by Roxy Jacenko
Ye gods, if you could call a hundred-dollar candle a goodie bag, then a goodie bag it was, but wedding guests who were hoping for one of the signature Queen Bee bags – containing ModelCo tanning products, Benefit brow packs, L’Eau mineral water and a Trelise Cooper scarf – were going to be seriously disappointed, Then again, our goodie bags were so heavy, you needed a trolley to take them to your ride. These were not usually available at Quay.
We were just putting together the final preparations when we received the most disturbing proposition of all. Diane Wilderstein let it be known that she wanted to come to the wedding since she was the person who had given me my start in PR. Yeah right, I almost needed therapy after a spell in her office. The only thing she did for me was to make me determined not to work for a nutcase again; in fact, not to work for anyone else at all.
Even more outrageous, Wilderstein tried to leverage her way in by way of her great pal Lillian Richard, editor of Eve Pascal, who was one of the most important people in the fashion industry – but that was five years ago now. Lillian was invited to the wedding (anything to get on her good side, especially as we still wanted an Eve Pascal cover for Allison) and she let Lulu know that she would like to bring Diane Wilderstein as her plus one. Lulu had to tell her as delicately as possible there were no plus ones to this wedding.
The whole situation was getting out of hand, so I asked Pamela Stone to write something in her column about the number of high-profile identities desperate to come to my wedding, hinting broadly as to their names. I thought that would end it there, but I soon found out it was only the beginning as I was to find out on the very day of the wedding.
‘We should have got married on a remote island and then had a big party when we returned from the honeymoon,’ said Michael. ‘That would have been the civilised way to do it. These people are absolute fruitcakes.’
Me too, especially because I had let Shelley talk me into that hen’s party – an outdated concept if ever there was one – I don’t care how chic Jodi Gordon’s and Jennifer Hawkins’ were when they married their respective partners. Like those two glamazons, my party was taking place within the relatively safe confines of The Darling, the luxe hotel at The Star. Damn Shelley for being so persuasive.
‘I’ve booked us a bloody big suite at The Darling and it’ll just be very chilled,’ she promised. ‘Nothing tacky, we’re not even going to the restaurants at Star, but I’ve organised for a chef from Momofuku to prepare dinner for us in the kitchen.’
‘What kitchen?’ I asked, unable to keep up.
‘Oh, it comes with the suite – it’s more of a penthousey thing actually,’ she said. ‘And don’t worry, I have it all covered. It’s my gift to you as your fave bridesmaid – even if you wouldn’t let me wear that Chanel gown I wanted.’
Just as well; it didn’t come in her size, but I certainly wasn’t going to be the one to remind Shelley that she was only a size zero in her head – definitely not in her hips.
In the end, the hen’s party was anything but chilled and ended up with three of the Bees, led by Lulu, forcibly removed from The Star by security.
This is how it went down. A few of the Bees decided that it would be fun to have a little excursion from The Darling to The Star’s gambling floor because they had never had so much as a flutter before. (Some of my critics would say that it was a big enough risk for them to be working for me in the first place.) They were just making their way to the roulette wheel when they spotted a well-known married TV chef and a young female soapie star making out in a dark corner near a row of poker machines. The pair must have escaped from the first-night audience of Legally Blonde, which was opening next door at The Star’s theatre. Quick as a flash (no pun intended), Lulu snapped the couple on her Instagram with the aim of sending it straight to Luke Jefferson.
The Bees weren’t to know that there’s a no-photo policy at The Star, but no sooner had they got the shot than they were apprehended by security, who strong-armed them out of the casino and made them delete the photo. This was grossly unfair. Queen Bee employees have been taught never to adhere to the rules, because as everyone knows, the ones who follow the rules finish last. This was why Anya, who was behind Lulu, had swiftly fired off another shot when security was busy with Lulu and just before the couple finally woke up to what was going on (they had been so lip-locked they almost had to be surgically separated). Thanks to Anya, Luke absolutely owned the front page of The Sun the next day, and while Michael and his mates came away from his stag night with monumental hangovers, we had used my hen’s party for good. (I’m not entirely sure the loved-up couple would agree with that, but at least the soapie star lost her goodie two-shoes image and started to be offered much grittier roles.)
