Wedding Babylon

by Imogen Edwards-Jones

  Alice wakes me at nine a.m. with a cup of very milky tea. It is not how I take it, but who is complaining? I am a little embarrassed to have slept so late, but she doesn’t appear to mind.

  ‘The marquee looks amazing,’ she beams, sitting on the edge of my bed. ‘Steve’s done a great job. The lining looks fantastic. This is all so exciting!’ She squeezes my leg through the duvet.

  I pull the covers a little higher to cover my bare chest. ‘That’s great news,’ I say, thinking that Steve must have pulled off the mother of all cleaning jobs. Either that or none of them have inspected the lining too carefully.

  ‘Also Daisy’s just called. Apparently she can’t make it after all!’ Alice beams and gives my leg another squeeze.

  ‘Great news,’ I say again. ‘The florist should be turning up any minute,’ I add, shifting uncomfortably in my bed. I have no underwear on and I haven’t even washed my face or brushed my teeth. This is all a little intimate for my liking.

  ‘Alice!’ comes Richard’s booming voice.

  ‘Up here!’ she yells. Oh Jesus no, I wince. This can’t be happening. I can hear Richard’s steps bounding up the stairs, followed by someone else.

  ‘There you are,’ he huffs as he reaches the top of the stairs. ‘Morning,’ he nods at me. ‘I have been looking for you all over. You need to talk to your mother. She keeps making noises about us cutting the cake on the terrace, and both of us know that we are doing it in the marquee before the first dance, right? Oh, have you met the best man, Andrew?’ he suddenly asks me. A slim neat blond bloke walks towards the bed. His hair is brushed over with a side parting; his handshake is soft and he looks straight at my chest.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ I say. ‘At the pub. Our first meeting.’

  ‘Sorry to catch you in flagrante,’ he smiles.

  ‘I was up till four sorting out the marquee,’ I say defensively, as I try and pull more duvet towards me.

  ‘I am sure you were. It looks wonderful,’ he says, still staring. ‘We were all just saying.’

  ‘Good, I’m glad,’ I say, sounding anything but.

  ‘I can’t believe they actually managed to hit the only bit of drain in the area, though,’ laughs Richard.

  ‘There was a reason for that,’ I retort.

  ‘Yeah, well anyway, Alice, can you have a word with your mother? She is only throwing her weight around because your father is coming over this morning with his latest squeeze and she wants to make sure there is nothing for him to do.’

  ‘And your lot are such happy families,’ snipes Alice.

  ‘Temper, temper, you two,’ says Andrew, putting a hand on Richard’s shoulder. ‘You’re getting married in the morning.’

  My mobile goes and all three of them look at me, somewhat surprised.

  ‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘This is a business call.’

  ‘Let’s leave the boy alone,’ Alice declares, springing off the bed and ushering the two men out of my room. ‘Give the man some space. See you in a minute,’ she adds, turning to me and giving me one of her sweet smiles.

  Never have I been so delighted to receive a call in my life. The fact that it is from the blubbering bride is immaterial. I pick up with great enthusiasm.

  ‘Good morning, Kathryn. How are you?’

  ‘Is it?’ she replies.

  ‘For some people,’ I try and joke.

  ‘Do you mind if I talk to you about something?’

  ‘No, no – go ahead.’ I lie back in bed, stretch and take a sip of Alice’s lukewarm milky tea.

  Kathryn then launches into a ten-minute diatribe about how her fiancé is possibly having an affair. She has been through his emails, even the deleted ones because she knows how to get into his server, and she thinks that he might be shagging some girl called Claire who he works with. She has no concrete evidence for this other than that the emails are a little bit flirty, and that if they work together, why would they bother to email when they could easily go and have a chat? About halfway through the conversation the tears somewhat inevitably start to flow. And I am afraid this time I am unmoved.

  Actually, I am moved, I am bloody furious. The woman is an attention-seeking crackpot and now she has me down as her speed-dial shrink. I listen for as short a time as is polite and then make my excuses: I am at another wedding and I have the florist arriving any minute.

