments.
So, I've done some Dobby-like repenting, especially after I did that classic Sadie Kenshall thing of sending a accidentally text message which said "Bloody mother!" to ... yes, my mother, instead of David.
He's actually beginning to watch me out of the corner of his eye for any really schizo personality traits I may be exhibiting behind his back, as I am getting slightly Bridezilla about it all, even though these issues are coming to a conclusion.
It's all very confusing because you kind of want those close to you to think solely about your wedding, and clearly this is completely not right. I mean, if everyone I knew suddenly started concentrating on whether I was going to have a day-to-evening hairstyle (whatever that is) I would start properly freaking out and shouting "leave me alone you weirdos". It just leaves me with the feeling that I don't know what it is that I want at the end of the day.
So, there's this little bit of me starting to wish it was all over and I was lying on a pool deck with a great stonking Pina Colada in my grubby paw, chewing on a barbecued chicken wing and listening to the sounds of some cheesy Caribbean steel band play Woman In Red. Take me to that place - even if it is just in my dreams.

The Virginity Issue

2005-05-08T08:51:00.000-07:00

Gaby Wood, Observer features writer, recently penned the fact that: "Virginity, it seems, is the new black. Or, at least, the latest Michael Jordan trainers".
But, although I bow to an obviously greater and more heavyweight cultural commentator than I, I feel it necessary to move this statement on to its next stage - because I have realised that engagement is actually the new virginity. Oh yes, dear readers, I mean it, even if my parents now know there will be no blood-stained sheets a-hanging outside our house the day after the wedding.
I suppose I must confess that I've not been at home with my intact hymen for a remarkably long period of time (I'm originally from Scotland - long nights and cheap beer), but being engaged has really made me reminisce about a time I had completely forgotten.
You see, it has come to me that the last days of your single life can never be repeated again - much like losing your virginity, but hopefully carried out with the lights on and not in a shed at the back of a games field, with a tennis racket half stuck up your arse (not on purpose I may add).
And therein lies the beauty of it. In the months leading up to the completely inauspicious and really quite hilarious moments that resulted in the end of my not very well guarded "innocence" I had no idea it was going to happen. That is, unless you count the odd urge to grab boys in my class I had hitherto no reaction to and a growing appreciation of muscular forearms.
However, with my new-found virgin status, I feel happy to say, I have a chance to really prepare and make a "special moment" out of having sex for the first time as a married woman, something that I missed out on first time around as a young woman - even though my sobriety at the actual moment may still fall into question.
All of this must come from the over-indulgent thought that once you reach the grand old age of 30 you feel there's not much left that's not already been plundered, pillaged and taken away for good, never to be recovered. In this day and age, there are not many women who will get to the being-engaged-state without having done most of the hedonistic, nihilistic, general debauchery that makes you a "rounded" person - and great in the sack - needed to cope with a relationship and bag a good man in the first place.
But, thinking of the number of late-night conversations I've had with girlfriends about losing our virginity that are all really quite emotional, funny and not without their individual trauma, it's no wonder, in this day and age, that by the time we get around to planning a wedding we still want to wear white and make ourselves feel pure and untouched again. This is despite the fact that the people who created the traditions we emulate are turning in their graves demanding repentance upon our souls.
Through all this fussing around with our wedding day and making it all "perfect", all this pressure we put on ourselves to have our moment, maybe shows that deep down in our souls we probably feel the need to make things right - reset the balance somehow. Now, we all have this chance to ENJOY the lead up to such an important moment with a male without seeing him hoick its trousers up and get back into the driving seat to light a cigarette.
Whether I will then relax into the position of wife and enjoy myself or tense up, rigidly focussing on a faraway point wondering when it's all going to be over, is another matter.