And thanks to Shelley’s indulgent pre-hen’s party shopping spree, I would be wearing the latest collection of La Perla lingerie beneath my wedding gown.
19
People get married every day at The Rocks beneath the shadow of the Harbour Bridge and right across from the Sydney Opera House – it’s a cheesy backdrop but it does the trick with the folks back home in downtown Tokyo or Shanghai. For me it was all about luxury – Michael and I were huge fans of the restaurant Quay, where it takes almost as long to get a table on a Saturday night as it does to get a Birkin bag outta Hermès. It’s like a temple of haute cuisine – so why not stage a semi-religious event there? It was my personal take on an Eat, Pray, Love moment, only back to front.
Sadly, I couldn’t book out Quay for an entire Saturday night – not unless Michael and I decided to postpone our nuptials until the year 2020. So we were getting hitched on a Sunday afternoon, with a lunch at Quay for our guests and the ceremony on the top floor, where ‘Churchy’ had outdone himself creating the wall of very expensive flowers. Altars are sooo last year, after all, and there’s something not quite right about using one when you have a wedding celebrant doing the honours.
I’d like to report that the scene inside the Park Hyatt where the bridal party was getting ready for the big moment was as zen as the lead-up to a typical Akira Isogawa show, which is all about poetry in motion and less is more. But it wasn’t. It was chaos.
Shelley started the day by cracking open a few bottles of rare Dom Pérignon rose for us to sip with breakfast.
‘Come on, Jazz,’ she cooed, ‘this will make everything so much more mellow, and we have to celebrate the fact that you’re leaving singledom once and for all.’
‘Um, hello, didn’t we do that at the hen’s party?’ I replied. ‘You remember, the night when Lulu and Anya were almost carried out of The Star. I think their photos have now been circulated to the casino’s security team with a big stripe across their faces showing they’re banned for life.’
‘That’s okay, some of the restaurants there are overrated,’ said Shelley, who had made a study of Sydney’s best eateries. She could give a paper on it at the next Gastronomic Convention and have the audience eating out of her hand.
In the end, besides Shell, the people who consumed most of the Dom were the hair and makeup team. Clovis and Annita were the best in the business, and they had a corner of the suite set aside just like the backstage area at Fashion Week. Lulu, who was also a bridesmaid, barely touched a glass because she knew that she needed to stay alert for even the most benign events involving Queen Bee; and Jackie, another school friend of Shell’s and mine who was in the bridal party as a matron of honour, didn’t drink because she was pregnant.
‘You really ought to let me do an updo for a change,’ Clovis said for the eighth time that morning. ‘You’ll look like more of a princess in that Vera Wang gown.’ He held out a row of blonde extensions that would certainly give me the bun from hell.
‘Nah, I want to look like me but with one of your signature blowdries.’
He eventually gave up on the idea but it was tough going for a while.
The good news was that although Chelsea and Cleo had held out for a few days for plane tickets to attend the wed
ding (which they had not been invited to – a small detail), when I was unable to accommodate their request they had found someone else to sponsor their trip anyway. They were both going to be the brand ambassadors for the OceanBlue XXX collection of swimwear for the bold and daring.
But for some reason they were still determined to attend the wedding.
‘We would never have met if it wasn’t for you,’ Chelsea declared over the phone from LA. Which was kinda true; but, then again, if they hadn’t got on so well in that lift they would both be suing me for a raft of charges, including reckless endangerment for letting them get stuck in there in the first place.
The upshot was that they were coming to the wedding whether we liked it or not but they would not be performing, so there would be no green room required and no massive rider.
Instead, David Anvill, my good buddy and co-host of Breakfast of Champions – as well as being a recording artist – was going to sing a couple of romantic songs. He was refusing payment. ‘It’ll be my wedding gift to you,’ he insisted. ‘It’ll be a privilege just to be there.’
