“There’s huge pressure today and the bride wants reassurance,” he says. “But she’ll come out in the gown and the mother goes, ‘I don’t like it’, and the mother-in-law will say, ‘I love it.’”
In one episode, asked about the inspiration for her wedding, the bride replies “plimsolls”, her preferred choice of bridal shoe. A sales assistant confirms later that most of her customers want to get married wearing Converse trainers. Emanuel complains that those who want to wear heels never think to consider how tall their husband is. One bride perplexed him by announcing that she was a big Harry Potter fan and wanted something Harry Potter-ish. “I’m thinking, ‘You’re 23, darling, you can’t be obsessed with Harry Potter.’”
Another insisted that the main criterion for her dress was size, the bigger the better. The first crinoline wasn’t big enough, or the second, so eventually he put an enormous hooped petticoat underneath and queried why size was so important. “She said to pin money on. It was a Greek wedding. I said to the mother, ‘How much did you have pinned on yours?’ and she said £20,000. I said, ‘I want £40,000 for your daughter.’”
One wants to look like Kim Kardashian on her wedding day and recounts how she met her fiancé in Magaluf and they’re having a ten-tier wedding cake. Another has something of a crisis of confidence, not unreasonably, when her aunt tells her that she has thighs like a rugby player.
Mothers invariably think the dress shows too much cleavage; brides invariably don’t. The American version of the show almost brought down the government of Angola when the daughter of a hardline Marxist cabinet minister was filmed spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on nine outfits for herself and the bridal party.
One of Emanuel’s bugbears is when brides don’t look like themselves. “Exaggerated hair, exaggerated make-up. You want your husband to recognise you,” he says. “They suddenly pile all their hair up and put on tons of make-up and the guys must be really shocked. A lot of girls think, ‘This is my moment. I want to look like a movie star.’ They think by putting more on it’s going to work. Less is more.”
It makes for compelling viewing, not least because of the sales assistants at Lakeside, who have more personality than half the brides. Rina Metaj, 20, from Colchester, has been working at the store since she was 16 and says that every one of her clients thinks they’re at least one size smaller than they are.
“Especially if they’ve had a baby, because if they were a size 8 they still like to call themselves a size 8. Realistically, they’re a 16. They can get a bit funny, a bit bridezilla-y on you, and 90 per cent of the time they don’t leave with what they thought they wanted. They think fishtail, but they leave with ballgowns,” she says, as her blonde colleague Danielle rushes past laden with them, dead on cue. So how does Metaj tell someone that a dress isn’t working?
“I’m the worst here for giving my opinion and telling them they look awful. I feel like if I’m not honest then I’m not doing my job.”
Her stock of 300 dresses ranges from princess ballgowns to sheaths with feathered bodices, their price tags from hundreds of pounds to more than £5,500. Like Emanuel, Metaj wishes the brides would just bring their mothers, and a fair bit of her job is managing expectations. If their best friend cried when she found her wedding dress, they want to be moved to tears too. “They think if they don’t cry then it’s not the right dress, but they might not be someone who cries all the time.”
The brides on the show, in their twenties and thirties, recognise Emanuel from his outing on I’m A Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here!, but their mothers know he designed Princess Diana’s wedding dress. “She was so fun, she was young, she was excited, she was so in love,” says Emanuel. The resulting dress was not to everyone’s taste, but he stands by it.
“That dress had to do a lot of things: it had to be young, but it had to be grand. She had to be every little girl’s dream of what a princess should look like. And the scale of it! St Paul’s is enormous. She rang me that evening and said, ‘Prince Charles loved it, everyone loved it. I just wanted to say thank you.’ There was a lot of trust from Buckingham Palace, no red tape, no directives. And we talk about entourages but Diana came with one person: her mother.”