The Brazilian Issue

2005-04-30T00:42:00.000-07:00

Having been with my partner now for nearly five years and having only ever owned a Gilette Venus shaver, I am finding one issue about wedding night maintenance harder than most to consider.
The idea of the Brazilian Wax, also known as the Thong Wax or the Playboy Wax, which has been made famous by the Sex and the City girls (thanks!), makes my eyes water every time I think about it.
When I was a teenager it was only my posh mates' mums that had their snatches waxed. Then their daughters started having it done. Now everyone is pulling their on paper pants and mooning at beauty therapists in the most unflattering positions.
In my search for reasons why apparently sane women choose to break the pain barrier in such a major way, I found this on the internet:
"The Brazilian wax was introduced to New Yorkers in 1987 when seven Brazilian sisters, Jocely, Jonice, Joyce, Janea, Jussara, Juracy, and Judseia Padilha opened J. Sisters International Salon in midtown Manhattan. And women's bikini lines were changed forever!
"The Brazilian bikini wax is a must-get-done for women who can endure excruciating fashion pain. Gwyneth's done it, so has Naomi. It is now so popular that salons have sprouted right around the world.
"The Brazilian involves the spreading of hot wax on to the buttocks. A cloth is patted over the wax, then rrrrip. That's nothing compared to the next bit. Wax is smeared onto the mons, the cloth is pressed into place...then they turn the music up loud...rrripppp. It's quite normal for the waxer to throw your legs over their shoulder so they can get the strays. The waxer then goes over your red bits with a pair of tweezers to pluck out recalcitrant strands.
"Only a small exclamation mark of hair is left to curtain-off the labia. "The youngest J Sister Jonice Padilha told Salon.com: 'It makes you sexy. Makes you fashion. When I don't have my bikini wax, I don't feel to have sex with my husband. I feel dirty. And even himself say, 'Try a bikini wax!' I feel free. I feel clean. I feel sensuous even when I take a shower. I feel like I've been taken care of.'"
I don't know about you, but this didn't exactly sell the idea to me. In fact, especially listening to Jonice, has really convinced me I just shouldn't have it done. There just seems something inherently sexist about it, something that has infiltrated our culture through a desire to be pornographically subjugated to the male ideal of what our sex is meant to look like.
Then I watched a programme called Sex in the 70s on Channel Four, one episode of which looked at the history of the Joy of Sex that showed an exclusive and one-off interview with the couple who appeared in the really quite beautiful pictures in the book.
She was, at the time, a German woman in her 20s who was quite amazingly beautiful and who had body hair that would now only be seen in public behind the bars of a zoo. The fact that they are still together 30-odd years on, were sitting there holding hands and laughing and flirting naturally was enough to convince me that love - and marriage - is not about Jonice saying in her Latin way that "When I don't have my bikini wax, I don't feel to have sex with my husband". It is in fact about feeling natural and happy with yourself, your body and that of others, however hirsute you are.
My mother, for example, has never tampered with her bodily hair and she has experienced a wonderful, long, loving relationship with my father - the words "landing strip" have no double entendre in their world, unless they have some airport-related fetish I am thankfully unaware of.
So, without wanting to draw too much attention to what I will be sporting beneath my wedding dress come September, I think its safe to say I will 'feel to have sex with my husband' when we retire to our honeymoon suite without asking him to take some candles and a lawn-mower down there with him.

