Occasionally I get a stayer, who wants to talk about her big day a little more. Or question if she has married the right man. The first year of marriage is supposed to be quite a shock to a girl’s system. A lot of brides only think about the wedding day and not at all about what it might be like actually to live with the bloke. There’s a phenomenon called Post Nuptial Depression that can set in once the happy couple have come back from their honeymoon, or even on the honeymoon itself. The come-down after all that fabulous wedding euphoria can be hard for some women, no longer being the centre of attention, when the reality of life, the big bills and the bloke they have chosen to spend the rest of their life with actually hits home. There are no more hours of chatting about matching shoes with dresses; it’s all about the mortgage, the TV licence and taking out the rubbish. The sense of anticlimax can be so huge that apparently one in ten brides experience some form of PND. There is supposed to be a chemical explanation as well. Women experience a drop in phenylethylamine – the so-called love drug – immediately after marriage, but men do not. How else can I explain the number of slightly drunk brides I have had make a lunge at me after a few glasses of bubbles and announce that I am their Plan B?
‘If it all goes tits up,’ slurred one, admittedly at two a.m., ‘I’m marrying you. You’re the only person that really understands me.’
Caroline, however, is a little more persistent. Three years is a long time to blame it all on the hormones and PND. She has even become slightly devious during this period. She has started to get me to organize parties for her so that she can carry on calling up. So far I have done two baby showers and a first birthday party. I did think £10,000 on a baby’s birthday party was a little bit excessive, but she insisted on all the trimmings so that she could come into the office for a few lunches to discuss everything – at length. I suppose she is only marginally less attention-seeking than the serial Vera Wang bride who I heard got married three times in the space of four years, wearing a different Vera Wang dress each time. I have to say that is good going, as it usually takes a girl rather longer than a year to meet a bloke and get him to propose. ‘I think she just likes going down the aisle,’ said the shop assistant who sold her the dresses, with remarkable understatement.
Caroline doesn’t particularly want to be a bride, I don’t think. She just wants attention. My attention.
‘Are you busy?’ she asks. ‘Because I am around the corner and I was wondering if I could pop in?’
‘I have a meeting in a few minutes,’ I reply, lying about the time but not the meeting.
‘Five minutes?’ she says. ‘That gives me ample time to drop by.’
‘I’m afraid not.’ I stammer slightly trying to think of something. ‘I need to prepare.’
‘Oh – OK then. Tomorrow then?’ she suggests.
‘What, you might be in the area again tomorrow?’
‘I might be.’
‘Right then—’
‘So that’s a date – see you at eleven.’
‘What?’ Shit. She’s hung up.
‘Another meeting with Caroline,’ smiles Camilla, who likes to spend much of her time eavesdropping on my calls.
‘Get your own stalker,’ I say, bloody irritated at how I managed to talk myself into that situation.
‘Temper, temper,’ she replies.
‘Haven’t you got a holiday to organize?’ I hiss across my desk.
I can see Camilla trying to think of some sort of smart response. Sadly it is not forthcoming. She has more weekends away and minibreaks than any resting actor or detoxing popstar I have ever come across. Not that I have come across an exhaustive amount of either, but you understand what I mean. And it’s not as if her job is that taxing. She answers the phone, writes a few letters and occasionally gets sent on a cake- or wine-tasting. She buys the magazines for the office table, a job that judging by her voracious consumption of Closer, Heat, Hello! and OK! she doesn’t find too taxing. Due to her exhaustive knowledge of the famous, the infamous and the orange women who are endlessly photographed endlessly shopping, Camilla is an excellent asset when it comes to getting the full low-down on some of the brides-to-be who come into the office. We have a footballer’s wife-to-be coming in this afternoon, and while I could tell you which club her fiancé plays for and how many goals he scored last season, I couldn’t tell you anything about the bride, other than that she’s been on some sort of reality TV programme and that she is stunningly pretty. Jez and I had a good look at her bikini snaps in a not-so-glossy magazine last week after her PA rang up and made the appointment. I can’t imagine Jez will miss her arrival in the office for a minute, although I see he appears to be rather cleverly bunking off most of the morning.
