‘When what ends in tears?’ asks Bernard, breezing back into the office carrying a biodegradable bag of something equally ethical. ‘Was there a fight at the fitting?’
‘Well, actually nearly,’ I reply. ‘Alice’s mother was not terribly cooperative and was a bit of a negative cow.’
‘Right,’ says Bernard, putting his neatly folded bag down on my desk. ‘Well, I suppose it’s a jealousy thing. Her daughter is more attractive and happier than her, she has it all ahead of her, while her mother is, let’s face it, past it. And what’s the father like?’
‘I don’t know – they’re divorced, aren’t they?’
‘There you go then,’ declares Bernard. ‘It explains everything. What’s the dress like?’
‘Nice,’ I say. ‘The usual A-line job.’
‘Oh, thank God for that!’ he sighs.
Bernard can’t stand it when a bride goes off piste and goes somewhere other than our recommended list of places to get a dress. He had heard of Annabel Rogers but neither of us had seen any of her designs, so he had been a little sweaty about what Alice might choose. He’s been burnt before. Having spent a year organizing the most lavish wedding, with stunning flowers and touches aplenty, the bride went and spoilt the whole thing by going to some shocking boutique and buying some hideous dress. She went down the aisle with a throatful of Graff diamonds and the most terribly ill-fitting dress Bernard had ever seen. He had to eat his own fist to stop himself from screaming. Fortunately the groom didn’t seem to mind; however, when he complimented his new wife on how stunning she looked as she came down the aisle, half the reception laughed.
Foreign weddings also make Bernard super twitchy, because there is always a danger that the bride might go local and find herself a neighbourhood seamstress who will cover her in frills and bows and little roses. The idea might be terribly sweet in principle, but in practice the result is often horrendous.
‘It looks all right,’ says Bernard, peering through the plastic.
‘We had a veil moment,’ I say.
‘How shit was it?’ He smiles. ‘Totally fucking terrible?’
‘Like a chewed-up mosquito net.’
‘Excellent,’ he says, picking up his paper bag and heading over to his office. ‘It was ditched, right?’ I nod. My phone goes. ‘You’d better get that,’ he nods. ‘And eat up. We’ve an appointment in fifteen minutes.’
I pick up as he walks off. ‘Hello?’
‘Hi, it’s me – Alice.’
‘All OK?’
‘I just wanted to thank you for earlier.’
‘That’s OK.’
‘My mother was being a witch. She’d just found out that my father is bringing his girlfriend to the wedding after all.’
‘Oh dear.’
‘You can say that again. They haven’t seen each other since my mother took a pair of scissors to all her clothes about ten years ago. She was taking it rather badly, I think.’
‘I can’t say that I noticed.’
‘You’re so diplomatic,’ she laughs.
I have learnt in this business that it is generally not a good idea to get too involved in the minutiae of the bride’s life. But it is hard to stop yourself, because everyone offloads their problems and shares their confidences with you. But woe betide you if you end up taking sides or passing comment or agreeing with someone, as it will only come back to haunt you. The last thing you want is to be at the centre of a pissedup family shit storm.
‘So you are bringing the dress down with you on Friday?’ she asks.
‘Absolutely.’
‘Do you think it will be ready in time?’
‘I shouldn’t be surprised if it was finished a little bit sooner than that.’
‘Really? Because that’s the last thing I need to worry about, when I have Cold War breaking out at home and Richard has suddenly announced that his ex-girlfriend Daisy is coming.’
‘Daisy?’
‘She is on the list as one of the people who haven’t bothered to reply. I mean, how bloody rude is that? I know we didn’t put cards in, but you would have thought that she might have put bloody pen to paper. But oh no – that’s too tricky for the likes of her.’ Her sarcasm is making her cough and splutter down the phone. ‘Daisy’s too busy with her fabulous life to let us know if she is going to grace us with her skinnyarsed presence!’
‘Is she a plus one?’ I ask, calling up the guest list on the computer.