The Buff Brides Issue

2005-04-15T10:38:00.000-07:00

HOW fabulous. I have found something that makes my own sad attempts at making my wedding day something of considerable note seem delicate and positively elegant.
My musings, worryings, criticisms and self-doubt are nothing compared to the stomping, panting hephalump of a programme from the USA that is called Buff Brides - and my God, it's great.
On the Discovery Health Channel, it's like a little shot of adrenaline to the bride-to-be, an endorphin, and I now find I must have my daily fix - which is fine as it seems to be on about three times a day, proving to me that I can't be the only one who is quivering all over in its glow.
I want to be a buff bride, I have every desire to go the distance and be "the very best I can be on my special day" (all said in an American accent). But there are limits that I will go to and limits I will not and hiring out my entire wedding - the ceremony included - to a TV programme is not one of them. However, I am really glad that some mad, mad women do as it makes compelling TV.
We have had Jolie, an NYC vet who has been engaged to Simon for two years. They are perfectly normal and act like a normal professional couple, but underneath it is this tension, this burning horrible stress that just fizzes as the day gets nearer.
She gets irate, he gets it in the neck, she'll never have toned arms and she just can't go on, he gets it in the neck. Eventually, you wonder if there's going to be a wedding at all and by the stage she can't actually have the "camera's in my life anymore" and his mother has talked to her, you're sort of cheering inside.
And there was Petra - what's with the names, too? - whose diet consisted of some American milk/oats combo that obviously contained a steroid in it as the slightly rotund and pretty black woman at the beginning turned into a heavyweight boxer in a matter of 24 weeks.
I mean, these women sign up to undertake rigorous training programmes, diets and lifestyle changes in order to be "buff" in time for their sojourn de aisle. You see them groaning and panting, you get to see their sweaty armpits, their smudged mascara, they talk openly about their struggles with Chinese food and the problems faced with a good bottle of Merlot (an aside: I always thought that Yanks didn't drink that much, but the more of this reality nonsense I watch, the more I realise they PLANT the stuff back. I respect them all the more for it).
The couples open their cupboards for nutritionists, that look scarily like twin sisters of Horror doll Chucky, to pour over and laugh at, before ordering them to eat celery and rye bread until their wedding day - and use all sorts of left over food as "handy facepacks".
And they soak it up like confetti - they are the engaged person's heaven. It's sad, and a bit "I am better than you but not as good as them" - points to some slinky, effortlessly cool Vera Wang model - but there's no point in pretending it's not true.
Every night, I trace, usually, two brides per episode, which seems to me great value for money, and makes me gasp at the number of people who obviously want to sign up to open ridicule and public torture, as they head in a manic aerobic formation to the alter getting more emotional with every bicep curl.
Oh, it's truly divine. The best thing is that I'm watching them with only a rice cake and herbal tea in hand, while thinking of all the wonderful sweating, panting and groaning I get to do in private with my new Divina McCall DVD. I am speaking about exercise - natch.
Again, the wonders of the tele, giving me the ability to work out WITH DIVINA to tone my arms and lift my butt with no one - never mind the whole WORLD - gasping at the size of it.

The Food Issue

2005-03-03T12:46:00.000-08:00

In the past two years I've been to 10 weddings and, I mean this in the nicest possible way, I can't remember what I ate at any of them.
Well, apart from the lamb that I had forgotten by return invitation to opt out of - even though it had been hand picked by the father of the bride and brought straight in off the Welsh hills to the Cotswolds at great cost.
But the reason I remember that is because I didn't eat it and the bride and groom have never let me live it down.
That aside, I'm not at all convinced that wedding food, apart from the cost, should really be thought about for all that long in the first place.
I can always remember the bride walking in, I remember the laughing, the crying (for joy, of course - apart from that one time, of course, ut we don't speak of that), meeting people that you swear you'll be in touch with again. I remember the part where someone finds a spare hat and starts singing Elvis (usually David) and I always remember speaking to the parents of the bride and groom and telling them how wonderful their children are - whether I actually know them or not.
But the meal? I can never remember the meal. It's simply there to line the stomach as far as I'm concerned. It's just something to make sure you sit down and stop drinking copious amounts of free booze, thereby ensuring you're not unconscious by 7.30pm.
So, the collective - and fairly immediate - decision that my fair fiance David and I have taken, when confronted with (all organic!!) menus A, B and C was that we should definitely opt for the simplest fair and go for A. Which, not-so-coincidentally, is also the cheapest.
But when I say "cheapest" this doesn't actually mean "cheap". We've basically ordered tomato soup (slow roasted with basil apparently), chicken tarragon (and grain mustard sauce) and creme brulee, with vegetarian AND vegan options, for God's sake. This takes the cost to just over £6,000 a head. Then there's all the alcohol, nibbles and what not, at only £130,000 for each person there for the day.
We must consider this is before we even take into consideration the evening buffet, which will make the total cost of feeding and watering our nearest and dearest - and those that we put up with for the sake of harmony - a cool million of your English pounds. Or thereabouts. Of course, I'm jesting. But it does feel that while I save and scrimp and face the prospect of eating beans on toast for six months of next year to pay for it all, the quality of the meal I have convinced myself we will receive compared to how much is costs, is being thrown into the harsh light of reality.
Even though these financial cut backs may result in starvation rations and therefore svelte gorgeousness, there really should be some sort of national outcry about it all because in all seriousness, its costing us £40 a head for 110 at the sit-down meal just for the food. I mean, you think we'd get a discount for a block booking or something.
And, although it's sad to admit that I can think this and go ahead with the whole thing anyway, I almost guarantee the soup will be luke warm, the chicken will be chewy and the creme brulee will not have a crunchy, crackled topping, but a soggy, slightly warm brown sugar coating. To compound this tragedy, not one person at our wedding will even notice what they are shovelling down their gobs as they battle to talk to great Aunty Josie about her thimble collection and how they held weddings in her day.
On the top table, there will equally be no relief from relatives bemoaning the state of the wedding industry for me. My parents have long revelled in the fact that the nosh for their own wedding in 1983 cost £50 and that the whole wedding and honeymoon cost about £200.
Never having been the most conventional, my mum had made two massive vats of chilli, which was served with garlic bread and salad and everyone, including an eight-year-old me, piled back to our house following the ceremony for what has gone down in family folk lore as The Greatest Wedding Of All Time - and so cheap, "wasn't it, dear?"
But then, it's not all bad, I guess. Many of my closest friends that have been through the whole thing have also said that there's a moment when everyone is sat down and you look around and see them eating, drinking and laughing.
Then, apparently, you think that it's been worth every penny, every annoying twitch you've developed and the fact you've gone without Chanel lipliner for more than a year (in the case of one particularly stricken bride).
I'm currently hoping I'll have one of those moments so that I'm left with the all-important sweet aftertaste that makes the gorging in the first place so much more palatable.

