A Beginner's Guide To Saying I Do: A laugh-out-loud romantic comedy

by Jennifer Joyce

  ‘Relax, will you?’ Rory’s tone was smooth, as though he didn’t have a care in the world. Not one teeny, tiny little concern. ‘It’s only Ginny.’

  ‘Ginny? What is she doing there?’ Had they travelled to New York together? Gone on a nice little jaunt behind her back? No wonder Rory hadn’t wanted Trina to accompany him!

  ‘She got here yesterday. Work have sent her. I didn’t have a clue she’d be here, I swear.’

  ‘So it never came up during Carrie’s birthday dinner?’ Trina found that incredibly hard to believe; the pair had barely paused for breath that evening.

  ‘No, not at all. Ginny phoned me yesterday to say she’d landed at JFK. She’s never been to New York before so I offered to show her around a bit.’

  ‘Show her around a bit?’ Now he really was taking the piss. ‘How can you show her around when you’re so busy you can barely stop to eat? Isn’t that what you told me? Isn’t that why I’m still here at home?’

  ‘Trina, calm down. You’re overreacting.’

  Overreacting? Trina rather thought she was underreacting, given the circumstances. He’d refused to take Trina with him as he was so important and busy, yet had time to share cosy little dinners with Ginny and show her around the city! Trina was so angry the phone was trembling in her hand.

  ‘I can’t talk to you when you’re being like this. Go and have a bath and calm down and I’ll call you back later.’

  Trina stared at her phone as Rory ended the call. He’d hung up on her so that he could go and enjoy dinner with his little friend! Dropping the phone, Trina curled up on her bed, tucking her knees in tightly. Surely marriage wasn’t supposed to be like this?

  Twenty-Nine

  Erin

  Erin sometimes wondered if she really was in love with Richard. Before they got together, she’d hopped from one man to the next with boundless energy, barely getting beyond a second date. It had been a case of ‘the more men the merrier’, as far as Erin was concerned. Who wanted to settle down with one man when you could have fun with as many you liked? Call Erin greedy – she’d been called far worse over the years – but settling down just wasn’t in her DNA.

  But then she’d given Richard a chance after he’d worn her down and now – miraculously – they’d ended up as a couple. An actual, bona fide couple. And she was happy with what they had. She could have done without Amanda sticking her beak in, obviously, and she wouldn’t have chosen Kelvin and Susan as in-laws, but Erin doubted any relationship was truly perfect.

  But was it really possible that she loved Richard?

  Erin prised her eyes open, one at a time, and regarded herself in the full-length mirror.

  Yep. Definitely love. Why else would she be trussed up like a complete knob-head?

  ‘Get some bubbles down your throat!’ One of the other bridesmaids – Becca or Megan, Erin had yet to learn their names properly – thrust a glass of champagne into her hand before she tottered away. Erin observed the glass in her hand. There wasn’t nearly enough alcohol in there to make her outfit any less hideous.

  ‘Are you ready for this, everyone?’ Helen, the maid of honour, waved her hands in the air and almost toppled over. The glass in her hand was empty, the champagne sloshing happily in her stomach with the rest of the bottle she’d guzzled while they’d waited. Erin didn’t know much about Helen, but she did know that the girl was fond of a drink. Any event was fair game for a piss-up, especially if it involved her best friend and her wedding. Lindsay and her female entourage had squeezed into the boutique for their final dress fittings and now Lindsay was emerging from the curtained-off dressing room at the back of the shop.

  ‘Well? What do you think?’ Lindsay gave a twirl, and an appreciative applause started up. The champagne had clearly been a little too free-flowing.

  Good lord.

  ‘You look stunning, darling.’ Susan waddled over to her daughter and reached up to give Lindsay’s cheeks a squeeze. ‘Absolutely stunning. I’m so proud of you!’

  ‘You look amazing,’ one of the bridesmaids piped up. Erin wondered how much champagne she’d consumed. ‘Too much’ was the answer.

  ‘Frank is going to die when he sees you,’ another cried. Erin could believe that. Death by laughter, most probably.

  ‘The fit is incredible,’ a third bridesmaid said, which was certainly true. The dress – what little of it there was – moulded to Lindsay’s body like a second skin. ‘Snug’ was an understatement. As was ‘tasteless’ and ‘tacky’. It was the most horrific wedding dress Erin had ever seen. The skirt barely covered Lindsay’s crotch, while the sleeveless bodice was made of some sort of feathery material interspersed with pink diamantés. She wore a gaudy six-inch tiara with an attached floor-length veil, which was also adorned with pink diamantés.