‘Of course she isn’t a bloody plus one!’ Alice is steaming down the phone. ‘She is after my fucking husband! She is in love with him and has been since they met at university.’ She spits the word. ‘Like all his friends from university – they are a little bloody gang of mates, with “in” jokes and “in” holidays and “in” parties that they’ve all been to. All except for me, of course, who has no fucking idea what they are on about half the bloody time.’
‘I am sure that’s why Richard asked you to marry him, because you weren’t part of his old gang. You are new and different and exciting,’ I say slightly nervously, not wanting to join in too much.
‘It better bloody be,’ she replies, sounding a little exhausted by her rant and indeed the whole thing. ‘Anyway,’ she sighs, ‘don’t put the bitch anywhere near Richard.’
‘Well, he’ll be on top table with you. So that shouldn’t be a problem.’
‘Not even on a next-door table to us. I don’t want her in his fucking eye-line!’
‘OK.’
‘Get it?’
‘Loud and clear.’
‘Good!’ she says and hangs up.
My ear is actually hurting. It is unlike Alice to be rude. She has been rather charming and undemanding so far. We had an initial meeting back in September last year in the pub around the corner from where they live in Paddington. Richard, her fiancé, struck me as rather a nice bloke. He was quiet and a bit on the skinny side, but was very generous with the vodka and tonics as we sat outside tucking into packets of dry-roasted peanuts. The best man, Andrew, came along too, which was a first for me, but apparently they have been mates for years and he only lives around the corner. And I have to say, I liked them all. I have had very little to do with Richard since that day, but I find it hard to believe that this quiet and unassuming chap can inspire such a catfight. Maybe he is a genius in the sack. Or tells brilliant jokes. Or is very kind to puppies. Who the hell knows? I have long since given up trying to work out what women find attractive in men.
Over the years I have seen the oddest couples get together. Stunning girls and dweebish boys. Hugely overweight women and drop-dead-handsome men. Paunchy middle-aged men and nubile young girls. It is obvious why fifty-year-old Derek is attracted to nineteen-year-old catalogue bride Lai Sue. You can see what’s in it for both of them. Then there’s the rich banker and the young Russian, Natasha, who they both know will take him to the cleaners within the next five years. But there are some people you kind of want to shake and say, “She doesn’t love you,” or “Are sure about this?” I will never forget the charming fortysomething bride who I think just wanted to get married, perhaps just to say that she had done it. The groom was a handsome thirty-year-old bloke who arrived at the wedding driving a Panda and left in a Porsche. The bride had his name written in the sky by a biplane at a cost of £60,000 and eighteen months later he left her for a younger model. But there was no telling her not to marry the cad. She had a lovely day, I suppose. And she’s got some great photos to put on the mantelpiece, next to the pictures of her cat.
I tuck into my rather soft sandwich and tepid cup of coffee. I am not looking forward to this afternoon. Once a month we throw our doors open to all that the wedding industry has to offer, from cake-makers to sugared-almond distributors, just to make sure that we are not missing a trick.
And what an industry it is. It is the most competitive and yet at the same time the most provincial business I have ever come across. It is one of the few markets where shops and businesses that have been in families for generation
s, and have been handed down from father to son, compete head to head with international bestselling brands. An old friend of mine who used to work at Brides magazine told me that Condé Nast used to have an awards ceremony every year, where they invited the great and the good within the industry and handed out a few gongs over dinner and some champagne. It was meant to be a jolly and galvanizing experience, allowing like-minded and similarly interested people to gather and have some fun. In the end they had to stop it because the whole ceremony became so bad-tempered and acrimonious. The only people who were ever happy were those who won. The losers were so sore they would strop off and threaten to withdraw their advertising. One year the publisher was kicked in the shins in the toilet by some furious dress-shop owner who had lost out in the best-bridal-wear category. And the advertising head was sent a voodoo doll of himself imbedded with pins. They all took it so seriously and so personally it wasn’t worth the yearly fallout for the magazine.