Emanuel was seen at that wedding smoothing the dress out on the steps of St Paul’s. Some of his more recent clients have invited him to their big day, but he declined. “People get very emotional and there’s a lot of, what’s the word? Not tension, but people get very highly strung at weddings. They’re worried about the car coming, will the hairdresser turn up, will the make-up artist do it wrong? Calm! Relax. Have a glass of champagne. It’s perhaps the most important day of their lives but if you have a child that’s probably quite an important day, I would have thought.”
He pauses for a long time before saying what he thinks of the Duchess of Cambridge’s more streamlined number, as unlike Diana’s as it was possible to be, and notably lacking in creases.
“It was … lovely,” he says eventually. “What amazed me more was her confidence. She was very much a bride in charge. And the other thing which I thought a little odd was she walked down the red carpet and there’s her sister sashaying behind holding the train up! I was shouting at the TV — put the train down! It’s a train! Put it down!”
If Emanuel was doing Pippa Middleton’s dress, he says he’d go for the opposite model: something soft and pretty with a scooped neck, a little sleeve and lots of chiffon. “She’d look adorable.”
But that wouldn’t show off the famous rear. “We’ve seen the rear. We don’t need to see any more rear. That was on show last time.” Meghan Markle, on the other hand, he thinks could suit figure-hugging “because she’s got a great little figure but again it has to be appropriate. Too figure-hugging can look like you’re trying too hard. And remember she’s divorced. There’s no guarantee it’ll be a cathedral wedding.”
Perish the thought. If and when Harry does put a ring on it, Meghan could do worse than hop on the train to Lakeside. Rina and Danielle would be only too happy to help.
THE 10 WORST CRIMES IN HORTICULTURE
Ann Treneman
MAY 20 2017
THERE ARE CERTAIN things in gardens that should be illegal or, at the very least, require planning permission. Over the years I have inherited gardens in which several horticultural crimes have been committed, plus a host — not to be confused with hostas — of lesser calumnies, many of which can be put down to the delusion that infects almost all gardeners, an attachment to hope over experience.
Remember antisocial behaviour orders, the alternative to jail for delinquent teenagers? Well, I am developing a list of horticultural antisocial behaviours (Hasbos?) that everyone should try to avoid in their garden. This is because eventually your garden will be someone else’s garden.
Most people, when buying a property, concentrate on the house, but I am sure that most gardeners, like me, are far more interested in what’s outside than in. This was certainly the case with the place that my husband and I saw for sale four years ago in Bakewell, Derbyshire. I remember walking by in late winter and spying a drift of snowdrops through the bare beech hedge and thinking: “I want to own those.”
Soon I did. And about 20,000 other plants. Did I say 20,000? Make that 200,000. We soon discovered that our new acquisition was a nontropical jungle, a plantsman’s garden that had been created over decades by the husband of the previous owner. But Malcolm, as I will call him, had died some time before and, by the time we came along, his garden had developed into a thickety madness.
What had once been ornamental plantings had become thickets so dense that a hermit could have lived in them happily, undisturbed. The laurel had grown into something the size of a blimp, the raspberries were on a mission to take over the world.
However, I knew from experience that you shouldn’t do anything in an inherited garden for a year. First reactions are not to be trusted. Yet gradually we have set out to tame the madness and, along the way, I have developed
a list of don’ts for gardens.
So here, then, are the ten things to try to avoid — some personal, others that should, in my opinion, become law.
Pampas grass — unacceptable in the UK
My first reaction as I wandered up a path and saw the fronds of Cortedaria selloana was: “What was he thinking?” Pampas grass may look perfectly normal in the high plains of Argentina, but they are, can I note, 7,240 miles from Bakewell. I dislike everything about it: the giant dense tussock, the waving, alien-like fronds … It’s like having Cousin Itt living with you. Apparently pampas are having a bit of a moment, having been spotted waving fondly, or even frondly, at trendy hotels in London. Fine. But not in my back garden.
Leylandii — just NO
No, no, no. I don’t want to hear your shady excuse — there is no acceptable reason for putting these in your garden. “It’s marked out my territory,” said a friend as I sat in her back garden surrounded by walls of towering hedge that had created, basically, a prison cell that photosynthesises. They grow to 50ft in 15 years. That’s not normal. To me, anyone who plants these deserves what they get: endless aggro from the neighbours and twice-yearly bills from the hedge-cutter.