Camilla takes a call from what I presume to be a groom, hoping to set up a meeting for a wedding in early 2011. He is clearly on charm factor ten, because Camilla is talking of squeezing him in with Bernard some time next week. Bernard won’t enjoy that. He likes to have all his appointments cleared with him in advance. But he is otherwise occupied at the moment, hooting with laughter in the next-door office, sharing his crooner’s punch with his other industry mates.
I decide to make a start on the mountain of envelopes on my desk. Being at the cutting edge of the hospitality industry, we are constantly being leafleted and sent press releases about new and fantastic things to make your party go with a swing. We get samples of new drinks – flavoured vodkas, different grappas. Absinthe was a big party spirit about ten years ago. I gather there was many an usher who lost his dignity after too many Green Meanie cocktails and ended up hurling his guts up, before falling fast asleep in a hedge. But one of the trends at the moment is putting things in glasses of champagne. I did a wedding a couple of weeks ago where we put hibiscus flowers in the champagne – they slowly open up in the bubbles and are rather beautiful to see. I had an oligarch’s bash last month where we put edible gold leaf in the Cristal. It caught the light as it floated around in the flutes and made them look just that bit more expensive, which is, let’s face it, the raison d’être for most of those blokes.
One of the latest things we have been looking at is a tornado in a box, made out of a humidifier and a fan. Perhaps not the most tactful thing for a wedding the other side of the pond, but it went down rather well at a do we did in Sussex a few weeks ago. Some people just want drinks and canapés, but the idea is to wow them a bit too, otherwise our reputation could become a little dull, and quite frankly what’s the point in hiring a wedding planner if they don’t bring a little razzamatazz to the event?
So along with drinks and trimmings, we are also constantly on the lookout for new venues – private spaces or indeed open-air spaces that we can turn into something special. We were rather bizarrely called in the other day to organize a fortieth birthday party in a car park. It was kind of liberating to have nothing to go on, but we ended up with two thousand square metres of black marquee with a fairy-light ceiling and large ice bars at either end. The tables were perspex, as were the chairs, and there were thousands of white flowers in huge ten-feet-high displays. It cost over £250,000, but the bloke is a confirmed bachelor and, quite frankly, what else is he going to do with all his cash?
My phone goes again and I manage to shift through the piles of paper to find it. ‘Penrose,’ I say. It is some bloke called Giles on the other end, asking about a winter wedding.
‘Can you put something together in six months?’ he asks. I say it shouldn’t be a problem. ‘And would the charge be 20 per cent of costs?’ He tells me he has a £50,000 budget, and I reply that since it is such a short time span we could probably negotiate a flat fee of £7,000 and be done with it. He sounds pleased. ‘The only thing I will suggest,’ I add, ‘is that you don’t do it on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day or New Year’s Eve.’
‘Why?’ he asks. ‘We were toying with the idea of New Year’s Eve.’
‘It triples your catering and staffing costs and therefore gives you a whole lot le
ss wedding for your money. And half your guests would rather be somewhere else.’
‘Right,’ he says. ‘I see where you are coming from.’
I personally rather like a winter wedding. The brides tend to be a little bit older, or ‘uglier’ as Jez so tactfully put it the other day when we were discussing it, and a little bit less high-maintenance. They are more often than not girls with a career who are paying for the thing themselves. They are usually more interested in getting married than the wedding day itself, and are generally a lot less fussy and tricky to deal with.
Winter weddings are much more fashionable than they were a decade ago. There are some churches I know in the capital where winter weddings outnumber summer ones by almost two to one. Also, what’s liberating about a winter wedding is that no one gives a shit about the weather. We know it’s going to be cold and grey and damp, so whatever else happens is a bonus. It does cut down on conversation on the morning of the wedding, though, when in summer I usually have my head out of the window, craning my neck towards the sky, checking for approaching dark clouds, promising things will brighten up later.