The Unbridaled Jealousy Issue

2005-03-02T20:59:00.000-08:00

SINCE last weekend, my pilates instructor (engaged to ensure smooth gliding-like poise down the aisle), has told me my chin has been sticking out further than usual.
One possible reason for this, apparently, is that I'm trying to mask a double chin, but, of course, I don't have one of those (I've got two - there's really no point in pretending), so I've pondered and wondered at what could have brought this on in as little as seven days.
But, in the world of the bride-to-be, seven days is actually a long time, so it could be a number of things (she mused unconvincingly). It could have been a vertebrae put out of joint by an Indian head massage procured to calm my pre-"we're getting married THIS year" nerves.
It could, equally, be protruding because of an issue I have with the level of sulking I've been doing over a number of friends really not being as interested in my bloody wedding as they should be - due to them daring to have intricate personal lives on their own that seem to demand their attention for some unknown reason.
Another potential reason is that, because of my strict-for-four-days-of-the-week diet, I am consistently smelling pastry and Chinese takeaways in the air.
But, my musings are not real, they are the mental meandering's of a woman in denial. The sad truth of the matter is that it's sticking out like an ornamental shelf because my pride has been wounded. And I Don't Like It.
So, I hereby proclaim to the sisterhood of brides-to-be that I have met someone who has shown me the true path to bridal enlightenment and I have scuttled willingly into the shadows. Instead of spurring me on, bathing me in positivity, this perceived show of wedding perfection has made me jealous and twisted, luring me so far to the dark side my wedding will be known as: Bride Vadar - The Return of the Crones.
By the time the Big Day comes along, my whole face will be so malformed and out of kilter I'll have a shiny black helmet screwed on to the wizened pulp of my features. My bridesmaids will march behind me in white uniforms with stun guns as posies, and my poor fiance David will have been brought to the Death Altar, sick, tired and pale, in a gold bikini, from living his last months of freedom in a cell, having been kept under sedation by a little rotund floating robot.
Or something. I mean, What Is The Point of trying to have the "perfect" day if someone is just going to go ahead and do it better than you ever could? If someone's Dad has been growing pink roses in their front lawn for a year to go with the Marquee that is being constructed out of glow worm silk and fairy wings for their idyllic June wedding - how can you do anything except slope away and build an army of clones/orks to bring down the entire human race?
And if the (exceptionally beautiful, funny, clever and rich) blonde in question (who is marrying an Egyptian God) has already organised her seating plan (!), menu and organised the poshest Portaloos in England - I think you'll agree, it's either total rebellion or ... y'know, really going the distance and sticking your chin, like, right out.
La de da. Big smile, pink cheeks, shiny eyes and shoulders back. Because, of course, I don't mean it. I really don't. And, I promise, the weedkiller I bought for those roses is going straight back to the shop. Tomorrow.