And the competition isn’t just between those in the industry, but between the magazines themselves. Brides is the market leader, followed by Wedding, You and Your Wedding and Wedding Day, and it is a crowded market, with ever more esoteric titles such as Wedding Cakes or Wedding Flowers launching all the time. In the US, the bridal magazine market has expanded 98 per cent in the last five years, making it the most rapidly expanding glossy market. Also, somewhat surprisingly, the May edition of US Brides magazine is only surpassed in thickness by Italian Vogue, such is the scrum of companies keen to advertise between its pages. ‘The book’ is quite literally as thick as a book, and a bestselling airport bonkbuster to boot. With such a limited market and only one ideas pool to fish in, plagiarism is rife. A recent article in the UK Press Gazette compared the front cover of two of the leading bridal mags in the UK, pointing out that one had used the same model in the same dress with the same hair and make-up that the other mag had used three months previously. So you can imagine the competition between the editors is stiff, and the atmosphere is pretty frosty.
Bernard and I were at the Harrogate bridal fair last year, slurping glasses of free champagne and dipping foreign objects into the nearby chocolate fountain, when we witnessed a classic hair-flick, handbag moment between two editors. The more powerful of the two was walking towards the champagne bar to help herself to a well-deserved flute, when the other came flouncing and pouting towards her. The flouncing one leant over and very loudly whispered, ‘Watch out!’ into the ear of the other. The powerful one looked so confused she nearly dropped her rather expensive handbag. Then the flouncing one tapped the side of her nose in a ‘if you know what for’ manner, and flounced off. At which point Bernard could control himself no more and shrieked with laughter.
The powerful one looked as us both. ‘Did you see that?’ she asked. ‘That was about as scary as being threatened by H from Steps.’
All Bernard could do was shake his head gently from side to side and wipe away the tears. Then again, Bernard tends to get slightly hysterical at the Harrogate bridal fair – actually at any bridal fair. We used to go to them all – the Designer Wedding Show in February and October, and the National Wedding Show in February and September. But the National used to bring him out in hives. It was the explosion of silver-bell motifs, princess-cut tiaras and wedding packages to Ayia Napa that brought on the scratching and itching and self-doubt – how could a man of his taste and aesthetic values be involved in such a low-rent industry? So now he limits himself, and indeed me, to the Designer Wedding Show, which is pretty frocks and super cakes, and Harrogate, where the big manufacturers show their wares.
The biggest show in Europe, Harrogate has something like 150 exhibitors and they show over 200 collections. Bernard and I usually spend most of our time propping up the bar in the Hotel du Vin, sinking bottles of wine and watching the grumpy florid-faced manufacturers argue over the price of duchess satin and the mark-up on Swarovski crystal. I think he secretly looks forward to it every year.
Which is more than I can say for this afternoon. This is something he hates. We have the owners of a bridal-wear boutique coming down from Manchester, plus a cake-maker from Norfolk. It is Bernard’s idea that during these hard times we should put our feelers out a little more and try and get our name out and about to generate a wide customer base and not be so south-centric. So the first meeting is a couple from Big Day Frocks just outside Manchester.
‘I think your next meet is here,’ announces Camilla, coming through the door with pink shins, smelling of expensive salon creams.
‘Really?’ I ask, shovelling in the last of my sorry sandwich.
‘Well, I presumed it was them. They were having an argument over which bell to press just outside the door.’
‘Why didn’t you invite them in?’
‘I wasn’t sure,’ she says, parking her backside back behind her desk, just as the buzzer goes. ‘There!’ she declares, like she was right all along.
Not so fresh off the train, Lee and Patsy come blinking into the office. She is short, rotund and in her fifties, with immaculate hard maroon-coloured hair and matching maroon-lined lips. He is also short, rotund and in his fifties, but with no hair and a thick grey moustache that looks a little sticky along the edge, as if he keeps it as some sort of flavour-savouring device should he get nostalgic for his lunch.
‘We’re here to see Bernard,’ says Lee.
‘He knows we are coming,’ adds Patsy, folding her arms underneath her ample bosom and raising her painted eyebrows.
‘Of course I do! Please come through,’ says Bernard, opening his double doors. ‘Thank you for coming all this way. Would you like tea? Coffee? Something cooler?’
Pasty pulls at the neck of her green knee-length dress, and hoiks up a thick white bra strap. ‘I’d love a cool drink,’ she says. ‘It’s hot in London,’ she adds, like she has come to a different country rather than just spent a few hours on the train.