Hostas are madness
One hosta is lovely, two will do, but any more require a lasting enthusiasm for anti-slug and snail measures that borders on the obsessive, not to say vigilante. I have at least ten hostas and, if I really wanted to keep them pristine, every night would be on “hosta patrol”, headlamp on, salt in hand, looking for the enemy. But, of course, you never do win against the slugs, do you? Hostas to fortune, I say. Neighbourhood Slug Watch patrol, anyone?
Don’t grow anything poisonous — obviously
I am not sure why Malcolm felt the need to plant quite so many specimens of Helleborus foetidus, “stinking hellebore” to you and me, but the stuff is everywhere, with its huge light green flowerheads nodding away in the wind. It smells and all parts of it are poisonous. What’s to like?
Don’t grow anything orange
On the whole, Malcolm’s garden includes mostly pastels, lovely purples and pinks, shades of green. But just when I’m thinking I can transform a corner into a mini “White Garden” (Sissinghurst unleashes dreams that don’t die), I see something pop up that is, er, orange. There are lillies and crocosmia. There’s also a plant known as “spurge”, a fiery-topped euphorbia that I know I dislike and that I might actually hate. Purge the spurge, I say. Then, in autumn, cuckoopint will rise up to greet the day. Clearly, orange was his “accent” colour. Sigh.
Single-mindedness has no place in a garden
These are gardens created as love notes to one thing and one thing only. So every inch is bursting with begonias or petunias. I also include any garden involving anything more than three gnomes and what I call “zen” gardens, those Japanesey ones that involve koi, a too-small bridge and gravel that has to be raked one way, and then another. Just say no.
Invasive snowberries and bamboo must go
I am sure that, at some point, the ornamental bramble that arched over a corner of the garden, taller than me, with its horrendous thorny stems, seemed a good idea. By the time I arrived, it had claimed so much territory that I felt a treaty was in order. Getting rid of it (Rubus cockburnianus) was murder. Snowberries are the same. So is some bamboo. Give them an inch, they’ll take a mile.
Don’t grow big things in small places
Yes, I am sure that whoever bought that little conifer at the garden centre and planted it in the front bed, right next to the house, did not know that it was, in fact, a towering pine that really wants to live on the hills of Scotland. Still, it’s just about checking the label. There’s no point pretending that you can grow a sequoia when you live in a terraced house in Scunthorpe.
Climbers and clingers can break your house — consider carefully
Years ago, I bought an Edwardian house, its picturesque brick walls resplendent with a wisteria on one and on another, a pinky clematis. Then, at some point, the wisteria got so heavy that it almost broke the porch. The clematis was much more creative, wrapping itself round 1) the phone wire and 2) the TV aerial cable. I snipped through both of them while pruning. The moral of the story is: plant climbers with care.
Burials in your garden — bad idea
It is, apparently, possible to bury a person in a garden, but, truly, that is a bad idea, at least worthy of a Hasbo, not least because new buyers may want you moved. (This happened to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and his wife, keen spiritualists, who were buried upright in their garden in East Sussex in the 1930s, but then had to be moved, body and soul, in 1955.) But I also think pet burial is not a good idea. It is so much more thoughtful to scatter ashes, and good for the soil too.
SHOCK POLL PREDICTS TORY LOSSES
Sam Coates
MAY 31 2017
THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY could be in line to lose 20 seats and Labour gain nearly 30 in next week’s general election, according to new modelling by one of the country’s leading pollsters.
YouGov’s first constituency-by-constituency estimate of the election result predicts that the Tories would fall short of an overall majority by 16 seats, leading to a hung parliament.
The central projection of the model, which allows for a wide margin of error, would be a catastrophic outcome for Theresa May, who called the election when polls pointed to a landslide result. Her support appears to have plunged after the poor reception of the party manifesto, including plans to make more elderly voters pay for home care.
