Mother of the Bride

by Marita Conlon-McKenna

  ‘Those dresses are perfect.’ Amy watched as they paraded towards the mirror, seeing the impact the two dresses were making. ‘The whole thing works! You both look stunning.’

  ‘Beautiful,’ added Helen O’Connor.

  ‘I feel great in this dress.’ Jess beamed. ‘I love it.’

  ‘I told you I wasn’t wearing pink,’ said Ciara smugly.

  ‘Shut up!’ said Amy and Helen and Jess in unison. ‘We’re getting these dresses!’

  ‘I can’t believe we’ve finally found “the dresses”,’ Amy laughed as they left the shop. ‘I thought we’d have to go to the moon to get them!’

  Jess, to her surprise, had insisted on paying for her own bridesmaid dress, saying that she loved it so much that she would have gone and bought it anyway.

  ‘I’d love a toasted sandwich,’ said Ciara. ‘I’m starving after all that bloody trying on.’

  ‘Me, too,’ agreed Amy, conscious suddenly of her stomach rumbling.

  The four of them turned into Duke Street, and headed straight for Davy Byrnes pub. Amy was relieved that she could mentally cross another thing off her wedding list as they sat down and ordered soup and sandwiches. She’d swing by the Avoca Shop on her way home and buy a tart or cake for dessert, and some of Dan’s favourite chocolate brownies.

  ‘Mum, you will be the next one getting an outfit,’ joked Amy. ‘Are you going to wear a hat or not for the wedding?’

  Helen O’Connor threw her eyes up to heaven, hoping that finding a Mother of the Bride outfit would prove a little bit easier and a whole lot less stressful . . .

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Paddy O’Connor cooked up a load of sausages and potato bread for himself, lardering on the butter since Helen wasn’t around to admonish him . . .

  The women of the house were gone mad, and seemed to spend their whole time shopping for some sort of wedding thing or another. Helen had the place full of bridal magazines, and the notice board in the kitchen was full of clippings about flower arrangements and photographers and musicians. He was demented with it. Now here she was, gone off shopping again!

  Every time they went out Helen prattled on about the wedding as if she had lost her ability to talk about anything else. Money was being splashed around left, right and centre, and he had already had to go to Mick Dunne, his bank manager, to get him to agree to an overdraft just in case the wedding bills ate up all the money they had allotted. When they had started saving for the girls’ weddings they had never envisaged the cost being so enormous. Dan Quinn was a generous type of young man, and had offered to pay his fair share towards it, but Paddy knew that Amy and he were saving to buy a house. A home for the young couple was more important than a big day out, but he would accept the groom paying for a few things like the car and the church flowers and some other expenses, and maybe putting money towards the drinks bill.

  It only seemed like yesterday since Helen and he had got married with barely the arse in their trousers, as his father would say. They had both worked long and hard to build a home and a good life for their family, and he had no regrets. There had been no fancy cars or holidays or luxuries for years, but they had, with hard work, managed to move from a small three-bed semi-detached in Dundrum to a new house in a small estate in Blackrock long before the prices had gone through the roof and property madness had taken hold of the nation. Their three kids had gone to good local schools and done well going to college and getting good jobs. They weren’t out of the woods yet with young Ciara, but she was a good student and he knew that she would make them as proud as Amy and Ronan had.

  The past two years had been tough, with work harder to come by. Still, O’Connor’s were holding their heads above water when lots of businesses were closing down, and letting staff go. He had planned to retire in another few years, improve his golf game, and take off with Helen to see the world, going to the sun for a few weeks in the winter, but now he would likely have to keep working for longer than he’d planned to boost his pension.

  ‘Paddy, I’m home.’

  ‘She’s back,’ he said to Barney, who was sitting at his feet.

  ‘We got the dresses.’ Helen was all excited as she opened the bag and showed him the dress she had bought for Ciara. ‘Isn’t the colour lovely?’

  It was, but it had cost a small fortune. Still, he could see Helen was relieved that another piece of the wedding plan had finally fallen into place.

  ‘Do you fancy a cup of tea?’ he offered, sticking on the kettle.

  ‘That would be great.’ She smiled. ‘I’m jaded from walking around the shops, but at least it was all worth it. Paddy, everything is just coming together, and it’s going to be such a lovely day.’

  ‘Of course it will,’ he said, getting some more milk from the fridge. ‘Where are the girls?’

  ‘Amy and Dan are having friends in for dinner tonight, so she’s gone home to help organize things, and Ciara disappeared off to see some friend of hers. She said not to expect her home.’

  ‘Then what about the two of us get a bite to eat down in Flanagan’s later, save you cooking?’ he suggested. ‘Tom and Fran might join us.’

  ‘I’ll phone Fran and ask her,’ Helen said, picking up the phone and settling down in a chair for a chat with her best friend.

  Paddy sighed. Helen would give Fran a blow-by-blow account of the day’s shopping and then, when they went out, spend most of the night talking about it, too. Roll on the end of June when the wedding and all the wedding talk would be finished with.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Amy and Dan had been arguing half the night over the stupid guest list, Amy insisting that she wanted to invite about a dozen of her closest school friends to her wedding.