So good all round. Unfortunately, what I hadn’t bargained for was that Chelsea and Cleo had checked into the Park Hyatt as well, so there was a paparazzi storm outside straining to get a shot of the loved-up couple walking through the foyer on their way to the wedding.
As the cherub of honour, Fifi was having her own moment: she didn’t want to wear her custom Allison Palmer frock for the ceremony. We had two outfits and both seemed to leave her underwhelmed, judging by the kicking and screaming that was going on as Anna was trying to dress her.
The problem with the hair and makeup team drinking champagne so early in the day was that they needed so many chasers afterwards in the form of strong cups of coffee. The bad news about coffee is that it can stain badly when spilt.
And so it was that seconds after I had finally got into my Vera Wang wedding gown, Nenne, one of the junior assistants, took a quick swig of her coffee then dropped the cup, which made a huge arc in the air, sending coffee flying.
‘Oh my fucking God!’ she shrieked, ‘I am so, so sorry!’
‘Nenne! Nenne! What have you done?’ Clovis shrieked even louder, at which Nenne burst into tears.
‘I didn’t mean to, it just slipped,’ she wailed.
For a moment the room went horribly still as I inspected my gown for coffee splatters. Everything seemed to go in slow motion as Shelley and my mum, who had both rushed over, scrutinised every ruffle – but thankfully it was spotless. The coffee had missed me by millimetres.
‘That’s okay, Nenne,’ I tried to reassure the young girl, who was now a quivering, sobbing wreck. ‘But for now, I want everyone to step away from their cups of coffee and any kind of food and drink at all besides Evian. Is that clear?’
‘Yes, Jasmine,’ they all replied in unison.
Was that near miss with the coffee a symbol for what was to unfold later that day? Either way, almost from that moment on, things became as deeply interesting as a ride on the Slide From Hell – the latest attraction at Wet’n’Wild.
When my bridesmaids and I finally made our way downstairs at the Park Hyatt and into the Rolls-Royce, there seemed to be paps everywhere, which was crazy because Chelsea and Cleo had already left for Quay and were waiting there with the other guests. But it seemed that since the great toxic message scandal I was a celebrity.
‘What the hell is your problem?’ said Shelley to the scrum of snappers, almost elbowing one in the face as she got into the car. She was outraged on my behalf because Fifi, who had been coaxed into her Adrienne & The Misses Bonney dress, was crying from all the fuss.
‘We’re just doing our job, luv,’ said one beret-wearing bloke I didn’t recognise. Yeah right.
It takes approximately one and a half minutes to drive from the Park Hyatt to Quay, but we had to spend around half an hour circling the block because we couldn’t even get close to the restaurant, there were so many paps outside snapping Chelsea and Cleo, who were loving every minute of it.
Churchill was standing outside the restaurant, watching helplessly. ‘This is an outrage,’ he squealed into his walkie-talkie. In the car with me, Lulu was holding the second two-way – she sure was a very hands-on bridesmaid. ‘If we don’t get things underway soon, the flowers will start melting in the heat. It’s about forty degrees here.’
Indeed, Churchy was already one hot perspiring mess and no amount of clean Hermès hankies were going to mop him down.
‘I’m going to call the police, they’re just around the corner. Maybe they’ll give you a police escort to your own wedding,’ he said hopefully.
Now that was something I hadn’t planned for but would love. A police escort! How wonderfully OTT would that be? Perfect for News at Nine. ‘See what you can do,’ I relayed to him. I could see him jumping up and down as we circled the block for the fourth time.
But it turned out that the police had other things on their to-do list that day. And, anyway, the problem was partially solved when the couple finally stopped pouting and preening and made their way inside with the rest of the guests.
At last the Rolls was able to nose its way in and let me out right in front of the red carpet, which led all the way to the upstairs terrace. At a signal from Churchill, a string quartet began the first notes of the bridal march. I looked at the room, which was lush enough to belong to a chateau perched in the south of France, and at the faces of the people I loved – it was perfect. And there was Michael looking impossibly handsome and proud as he waited for me in front of the wall of flowers (there mustn’t have been a single stem left at Grandiflora that day). Even Fifi seemed to understand how special the occasion was and looked as serene as a Miss Bonney-clad angel in Shell’s arms. Weddings, I thought to myself as a flutter of nerves suddenly took hold of me, were underrated – this was just heaven.