YouGov’s model puts the Tories on course to win 310 seats, down from the 330 they held when the election was called. Labour would get 257 seats, up from 229, the Liberal Democrats ten, up from nine, the SNP 50, down from 54, the Greens one and Plaid Cymru three. This would leave the Tories 16 seats short of the 326 they need for an overall majority in the Commons.
The projection allows for big variations, however, and suggests that the Tories could get as many as 345 seats on a good night, 15 more than at present, and as few as 274 seats on a bad night.
YouGov acknowledged that the predictions were controversial and pointed to significant “churn” in voting intentions. But Stephan Shakespeare, its chief executive, said that the model had been publicly tested during the EU referendum campaign last year, when it always had Leave ahead.
The model is based on 50,000 interviews over the course of a week, with voters from a panel brought together by YouGov. This allows the pollster to assess the intention of every type of voter, from where they live to how they voted in the EU referendum, their age and social background, to weight the results.
The estimates were met with scepticism by Tory and Labour figures. One prominent Conservative said that the party was expecting a majority of 50 or more, despite an “atrocious” campaign, and insisted that anger over the manifesto was fading.
A Labour figure in the Midlands said that while the Tory social care blunder had helped, Jeremy Corbyn’s unpopularity continued to deter natural Labour voters and the party would be losing rather than gaining seats in the region.
Other pollsters predicted a convincing victory for the Tories. Andrew Hawkins, chairman of ComRes, said: “If voters behave in the way they broadly did in 2015 then the Conservatives remain on track for a 100-plus majority. This seems, on present assumptions, the most likely outcome.”
An ICM poll released yesterday gave a 12-point lead to the Conservatives, on 45 per cent, with Labour on 33 per cent, the Lib Dems on 8 and Ukip on 5. If this swing were replicated across the country, it would mean a Tory majority of 76. The spread-betting company IG Index suggested that the Tories would win 378 seats, Labour 148, Lib Dems 14 and SNP 46. The latest Elections Etc combined forecast by Stephen Fisher, of Oxford University, suggests a Tory majority of 100.
YouGov used data from the Office for National Statistics, the British Election Study and past election results. It then estimated the number of each type of voter in each constituency. Combining the model prob
abilities and estimated census counts allowed the pollster to produce what it hopes is a fairly accurate estimate of the number of voters in each constituency intending to vote for a party on each day.
YouGov’s final poll in the 2014 Scottish independence referendum put “no” to independence on 54 per cent and “yes” on 46 per cent. The final vote was 55 per cent “no” and 45 per cent “yes”. Today’s YouGov election model is based on voting intention data collected in the past week. It puts the Tories on 42 per cent, Labour on 38 per cent, Lib Dems on 9 per cent and Ukip on 4 per cent.
Mr Shakespeare said that the figures could change dramatically before June 8: “The data suggests that there is churn on all fronts, with the Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats likely to both lose and gain seats.”
Sterling fell in late London trading. Against the US dollar the pound was 0.5 per cent down at $1.279 and against the euro it fell 0.4 per cent to €1.144.
SUMMER
INVESTORS PRICED OUT BY THE BANK
Alistair Osborne
JUNE 7 2017
WHAT A BUNCH OF killjoys. Just when the entire nation needed cheering up, look what’s happened: Royal Bank of Scotland’s irate shareholders have only gone and settled their legal action over April 2008’s dodgy rights issue.
The upshot? Pretty much no chance of a court appearance from Fred Goodwin, the man who blew up the bank with his ABN Amro antics. Shred will now get to stay on the golf course, free from all obligations to explain what he knew when he was tapping up investors for £12 billion just months before RBS went pop. No chance either, m’lud, of seeing him squirm over that £45.5 billion taxpayer bailout. And that’s just for starters. What about the historical detail that the trial would have thrown up, what with the rights issue being sandwiched between March 2008’s fall of Bear Stearns and Lehman’s collapse in September that year?
The Times Companion to 2017 Page 24