  Unfortunately, the bridesmaid dresses were just as gruesome, if not more so. Erin was wearing a black-and-pink basque with a short pink tutu and matching pink strappy sandals. She must love Richard to agree to wear such tat.

  ‘Ow. It’s hurting my arms.’ LuLu stepped out of the cubicle next to Lindsay, rubbing her arms. She was the only one who looked vaguely normal, in a pretty pink dress and matching ballet pumps. The only thing spoiling the look were the attached fairy wings, but Erin would take them over the tutu any time.

  ‘Hmm, the sleeves are a bit tight.’ Ingrid strode across the room and tugged at the fabric slicing into LuLu’s upper arms. ‘Your arms are a bit podgy. Do you think you could go on a little diet?’

  ‘Hey, hey, hold on a minute.’ Erin dumped her glass of champagne on a shelf and rushed across to poor LuLu, whose eyes had pooled with tears. ‘Her arms aren’t podgy at all. Her arms are normal. It’s the dress that’s the problem. It needs adjusting.’

  Ingrid tutted. ‘Do you think we have time to adjust any of the dresses now? This is the final fitting.’ She tapped at the schedule on the ever-present clipboard.

  ‘And this is your final warning.’ Erin took a step closer. If Ingrid didn’t shut her gob, she’d be carrying her clipboard permanently up her arse.

  ‘Let’s calm down, shall we?’ Susan stepped between the women, though she was no threat as the top of her platinum bouffant barely reached their bosoms. ‘Erin is right. It’s the dress that needs fixing, not our beautiful LuLu.’

  Erin wasn’t sure who was more shocked, Susan for sticking up for Erin or Erin for finding an ally in Susan.

  ‘LuLu’s perfect, aren’t you, babe?’ Lindsay stroked her niece’s hair and LuLu gave a wobbly smile.

  ‘I didn’t mean anything by it. I’ll see what I can do.’ Sticking her chin in the air, Ingrid stalked off in search of the boutique’s owner.

  ‘Go and get changed, LuLu.’ Erin guided the girl back into the changing room. ‘Don’t worry, we’ll get it sorted, okay?’ LuLu nodded, so Erin swished the curtain closed and joined the others. When Ingrid returned, her face was even more pinched than usual.

  ‘We may be able to get the dress altered in time.’ She made a note on her clipboard, refusing to meet anybody’s eye. ‘It’s going to mess up our schedule, but if that’s what you want …’

  Erin wanted to argue that what they wanted was for was LuLu to feel comfortable. That they wanted her to feel beautiful and special and not feel as if she had to go on a diet at twelve. But she bit her tongue. She’d already won the battle. She didn’t need to incense Ingrid further.

  ‘What shall I do with my dress?’ LuLu emerged from the cubicle wearing her jeans and a T-shirt. She held out the dress on its hanger.

  ‘Give it to her.’ Erin pointed at Ingrid. ‘We’re going out for big, fat ice creams.’

  Erin caught Ingrid’s eye but the woman wisely kept quiet. Erin changed quickly before taking LuLu’s hand and leading her out of the boutique. There was a park not far away with an ice cream van parked outside the play area. Erin bought two double cones with lashings of raspberry sauce and marshmallows, which they ate on a bench.

  ‘Are my arms really podg
y?’ LuLu asked, though she didn’t seem overly concerned, judging by the ice cream she was enjoying.

  ‘No. Ingrid was talking shit.’ Amanda was dead against swearing in front of the children, but sometimes it was necessary.

  ‘I don’t like Ingrid.’

  ‘Me either.’ Erin grinned down at LuLu, and they both giggled.

  ‘Do you think you’ll marry my dad?’ LuLu asked. ‘Then you’d be my step-mum.’

  ‘But step-mums are horrible and nasty and witchy. A bit like Ingrid.’ Erin nudged LuLu and they giggled again.

  ‘Seriously, though, having you as a step-mum would be pretty cool.’

  Erin licked her ice cream, wondering how to explain it to a child. She couldn’t seem to explain it to herself, so she didn’t stand a chance with LuLu.

  ‘I don’t really want to get married, sweetie.’

  LuLu’s brow furrowed. ‘What, never?’

  Erin shook her head. ‘That doesn’t mean I don’t love your dad. I do. Very much.’ So much that she was willing to dress up like Chav Barbie to please his sister. ‘But marriage just isn’t for me.’

  ‘But all girls want to get married and dress up like princesses.’