It was when the entire wedding party was assembled in front of the guests and we were halfway through our vows that it happened. Suddenly a man in a leather jacket and wearing mirrored shades walked into the upstairs room at Quay. At first I thought he was a rubbernecking tourist – although I noticed that he did look a bit nervous.
‘Are you Miss Jasmine Lewis?’ he asked, awkwardly walking down the aisle, squishing Churchill’s carefully created trail of rose petals with his heavy boots. Funny the things that go through your head at critical moments; instead of worrying about what the man was up to, I was just wondering how much the ruined carpet would add to the bill. What with Ella Von Scandale’s white silk carpet and now potentially this one – it had been a very bad year for ruined rugs at Queen Bee.
It was only when Fifi started to cry again and Michael inserted himself in the man’s path that I began worrying we could all be in danger.
‘This is a private event, mate,’ said my dad, quickly stepping in as well, as the room suddenly started to buzz with noise.
The man ignored both Michael and my dad and handed me a piece of paper tied with a pink ribbon. ‘You’ve now been served in a suit brought against you by Mr Ivan Shavalik,’ he announced. ‘I suggest you contact your solicitor.’
That tireless attention-seeker Cleo was first on her feet. ‘This is an outrage,’ she bellowed, while beside her, Chelsea, surprisingly demure in a silk Etro dress, remained seated but nodded vigorously.
‘Someone throw out this intruder, or I’ll do it myself,’ Cleo continued, turning around to give everyone a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view of her this-season’s electric blue ‘D&G’ corset dress, which the Italian duo had created with the idea of highlighting body art (okay, tramp stamps) just like Cleo’s to perfection.
The process server barely blinked at the outburst but marched back down the aisle, leaving greasy footprints among the squished rose petals. He disappeared as fast as he had arrived.
Churchill, who had been hovering in the wings, looked as though he was about to have a heart attack. The precious ‘aisle’ which he had created had been destroyed
. But what to do? Should he instruct his crew to surreptitiously roll it up while the guests’ attention was diverted elsewhere or should he just leave it where it was but scatter another layer of perfumed petals over the footprints? And just where were the spare rose petals anyway? They were supposed to be blown up into the air the moment Michael and I had signed the registry and were making our way to a secluded space on the upper deck for more photographs. (Light-reflecting screens had been set up to shield the bridal party from tourists but to allow for the backdrop of the Sydney Opera House. The hair and makeup team were currently setting up their stations with power packs to allow them to use all their equipment.)
Yes, Churchill was in the mother of all flaps because of the vile intrusion on the wedding, which he had already earmarked for a very special spot in his portfolio. It had to be picture perfect. Finally he made the decision to leave the carpet where it was and scatter the rest of the rose petals, while his assistant hurried off to find some more.
‘You have ten minutes max,’ he yelled, thrusting a hundred-dollar note in her hand. ‘And don’t get that awful deep red variety, because they will only look common,’ he cautioned.
The wedding celebrant, a man in his sixties with slicked-back longish silvery-blond hair, delicately cleared his throat to bring everyone back to the matter at hand, his face as pink as if it had been recently plunged into hot water. He was wearing a sombre dark suit but, in honour of the occasion, a light pink damask shirt with a red string bow tie. In other circumstances he might have held the attention of some of the guests, who would have idly speculated about his sexuality. But for now there was just too much going on.
‘This is most unusual,’ he remarked, sounding kind and looking concerned. It wasn’t quite as bad as the bride or groom being left at the altar, but it was definitely up there as a major dampener on the festivities. ‘Michael, Jasmine, are you ready to proceed?’ he asked. ‘If you are, I suggest you put any thoughts about what has just happened right out of your mind. They have no place here, because this is your day,’ he added, trying to sound upbeat.