The Dress Issue No 2

2005-02-12T20:09:00.000-08:00

OKAY. I've found a dressmaker. Oh yes, I have. Sanity saved, time well spent, things Under Control. I am at one with The Me.
I've come to accept I'll be spending a lot of money on a wedding dress and have stopped letting the knowledge that it will be worn for only one day upset me. And I cannot allow the fact I'm getting hitched to divert me from my usual, caustic realism. The world is not an idyllic Sadie Kenshall-shaped place. It, rather unfortunately for its poor inhabitants, doesn't revolve around me and if a few shops don't suit my criteria, so what?
It's fine - learning this is all Part of the Process. This tantric breathing/writing is the result of having reread thye last/emotional epileptic fit about my size/dress/colours/lack of maternal support, which appeared to come out of nowhere.
Hysteria is unacceptable, it's unbecoming, immature - unnecessary. But I have to admit, this Zen-like state seems to be particularly achievable when you've just found the perfect dressmaker. All suddenly seems better with the world.
So, please let me introduce you to Gillian Cockwell - a lovely human being who is, along with a little help from me, to design, as well as make, a dress pour moi - seulement!
I found her through a friend whose advice I have never come to rue whenever it has been followed, and, right enough, upon meeting we hit it off completely. Fantastically, the 25-year-old trained with one of my favourite shops in Bristol, Special Sauce, that used to have its premises on Cheltenham Road. In the window you could often see a variety of made-to-measure corsets that would make your body shudder in anticipation of being laced up, sucked in and contoured.
Against the black velvet curtain backdrop, two mannequins would be draped in pinks, golds, blues and greens, deep reds, velvets, taffeta, (tasteful) brocade, burlesque, gothic, classic, funky bodywear. It made me nearly crash the car on a number of occasions and the only reason I don't own 20 of them is because of the high prices involved.
The shop has sadly gone now, but Gill is, thankfully, carrying on with her own enterprise. The budget I am blowing, I mean, spending, is upwards of £1,000, which, according to all those bridal magazines that are published by the Devil and posted to your doormat straight from hell, is about the right price. Probably looking at about £1,200, but think we can stretch to £1,500.
Anyway, we had an afternoon of total loveliness at her flat, where she also has a workshop, that is fabulously near to where I live. There was quality wine and crisps, loads of laughter, a cosy fire and lots of constructive discussion. So, no I am actually very excited by the whole prospect of what the dress is going to look like - none of which I can actually tell you about, of course.
But, we females are a funny lot, aren't we? When I got home, I had a strop because David was talking about the new bathroom fitting. In I came: bag gaily slung on table, floaty, floaty, look at me "bride to be" glow, love you baby, you are great ... ASK ME ABOUT MY DAY BEFORE I KILL YOU. Dear.
"So, aquamarine blue tiles then? Those little mosaic ones you liked?" he said, staring at the blank white corner where the new shower is planned as part of a number of renovation projects - mostly being sorted out by David - in our new house.
Now, in moments like this, I think it only fair to say, I'm not the best. I realised he had totally forgotten where I'd been, so I tried to stay Zen, do the yogic breathing and just about managed, though my arms subconsciously folded themselves.
"Hmmm, don't know. Let's not talk about it right now, I had such a nice afternoon." This random statement made him turn and look at me with a slightly raised eyebrow. "That's good, but since when does talking about new bathrooms not qualify as ... 'nice'? You couldn't stop talking about it last night."
"Well, that was last night. Anyway, I thought we'd decided." I said. That guaranteed I had his full attention. He leaned into the corner and folded his own arms. "Oh. That's just as well then, isn't it? Considering I've practically bought enough to tile the whole bathroom. Just shoot me for checking though, right?" And he nodded to the corner behind me.
Around I turned and saw boxes of the tiles I'd fallen in love with at Tiles For You a week before. I stood there for about 20 seconds cringing internally (chanting: "Nasty, moany, horrible fiance," inside my head) before he laid the double blow squarely in my ribs.
"Anyway, enough about this stuff, it's all taken care of now. How'd you get on with that dressmaker of yours - although, I know I'm not meant to ask ... ?"
It's left me in the infernal position of wondering whether, as I stood with my back to him, he'd just sussed out why I'd been nippy, seen an opportunity to make himself look GREAT and me look STUPID and mercilessly took it, or if he had been thinking about it after all.
It's something, I'm willing to look over, however, me now having the patience of a Buddha ... even if this newly-found inner calm is only because I've found a dress maker to help ensure I don't actually end up looking like a Buddha on my wedding day. Ommmm.