  Finally she lets me go and I immediately call Bernard. Would he mind if I fired a client? He is a little unsympathetic at first, but after I explain my week and the total lack of decisions that I have been able to make, we both conclude that it makes bad business sense to carry on working with her. Her cost per minute is far too high. It makes me hanker after Heather, the Wolesley bride. She might have to pop her BlackBerry on the altar, just in case she gets an important email, or demand that the church gets wired for wi-fi, but at least she’s straightforward and not annoyingly high maintenance. I sit up in bed and compose a very diplomatic email explaining that I can’t spend the first hour of each meeting discussing her personal life, especially as the meetings only last an hour. So it is with ‘great regret’ that we have to cancel the contract, as we don’t appear to have made any decisions at the last three meetings.

  By the time I have doused myself briefly under the pressureless shower that dribbles tepid water, she has replied, ‘You are just like all the others.’ Which I have to say I am very happy to accept, just so long as she never calls me again.

  Suited, booted and showered, I come downstairs to be slapped full in the face by chaos. The kitchen is heaving with people, leaning against every chair, table and unit, drinking coffee and shouting. Alice introduces me to everyone. Her father, Alistair, is a tanned, not-so-toned sixtysomething with wandering eyes and a lascivious smile. His hair is swept back and his shirt is undone to his man-boobs – he looks like he’s just stepped out of a nightclub. Trish, his current squeeze cum secretary, is all tits, teeth and tan. Her T-shirt is low-cut, her skirt skims her buttocks and she is cock-struck by Alistair. She laughs at his every move and gesture and clings on to his forearm like it’s a life raft. Next to surly Grace is Katie, Richard’s younger sister, who looks a lot older than him and hasn’t lost her baby weight despite the fact that her daughter is twelve years old. There is no mention of the father, so I am presuming he ran for the hills at the earliest opportunity. They all say they are here to help set up, but they clearly all need a good sit-down before they start.

  I walk out of the back of the house, down the stone steps and into the marquee. Some of Steve’s guys are still hard at work, playing around with the lights and the wooden dance-floor. Towards the back of the tent, the ground is still a little soft, but it’s nothing that twenty-four hours of drying out won’t cure. There’s a tunnel for the toilets, which have yet to arrive, and a couple of smaller marquees where Nigel and his gang will set up the industrial fan cookers.

  ‘Excuse me,’ asks a young freckle-faced chap, waving a cable and a plug at me. ‘Where are we taking the power from?’

  ‘Some is coming from the house and the other lot is coming from the barn.’ I nod towards the old stable block in the corner of the wildflower field.

  ‘OK,’ he says. ‘Just so long as everyone knows which one is which. You can’t run the fan cookers off the barn. It won’t cope.’

  I am distracted by the arrival of the florist, a pretty and efficient girl called Alex. We were forced to use her once by some historical venue because she was on their recommended list, and Bernard was so impressed that he put her on our own.

  ‘Hi there,’ she says as she lugs a huge plastic bucket packed full of pale lilac stocks towards the marquee. ‘That’s my assistant, Trudi.’

  ‘Hello,’ says a lanky twentysomething blonde following on behind with an equally heavy-looking load.

  ‘Do you need any help?’ I ask.

  ‘There are plenty more buckets of hydrangeas and delphiniums in the van,’ Alex says, nodding over her shoulder.

  The van is much larger than I
expected and the smell of flowers is overpowering. There’s bucket after bucket of lilac, pink and purple blooms. Some I recognize, like the sweet peas at the front, others I have no idea about.

  ‘Oh God,’ comes Louise’s voice over my shoulder. ‘I knew I should have insisted on coming to the meeting.’ I turn around to see her standing behind me, sporting a pair of yellow Marigolds, her fists punched firmly into her waist. ‘I can’t abide the country look. I’d much rather the whole thing was done with white roses – so much more sophisticated.’

  ‘Carol chose those,’ I say. ‘Richard’s mother.’

  ‘I am perfectly aware who Carol is,’ spits Louise. ‘I have met the woman once and that was enough. However, I do find it irritating that her suburban taste has been transported to the Sussex countryside.’