  Even Aunty Lindsay? That dress was as far from princess-y as you could get, even if it was topped off with a tiara. ‘Not me, kid.’

  ‘Why not?’

  Erin placed an arm around LuLu’s shoulders and pulled her in tight, resting her head on LuLu’s. Perhaps it was because she’d witnessed the utter breakdown of her parents’ marriage as a child and had been let down by her father monumentally ever since. How could she ever trust a man so completely when she’d seen the mess her father had left behind? Marriage wasn’t a guarantee to a ‘happily ever after’, and Erin refused to fall under its spell.

  ‘I’m happy as I am.’ It was the easiest explanation – and the truth.

  Thirty

  Ruth

  ‘I have been dreaming about today.’ Quinn rubbed her hands together, her face a picture of pure joy as we made our way up the path towards Linda and Bob’s house. ‘Is Linda really as good as you say she is?’

  I nodded. ‘She’s like a younger version of Mary Berry.’

  ‘Wow.’ Quinn adopted a dreamy look on her face. ‘I love Bake Off, don’t you?’

  ‘Nah.’ Erin couldn’t have looked any less interested if Quinn had asked her opinion on the Vietnamese football league. ‘I’ve never actually watched an episode. I like to eat cake, not watch it being made. What’s the point in that?’

  ‘Because it’s Bake Off.’ Quinn’s voice had a faint tremble to it, as though she could burst into tears at any moment.

  ‘Have you ever watched an episode of Embarrassing Bodies?’ Erin asked.

  Quinn shook her head, the joy well and truly wiped from her face. ‘No, it’s gross.’

  ‘Me either, but plenty of people do.’ Erin gave a shrug. ‘People like to watch different things.’

  ‘You can’t compare Bake Off to Embarrassing Bodies. Bake Off doesn’t have any infected willies on it for a start.’ At the exact moment Quinn uttered the words ‘infected willies’, the door swung open, revealing Jared’s mum. Quinn suddenly took great interest in the doorstep as she studied it intensely, her cheeks bright beneath her curtain of blonde hair.

  ‘She doesn’t watch Bake Off.’ Quinn thrust a finger in Erin’s general direction as though it explained everything.

  ‘Oh, well, nobody’s perfect.’ Linda stepped aside and allowed the three of us to troop inside. She led us into the kitchen where Jared’s sister and nephew were sitting at the table, plates of cakes tantalising them from the centre.

  ‘You’ve got some willpower,’ I told Ally as I joined her at the table. ‘There would have been nothing but a plate of crumbs remaining if I’d been left in here unsupervised.’

  ‘Believe me, I wanted to scoff the lot, but Mum would have killed me.’

  Linda gave a tut as she filled the kettle. ‘“Killed” is a bit extreme. Maimed a little, perhaps.’ She turned away from the sink to grin at us. ‘If you could just hold on for two more minutes, I’ll make us all a drink and then we can start tasting.’

  Linda had made three cakes for us to sample to help me decide what I wanted for the wedding: a Victoria sponge with vanilla buttercream and raspberry jam, a lemon drizzle cake, and an orange sponge with chocolate buttercream and marmalade filling.

  ‘Hello again, Noah.’ Quinn, who had met Jared’s nephew at my birthday dinner, was making silly faces at the boy. ‘Aren’t you being a good boy?’

  ‘He’s being very patient while we wait for our cake,’ Ally said, looking pointedly at her mother.

  ‘Okay, okay, I’m going as fast as I can.’ Linda finished making the drinks before she cut the cakes, placing a small slice of each in front of us. ‘I can ice and decorate the real thing to make it look fancier. Have you had any ideas for the kind of design you’d like?’

  I shook my head, my mouth too full of lemon drizzle cake to answer. I’d spent an entire evening poring over Trina’s wedding file, looking at the cake designs there. They were all beautiful but – dare I say it? – boring. White icing was traditional, but it wasn’t my style at all.

  ‘These are amazing,’ Quinn told Linda. ‘You really are as good as Mary Berry.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know about that.’ Linda waved away the compliment but it was clear she was chuffed with the comparison.

  ‘It’s true, Mum. I know we’re supposed to be helping Ruth, but I can’t choose.’

  Quinn shook her head. ‘Me either.’

  I couldn’t be swayed by any of the cakes either. They were all delicious in their own way, and choosing just one was going to be tough. I’d need to test at least another slice of each.