The Dress Issue No 1

2005-01-28T19:46:00.000-08:00

"What is that?" yelped my mother, banging her glass of cheap fizzy wine down on a pedestal at her side.
I turned the red and gold bolero jacket, with high brocade collar and short sleeves, round and around for her to marvel at.
It was 4pm on a Saturday in 2005 and we had been scouring the city for my wedding dress since 1998. Or at least, it felt that way.
We looked at the woman in the shop and our crimson faces, coloured from containing bellows of laughter (and mine from trying to hold in stomach muscles at the same time), displayed that the bolero jacket suggestion may not have been the right one.
"Jut try it on?" she pleaded. "You really never know whether something will suit you until you try, you'd be surprised at the number ... "
Unfortunately, this petite, tidy woman with the perfect French bun, didn't finish her sentence as she was faced with two considerably bigger and more dishevelled women who had already drunk most of the booze in her fridge and were looking dangerously like they fancied a bit of a fight.
I put on the jacket, which, like everything else in the store, was at least a size too small, and turned to look at her, hand on hip.
It was the final straw in what had been quite a wearisome day. I mean isn't anyone in Bristol born with big boobs and gropeable bums?
Can everyone really be a size 10? - and with not very good taste, I might (bitterly) add. When this was pointed out to the assistant in question - who at one stage had asked how much weight I was going to lose for the wedding - it was enough for her to take the rest of her suggestions back to the store room to find a suitable alternative.
I had an image of her rummaging in a box at the back of the store marked: "Emergency Only" before producing a tent of peach organza and pale blue lace.
As soon as she disappeared my mum and I looked at each other, unable to control our mirth. Neither of us having been born to be quiet, my mother's Edinburgh accent bellowed through the shop: "Darling, I think I'd rather put my head in a barrel of rats than let you wear anything in here!" before sweeping my half-dressed form outside and into the nearest bar.
I'm not in the business of putting myself down, but actually, after the humour and the alcohol wore off, it was quite difficult trying to not feel like a hippo stomping through a world of gazelles.
I don't know if I can go through it again. Without the support of mummy hippo, who was visiting from her home in France, I really think I'd be lost. Maybe I should please go on a diet, lose two stone and go down two dress sizes, but I can't help but feel a bit pathetic if I do that. I mean, I may not be a perfect 10, but it's not as if I'm an ALIEN.
David, as ever, was fabulous. "She's a stupid cow, don't even think about it," he said holding me in his arms that evening in bed as I asked if I'd lose weight by crying a lot.
"She was probably jealous of you because you're so beautiful." And, there we are. Problem solved. This is why I'm getting married - to spend the rest of my life with my gorgeous boyfriend. Not to conspire in some plot against womankind aimed at making us schizophrenic androids, worried about every blotch and bump on our already perfect bodies.
Maybe I'm looking down the lens the wrong way. But all things considered, I've decided I'm designing my dress myself and that's that. Now all I have to do is find a dressmaker who drinks proper Champagne and actually likes women.

I mean, it can't be that difficult .... can it?