  ‘Well, she did pay for them.’

  ‘And don’t I know it? And don’t I know how much? And do I get my arch of flowers that I wanted round the entrance to the marquee? No. It was going to add another £7,000 to the bill and Carol didn’t want to pay. So my daughter doesn’t get what I want! Quite why Richard didn’t pay for the flowers like he is supposed to, I don’t know. Too busy trying to please all the people all the time. I don’t think I have ever met such a spineless man.’ She exhales in disgust and takes herself back off to the kitchen.

  I have to say, these days it is more usual for the mother of the bride or the bride to choose the flowers, although traditionally it is the role of the groom and/or his mother. But most brides know what they want, or if they don’t, they bring something that has ‘the look’ of the wedding, like the invitation or a picture of the wedding venue, to give the florist some pointers. However, a florist mate of mine had two photos of sofas and a Munch painting brought to a meeting once by way of inspiration. He did manage to conjure up something which seemed to please the bride. But such maverick requests are unusual as most brides go for the wedding staples – roses, orchids, hydrangeas, stocks and lily of the valley. Of these, lily of the valley is usually the most expensive as it is only in season in winter, and in order to have it at any other time it has to be forced or retarded in greenhouses in Holland.

  Flower fashions are dictated as much by clothing fashion as they are by big celebrity weddings, and they swing from the super floral to the minimal depending on the current trends. The hedgerow look that demanded copious amounts of greenery is not quite so fashionable as it was. And there is supposed to be a move to all things seasonal and organic and indeed British. Much like our food, local flowers, grown by local people for locally sourced brides, are very much in vogue. Which is all well and good when you are popping down the aisle in May or June; however, later in the year when the first frosts have done their damage, there is bugger all for a bride to choose from apart from some tired old roses and a couple of carnations.

  For very chic, very expensive weddings, the flowers are ordered and grown specifically in advance. The bride puts her order in six months ahead and the supplier, usually in Holland or the UK, sets a whole load of bulbs or plants aside. Last year we had a bride who wanted hyacinths in the middle of July, which is quite some ask for a spring-flowering plant. Anyway, the supplier held them back and when they arrived they were incredible. White flowering hyacinths in the middle of July. We had an arbour built especially for the photographs and in the ground we planted our sixty flowering hyacinths. It looked stunning. Like spring had just come to a small part of the garden. However, on the day, everyone forgot about the arbour, the photographs were taken elsewhere and no one even visited the woodland glade. It was £6,000 and six months’ work totally down the drain.

  ‘These are all in great condition,’ I say, lifting up a bucket of pink roses.

  ‘Well, Alex and I have been prepping them for twenty-four hours,’ says Trudi. ‘Taking the leaves off, giving them a good long drink so they don’t collapse halfway through the service.’

  ‘Giving them food,’ I smile, joining in.

  ‘Plant food?’ She takes a step back from me like I have said the most offensive thing in the world. ‘You only feed a plant if it needs it! Otherwise we leave that stuff well alone.’

  ‘I have just spotted a huge stain in the marquee,’ Alex declares, as she leans into the van to grab another bucket. ‘So one of the plinth displays should move a bit to cover it.’

  ‘Really?’ I say. ‘I couldn’t see anything yesterday.’

  ‘It is only when the sun shines on it,’ she says. ‘Looks like vomit to me.’

  ‘That would figure.’

  ‘Luckily I brought some extra flowers.’

  A clever florist will always bring a few extra buckets of blooms along just in case. Not that they ever get thanked for it. On the day most brides ask for extra flowers, extra vases and extra displays, and they somehow never expect to see them on the bill. Most florists get the happy couple to part with 60 per cent of the cost when the budget is agreed, and then the balance a week before the wedding, otherwise they can suddenly find themselves chasing the couple while they are on honeymoon or calling for months afterwards. It is much better to get everything paid for before everyone forgets.