‘Still or fizzy water?’ asks Bernard.
‘A glass of still water would be great,’ she huffs as she flops down on Bernard’s green leather sofa.
‘The same,’ nods Lee, also doing the same.
‘Hello again,’ I say, coming in to shake their hands. ‘I am the one who’s been speaking to you on the phone.’
‘All right?’ nods Lee.
‘Yes thanks,’ I smile.
Bernard serves the drinks and then immediately launches into his speech about who we are and what we do. He is at his most charming and beguiling and flatters them at every possible moment. Surprisingly for such a roaring snob, Bernard is the first person to sweep his class prejudices aside when it comes to business. Well, these guys have been at the forefront of the Manchester bridal market for the last twenty-five years. Rumour has it that Patsy actually came into the shop to marry someone else, but when Lee came over to measure her for her dress, she ditched the bloke and married him instead. They are also famous for their sales pitch, or perhaps ‘style’ is the word. Their shop is on a main street but you have to go up an escalator to get in there. There used to be a red cord across the top of the escalator with a liveried doorman on rope duty. No sooner had mother and daughter crossed the threshold than the rope would be closed behind them and either Lee or Patsy would leap out and ask, ‘Now when is Modom’s big day?’
It was rare that anyone left without making a purchase. As a result, they have one of the most successful shops in the North.
‘We’ve actually been diversifying of late,’ shares Patsy with a purse of her lips.
‘Oh, right?’ says Bernard, crossing his legs to reveal a knee-length candy-pink sock.
‘It was Patsy’s idea to provide more of a full service. So along with the white Roller and a white taxi cab, we now do his and hers Botox and fillers out the back,’ says Lee.
‘I took myself on a course,’ smiles Patsy. ‘I wanted to do the veneers as well, but you have to be a qualified dentist for those, which is a shame because I saw a bride the other day who had had the lot don
e as part of a package. It was just over a thousand pounds for the lot, which I thought was very reasonable.’
‘Very reasonable,’ agrees Lee. ‘She’s done me – can you tell?’ Lee moves his face from left to right for us to admire. ‘Can you? Can you?’ Now he mentions it, I can see that one of his eyebrows is a little higher than the other, and he does have the expression of a man who has just sat on a drawing pin.
‘Very good,’ says Bernard.
‘You should let her have a go on that big frown of yours,’ suggests Lee, pointing to the Grand Canyon furrows between Bernard’s eyebrows.
‘Yes,’ smiles Bernard, a little tightly.
‘Oh, I’d have those gone in no time,’ asserts Patsy.
‘Excellent,’ says Bernard, trying to shift the subject on. ‘And I understand that you have also dropped your appointments system in the shop?’
‘Not dropped it exactly,’ replies Patsy. ‘We’re still doing appointments and fittings in the afternoon, but the morning is open to anyone who wants to come in.’
‘Don’t you get a lot of time-wasters?’ I ask.
‘Not really,’ she shrugs. ‘You have to be nice to the Muriel market.’
‘Muriel market?’ I quiz.
‘You know, the girls who aren’t engaged yet, but who go shopping for dresses anyway,’ says Lee.
‘It happens all the time,’ continues Patsy, looking at my surprised face. ‘If I had a fiver for every dress that I’ve sold to a girl who is not even engaged, I’d be a rich woman. Sorry,’ she adds, taking in her husband’s irritated look, ‘an even richer woman! They are always coming in to have a look, and you ask them when their big day is and they say their bloke hasn’t asked yet, but they know he will, so they are just taking a look at what’s out there.’
‘But they are not engaged?’ I check.
‘Not even close. But it doesn’t stop them from buying a dress and putting it in the wardrobe for when he does. You should see the shop when we have a sale. Clearing out old stock, we discount quite heavily sometimes, and girls come in and buy their dream dress, and keep it in the wardrobe until he pops the question. There are loads of them at the bridal fairs. We did the Asian bride fair in Manchester recently and it was exactly the same.’
Wedding Babylon Page 10