Winter brides tend to be a little bit more sartorially adventurous than their summer sisters, too. They have more interesting flowers, they are a lot less girly and much more likely to have individual touches like a fur trim, copious amounts of crystals or a long red train. But one of the main reasons why Bernard and I love a winter wedding is that we need some serious cash flow during the winter, and so they are a welcome sight in the diary.
‘So would you like to come in?’ I suggest, trying not to sound too keen.
‘That would be great,’ he says. ‘It won’t be me, obviously,’ he laughs. ‘Just my girlfriend.’
‘That’s fine.’
‘What time are you open? Could you do a seven-thirty breakfast?’ he asks.
‘Well . . .’
‘She’s quite busy, you see, hence the need for a planner,’ he adds.
‘I am used to busy people,’ I say. ‘I once had a couple who had just two meetings and then more or less just tipped up ready to go down the aisle eight months later.’ I laugh down the phone, but I can tell from his cool reaction that that’s exactly the level of contact and involvement he’s aiming for. ‘Which of course is fine,’ I add rather weakly.
‘So a seven-thirty breakfast this week? Thursday?’ he suggests.
‘I have a wedding on this week,’ I reply. He doesn’t say anything. ‘But I am sure I can fit it in.’ He hangs up. What the hell have I let myself in for?
‘Kathryn is here,’ announces Camilla as soon as I have put my phone down.
I look up and my heart sinks slightly. My first meeting with Kathryn last month proved to be rather difficult. Her husband-to-be spent most of the meeting on his BlackBerry emailing clients or text messaging while we tried to battle through a few plans in the moments when he gave us a sideways glance of attention.
‘Kathryn!’ I smile, coming out from behind my desk to shake her hand and kiss her cheek at the same time. ‘Lovely to see you. Would you like a cup of coffee? Tea?’
‘Um . . .’ She stares at me through her long pale eyelashes, blinking at me like a myopic dormouse. ‘Tea?’ she suggests, like she’s not sure whether that’s the best option.
‘Great. Camilla – one tea, and I’ll have a double espresso.’
‘Milk and sugar?’ asks Camilla.
‘Oh, I have changed my mind,’ Kathryn says suddenly. ‘I’ll have the same as you.’
‘OK – great. Take a seat.’
Kathryn has the slim hips of a child and the flat stomach of a woman who has not had lunch since 1986. She is wearing a pair of skin-tight jeans, which were clearly designed with the eleven-year-old market in mind, and even then they bag slightly around the buttocks. She is sporting high-heeled black boots and an expensive-looking flowered shirt that’s unbuttoned to show off her cleavage. Judging by the plumpness of her embonpoints, it looks like she’s picked them out of a packet in Harley Street. She has glossy blonde hair, a glossy pink mouth and eyes that won’t meet your gaze.
‘So how have you been?’ I ask, slipping back behind my desk.
‘Not great,’ she says.
‘Oh?’
‘I am having a few family problems,’ she mumbles, pulling out a used tissue from her shirtsleeve.
‘Oh dear, I am sorry.’
‘It’s been going on for a while.’ She starts to dab the end of her small nose with the tissue. I suddenly realize that she’s actually crying.
‘Oh dear.’
My heart starts to race in panic. I can’t bear it when girls start to cry. It makes me feel so embarrassed and useless and uncomfortable. What the hell is she doing? I wish she’d stop. I glance around the office, frantically looking for a box of tissues. We don’t normally need tissues in here. We plan weddings. Weddings are happy occasions. I imagine tissues are in plentiful supply at an undertaker’s, but we have no call for them. Well, actually, except for the final fitting of the wedding dress. If I hear the mother’s coming along I normally have a fistful of Handy Andys for that occasion. But Kathryn’s here to choose some tablecloths and glassware, which is normally quite a painless business.
I look around for some support. Jez has clearly found a better way of spending his morning and Bernard has miraculously closed his office door. Camilla is edging her way out of the door, mouthing the word ‘coffee’ at me. So I’m all alone, staring at this weeping woman, wondering what the hell I should do.
‘It’s my father,’ she says, shaking her head. Her shoulders are moving up and down now. She’s sobbing. ‘He’s been having an affair.’