  And of course flowers are so expensive. The average national spend for a wedding bouquet is just under £500, and it is hard to get one for less than £150, which still seems a lot to spend on a bunch of white roses. Talk to florists and they explain that their wedding mark-up – which is anything from five times the cost of the flowers to simply adding zero on to the end – is because of the time and effort that goes into preparing for a wedding. Quite apart from the three or four meetings that they have with the bride, it will take an experienced florist the best part of two hours to make a wedding bouquet. And they can only be made on the morning of the wedding. So if the wedding is at ten a.m. then the florist can be up at three making the bouquet. Also, for a simple dome of twenty white roses, twice the number of roses will be ordered, only for half of them to be rejected in order to create the perfect bunch. With so many rejects and so much time and planning required, it is easy to see how some of the really big florists, like Rob Van Helden and John Carter, end up regularly charging over £100,000 for a big wedding. You can obviously do a wedding for much less, but as soon as you start having guests sitting down to lunch or dinner and you want displays in the middle of the table, the costs start mounting up. You have 150 guests, which is fifteen tables at £40 a table, and that is before you have paid for the staff to deliver the flowers, and the people to take them away late at night. Or for a more formal wedding you may have a vase of twenty orchids on each table at £12 a stem, which comes to £240 a table, for maybe twenty tables, so you can see why any bride or groom would be only too happy to farm out the cost.

  Alex’s budget for Alice and Richard’s wedding is £30,000 and that includes the marquee, the pews and the church, as well as the buttonholes and bouquets for the bridesmaids and the bride. It is hard to believe that the contents of this Ford Transit van are so valuable.

  ‘I have a whole lot of vases at the front that you could carry out for me,’ adds Alex. ‘Is there anyone else who might lend a hand?’

  I venture back into the kitchen and tentatively ask if anyone might want to help the florist girls out. Grace looks at me as if I have just asked her to dig a trench with her fingernails, and Alice is equally dumbstruck. Louise quickly intervenes on her behalf, saying that as the bride her job is simply to look beautiful and hard work is not on the menu. The only person to ditch their coffee is Alice’s father, Alistair. I have a feeling it was the use of the word ‘girls’ that swung it.

  ‘Good morning, ladies!’ He announces his arrival with a loud smoker’s cough and an enthusiastic rub of his hands. ‘How exactly can I be of service to you?’

  I follow Alistair, who follows Trudi with his eyes firmly trained on her buttocks; we go back and forth from the van to the marquee. It takes us about half an hour to carry all the buckets over and no sooner is the job complete than Alistair plonks himself
down at one of the circular dining tables and sparks up a cigarette.

  ‘So, girls,’ he puffs, running his hand though his slicked-back hair. ‘How long have you two been in the business?’

  The girls respond politely to his questioning and advances. It is the pretty Alex rather than the younger Trudi who has caught his eye.

  ‘So, Alex,’ he asks, stubbing out his cigarette in the matting and placing himself indecently close to her. ‘Will we have the delight of your company tomorrow?’

  ‘Um,’ she says, suddenly feeling the need to walk around the other side of her display oasis. ‘Well, I shall come and deliver the bouquet, buttons and bridesmaids’ flowers in the morning, and check on the flowers in here and the church. But I won’t be coming to the wedding.’

  ‘Oh?’ he replies, following her around the plinth. ‘I was rather hoping we could have a little boogie.’ He raises his hands and swings his hips from side to side by way of a suggestion.

  ‘Alice and Richard did invite me,’ she says, moving further round and stabbing a pale-lilac stock into the wet oasis. ‘But I tend not to go to weddings that I have done flowers for. I am staff. I don’t know any of the guests. What am I going to talk to people about? Even I can’t talk about flowers all evening.’

  ‘I bet you can,’ says Alistair, smiling and curling up his short nose in a bizarre attempt to look cute. ‘I bet you can talk about flowers all night.’

  ‘Coo-ee! Darling!’ Trisha waves from across the lawn. ‘You’re needed! Alice wants to go through the order of service with you!’

  ‘Coming, cupcake!’ he shouts back with a little wave. ‘I’ll see you ladies in a minute.’ He grins before sloping back up to the house.

  ‘Christ,’ mutters Alex as he goes. ‘He’s a bit of a one.’