The First Issue

2005-01-06T16:52:00.000-08:00

Hands up if you have developed an allergic reaction to the colour ivory? Hands up who has already sworn 20 times today to never lift a chocolate bar to one's lips ever, ever again?
Which of you has secretly been sneaking certain magazines underneath their usual broadsheet daily paper? (And I know you exist, I’ve seen you!) But, most of all, who has been driven to distraction by the prospect of the petrifying and previously unknown condition of “Bingo Wings”?
If you are - hopefully only in your mind’s eye - currently waving your untoned arms in the air like a ship wreck survivor, I’m very pleased to tell you - YOU ARE NOT ALONE. No, no, no. You’re really not. Walking among you, looking normal at first glance, just like you, there are females having the same random cold sweats and worries about seasonal flower arranging - because, unless you’ve got a peculiar form of OCD, you’re getting married. Congratulations!According to the Oxford Dictionary Thesaurus, you’re about to be hitched, espoused, unified, knotted, plunged, spliced, yoked and otherwise amalgamated - presumably to become a perfectly baked meringue, fit for serving on a Jamie Oliver plate for your fiance, family and friends to devour.
The entire process is also probably helping you keep the multi-national, over-priced, commercial conspiracy that is the wedding industry flourishing in its capacity of Rip Off Merchant, overshadowing Rupert Murdoch in its cruel exploitation of human emotion. Not that I want to be negative, but just getting it off my chest feels better because women are meant to want this more than anything - something I am fast coming to realise is a convenient way of getting us to do all the hard work.
All these thoughts have been building up for the last six months you see, ever since I - a self-proclaimed bastion of feminism and individuality - agreed to be Mrs David Richmond.And looking back, it’s difficult to put my finger on what exactly happened.
There are a few clues, however. It all happened atop the Eiffel Tower in early spring on my birthday after a bottle of Champagne, an afternoon of love-making in a Parisian hotel room and a perfectly-formed diamond flashing in front of my eyes. This was followed by a handsome, winning smile and an impressive “I love you, spend the rest of your life with me...??” But most of all, I am convinced, it was vertigo.
Although, I’ve never suffered from this height-defying predicament before, it came upon me suddenly like a vulture swooping from the sky and stealing my sense and balance. All became wobbly and unstable. The wrought iron structure, there for more than 100 years, seemed to be made of cotton thread and about as trustworthy as the two-inch replicas on sale at ground level. I mean, don’t get me wrong. This guy, this gorgeous man, is The One. We spent the rest of the long-weekend in a heavenly state of topsy-turvey, lovey-doviness. People even stopped us to take our picture: “C’est une bonne alliance, n’est pas?”And who could blame them? We are talking about 6ft 4in of personal trainer gorgeousness.
Dark hair, hazel eyes, long legs, great bum, a smile that makes you go weak at the knees and just the most decent, funny, clever guy I ever did meet and that ever did live in the world. After four and a half years if you still feel like that, it’s got to be worth a shot, right? ....
Even when we left Paris the vertigo hangover was long lasting. After a fabulous upgrading by BA to first class on the way back from Paris, and maybe because they gave us four bottles of Mumm Champagne to take away, we returned home still giddy.
Everyone was so happy, we were so happy, we set a date and booked the venue. The world was a long way away and la, la, la, la was all I could hear. But, as I am sure many of you are aware by now, the dream becomes a reality. Our particular reality is on September 3, this year. And already the singing of lovely tunes in my head has turned into the ringing of tills and screaming voices (mostly in my head). It all started during my first-ever visit to a wedding fair at the Industrial Museum last month - the official beginning of the “wedding season”.
The wind was getting up as my friend an I strolled down there, a nuclear sky seemed to descend and just as we approached, a red mist was gathering - even though almost everything was a variation of white or burgandy. A particular brand of female craziness hummed around the room like a swarm of bees in the air, darting from one random unsuspecting woman to the next, leaving a shell shocked expression and a sense of having been possessed. It all got too much for one couple who practically split up after the poor bedraggled husband-to-be was loudly censured about his cautious guess at which flower would look best as the buttonhole for him and his band of men. Unable to stand up to such an unreasonable demon force, he ran, fleeing from the building with a hunted look on his handsome face, his woman (and her equally bedevilled mother) screeching and yelling behind him.
However, I later saw the couple - sans mama - having a beer in the Pitcher and Piano, holding hands and cuddling, and hoped this wouldn’t be a rare moment for them, that they continue to remember why they’re doing all this in the first place. It made me think about the moment I will look at another human being and, in front of everyone I know, proclaim that I’m spending the rest of my life with him - and, actually, couldn’t I equally do that in a pair of jeans in a small office at the back of Quakers Friars before going for a curry and a glass of champers with some mates?
But, just as reality threatens to loom, like a woman hypnotised I realise that this just won’t do at all. I need to have a staircase to walk down in a bloody great mansion, with a string quartet (at least! Maybe also random harps strummed by angelic looking children?) and Gold Sparkly Things in my hair. The fact is, that I’ve got to be perfect for a whole day. PERFECT. And the question then remains, like ashes in my mouth, how is one expected to achieve that in so short a time, I beg you? With all the money we’re spending on the day, there’s not much left over for emergency plastic surgery, either. Hopefully, this deranged swinging around of emotions will be calmed by my little bit of therapy each week, here in the pages of my blog. I beg anyone who is going through this, has been through it, or who would never go through it even if you paid them, to contact me, tell me your stories - HELP ME. So, here we go, the countdown to the Big Day is on - but will it end happily ever after? No doubt we will find out ....