‘I am sorry to hear that.’
‘With my best friend!’
‘Right.’
‘How could she?’
‘Or he.’ Shit, I think, why did I get involved?
‘It’s not his fault,’ she says, staring at me.
‘Right. I was just saying. It takes two to, you know . . .’
‘Well, don’t!’ she barks. ‘And she’s supposed to be my bridesmaid, and if I don’t make her my bridesmaid then she is going to know that I know and then my mother will know and then she’ll ask my father for a divorce and the whole family will fall apart.’ She takes a deep breath. ‘And it will all be my fault.’
She looks up at me for a second, scanning my face like I might have all the answers. I smile weakly. What the hell am I supposed to do? She then opens her mouth wide enough for me to see her entire dental history and bawls her head off. Tears run down her cheeks, columns of snot pour from her nose. I am beginning to feel a little sick.
‘There, there,’ I say somewhat pathetically, patting her hand over the desk. ‘I’m sure it will be fine. Just keep quiet about it, have your friend as the bridesmaid and no one will be any the wiser.’ Terrible advice, I know, but what’s a bloke to do in such a crisis?
‘D’you think?’ Her voice has all the last-gasp desperation of a drowning man.
‘Well, it’s a plan.’ I shrug.
‘Do you think I could do that?’
‘I am sure you could.’
‘It’s my wedding day.’ She sniffs.
‘And that’s all that matters.’
‘It’s my big day and I shall do what I want.’ She looks at me and smiles through her tears. ‘You are very kind.’
‘Not really.’
‘No, you are,’ she continues. ‘You’re a good listener.’
‘Not really,’ I say again.
‘This isn’t the first time my father’s done this, you know. He had an affair with another one of my friends when we were all still at school . . .’
I sit there for another twenty minutes, listening to her father’s entire sexual history. And boy has the man been putting in the hours – three affairs with three of her friends and plenty more besides. She sits and snivels and shares her family secrets, and all I can think of is that we have a WAG coming in this afternoon and I have so many thi
ngs I should be doing. I wish she would stop. But every time I inhale and try to open her file, she hits me with another revelation. I glance over her shoulder to see Camilla peering through the crack in the door, holding two cups of coffee. She too is waiting for the confessional to end.
‘That’s terrible,’ I say, apropos of nothing. ‘Oh, look!’ I feign surprise. ‘Here is Camilla with our coffees.’ Camilla takes this as her cue to make an entrance. Kathryn looks up. Her eyes are puffy and her nose is a little pink.
‘Oh, right,’ she says, taking the proffered cup of coffee. I am not sure she remembers asking for one.
‘So,’ I say breezily, rubbing my hands together, trying to change the subject. ‘Have you thought about tablecloths?’
‘Sorry?’ She looks completely confused.
‘Tablecloths? Long? Short? With a trim? Without a trim? Sage is very fashionable at the moment.’
‘What?’ She dabs her pink nose.
‘Sage.’ I bring out a sample from under the pile of paper and crap I have on my desk. ‘Here.’
‘Oh,’ she says. ‘That’s nice.’
‘Isn’t it?’ I agree. ‘What do you think? With chair covers to match?’
In the last five minutes of the meeting I manage to get Kathryn to make some sort of decisions on the wedding. I was hoping to get through a whole list of things, trying to move her nuptials on to a more ready footing, but sadly her father’s persistent bed-hopping put paid to that. We arrange for her to come in again later in the week, as she only has a few months to go and there are certain things that need finalizing before we can press ahead.
‘Jesus,’ says Camilla as soon as Kathryn closes the door. ‘My God, what’s her problem?’
‘She appears to have quite a few.’
‘They always come out from under the carpet just before a wedding,’ declares Camilla. ‘Weddings and funerals are always full of family secrets. I went to a funeral of a bloke the other day where another family appeared from nowhere. It transpired that the man was a bigamist and had two families, which he commuted between. Neither one knew about the other and they lived about twenty miles apart. He used to buy both his wives the same perfume at Christmas so they smelt the same.’
Wedding Babylon Page 5