  ‘Do you know what I used to do when I was single and couldn’t decide between three men to date?’ We all turned to Erin as she shared her words of wisdom. ‘I’d date all three. Why deny yourself pleasure?’

  I held my breath. Where was Erin going with this in front of my future mother-in-law? Erin had calmed down since getting together with Richard Shuttleworth, but before that she could be pretty filthy and I was afraid of the memories she was about to unleash in Linda’s kitchen.

  ‘You know, I think you’re right.’ Linda nodded as she observed her cakes. ‘I could make a three-tiered cake descending in size. One of each cake.’

  ‘I like the sound of that.’ Why deny yourself pleasure?

  ‘I could use traditional white icing or vamp it up a little with colour. Pink for the Victoria, yellow for the lemon drizzle, and orange for the orange sponge.’

  I didn’t need to think twice about the second suggestion. ‘Definitely the coloured icing.’

  ‘I thought so.’ Linda picked up her cake knife. ‘So, who wants another slice?’

  We naturally started to talk about the wedding as we worked our way through yet more cake. It was quickly becoming my only topic of conversation lately, and the more word spread about my upcoming nuptials, the more people I got to chat to about it. I’d run into one of the girls from payroll in the loos a few days earlier and we’d spent almost twenty minutes discussing garters in front of the sinks. Cheryl from IT had stopped by for a chat each morning, sharing a host of new tips each day, from the supplier of her invites to the best place to convert your currency for the honeymoon. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that Jared and I weren’t actually going on honeymoon as every scrap of our savings was going towards the wedding. There wouldn’t be enough left over for a day trip to Blackpool, never mind a full-blown holiday.

  ‘I’m trying to work out what I want for the evening entertainment,’ I told the others now. ‘There won’t be a great deal of room at Cosmo’s. Jared suggested a DJ, but I want something with a bit more of a fun element. Within budget, of course.’ There had been plenty of ideas on the wedding blogs I frequented, but most were far too costly for our shoestring wedding.

  ‘Have you thought about karaok
e?’ Ally asked and my eyes widened at the suggestion. Of course! For Freya’s thirtieth birthday, Ally had organised a karaoke party. The host was outrageous, with his over-the-top innuendo, and his dress sense hadn’t been anything to aspire to, but it had been so much fun.

  ‘I think that would be perfect.’

  ‘Do you want me to get the number for you?’

  ‘That’d be great, thanks.’ I reached into my handbag and pulled out my notebook to jot down Ally’s suggestion. The notebook was now jam-packed with ideas and to-do lists and I was sure it wouldn’t make the tiniest bit of sense to anybody else who happened to stumble across it. Even Jared had trouble deciphering my notes, and it was his wedding too.

  ‘Have you had any luck with the favours?’ Linda knew I was keen to make my own, but I’d had some difficulty finding something easy enough for my limited capabilities.

  ‘I was thinking about making some cupcakes topped with Love Hearts sweets.’ It was by far the easiest option I had come across.

  ‘Give me a shout if you need any help.’

  I thanked Linda for her offer, but I was sure I wouldn’t need it. How difficult could baking some simple cupcakes be?

  I wasn’t much of a baker – understatement! – but with the Spice Girls blasting from the sitting room, I weighed out the butter and sugar and creamed them together using the electric whisk I’d borrowed from Linda (I did need a little bit of help from her, after all). All was going well until I added the egg, which curdled the mixture and ruined it. Later, when it was far too late, I learned that the situation could have been easily remedied by mixing in a little flour, but I assumed the mixture was a Ruth-disaster (and was surprised it had taken so long to occur) and consigned it to the bin before starting again. This time, the eggs behaved themselves and I was pleased – and more than a little shocked – when I ended up with a respectable cake mix. I spooned the mix into cake cases and popped them in the oven.

  Hurrah! Miracles do happen.

  I gave the bowl a thorough licking before I moved into the sitting room. While I waited, I had a look through Trina’s wedding file to make sure I hadn’t missed anything vital. The wedding plans seemed to be coming along nicely, but I didn’t want to walk down the aisle and realise I’d forgotten to buy the rings or anything important like that. Trina’s plans were extensive but I could skip a lot of it since we weren’t planning on having a wedding breakfast or midnight barbeque or a mass release of Chinese lanterns – or any of the many extras Trina and Rory had opted to include. I was feeling pretty pleased with the progress I’d made as I flicked through the file, but my eyes started to grow heavy. Stifling a yawn, I turned the page, landing on a section dedicated to plinths. Having no use for this section, I turned the page, stifling another yawn. Wedding planning was exhausting.