  ‘That means twenty-four people,’ said Dan ominously. ‘If we are having one hundred people between us you have used up almost a quarter of the quota on your school friends, some of whom you haven’t seen for years. You have to cut them back.’

  ‘They are the girls who shared the most important time in my life and were always there for me,’ she reasoned. ‘Not like your seven surf buddies, who will probably bring a partner each. You’ve only got to know them in the past three years, and only see them sporadically.’

  ‘They are my friends,’ he shouted. ‘I’m not keeping a clock on how long I’ve known them! You know they are the guys I hang out with!’

  ‘I started school with some of those girls!’

  ‘You want to have people from college and work, too!’ he kept on. ‘There’s Jilly. She didn’t invite you to her wedding! And Norah; you are always giving out about Norah.’

  ‘Everyone gives out about their boss, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t want them to be there on their big day.’

  ‘Well, I’m not inviting my boss or the partners from my firm.’

  ‘There are at least fifty partners in your firm,’ Amy retorted, getting annoyed with him.

  It was stupid, because they were both sociable and had lots of friends from different parts of their lives. It was just whittling them down to the final few that was causing the rifts.

  ‘Why have you put Laura on the list?’ Amy went on.

  ‘Laura and I have been friends since I was five years old.’

  ‘She’s an ex-girlfriend.’

  ‘We were only fourteen when we went out!’ Dan protested. ‘Don’t be so stupid, Amy! I thought you liked Laura?’

  ‘I do,’ she grudgingly admitted. Blonde, beautiful Laura O’Reilly was a next-door neighbour of the Quinns, and had been around, floating in and out of Dan’s life, for years. ‘But she’s an ex.’

  ‘Look, my parents will invite the O’Reillys, so I feel I should invite her, too,’ he explained logically.

  Amy sighed. She had a guest list file set up on her laptop, but no matter how many times she went over and over it with Dan they just couldn’t seem to reach an agreement on all the names. Apparently Carmel Quinn was in a fury about the numbers she’d been given, and
Amy’s mum and dad – with so many brothers and sisters – were finding it really hard to decide which of the cousins they should invite. The whole thing was a nightmare, and Amy just wished they could make some sort of decision. Dan felt that their friends who were in pretty permanent relationships should be allowed to bring their partners, but that others – who were just on and off dating or seeing someone – should come on their own. It would cause ructions, but it probably was the only solution.

  Dan was in a bad mood the next morning, and barely spoke to her when they were getting ready for work. She kept silent, too. They seemed to be constantly fighting about ‘the wedding’ or ‘the guest list’ or something stupid! Amy had never seen Dan in such bad form since they’d met and hoped his grumpy mood would blow over.

  Norah was out of the office for most of the day, so Amy managed to get a chance to run down through all the names again. She phoned Jess and Sarah to see what they thought about it.

  ‘I wouldn’t expect you to ask my boyfriend if I was just dating someone between now and the wedding,’ Jess declared. ‘And I’m sure most of the girls will understand.’

  ‘We invited a few friends with the people they were dating to our wedding,’ admitted Sarah. ‘We all knew they wouldn’t last, and they all broke up literally a few weeks later. Do you remember Fiona and Terry? They broke up two days after! It was such a waste of an invite, as there were lots of other people we would have loved to ask!’

  Realizing Dan was right, Amy took a few more names off their list. Also, seven of her school friends coming to the wedding was enough; apart from Faye, who lived in America now, they were the ones she saw the whole time. She managed to cull a few more people and emailed the changes to Dan immediately, before she could change her mind.

  ‘Good work,’ he emailed back. She reminded him they had an appointment that evening with a wedding film company in Leeson Street. She had searched the internet and they seemed to be one of the best. It cost a fortune to have a wedding filmed, but she wanted a memento to keep for the rest of their lives.

  Dan was bored as they sat watching bits of other couples’ wedding DVDs. Gerry Henderson explained how he worked and what equipment he used and where he set up his cameras.

  ‘We have two in the church, as it makes it easier to get everything on film.’

  ‘And more expensive,’ muttered Dan, studying the price list.

  ‘We are not shooting a movie where we can say “take one, take two”,’ explained Gerry. ‘So we have only the one chance to capture something on film, whether it is the two of you walking down the aisle, or greeting your friends, or putting rings on each other’s fingers.’ Amy could understand it, but Dan was still sceptical, given the costs involved.

  ‘We are very heavily booked already,’ pressed Gerry. ‘As your wedding is only three months away we would need to put it in our books now.’

  ‘Dan, we need to choose a photographer, too,’ Amy said, as they walked out, having failed to decide whether to use Gerry or not. ‘Most of them are open on a Saturday. There’s one in Dalkey and one in Sandycove, and Mum said the one who did Fran’s daughter Katie’s wedding was great and pretty reasonable. He’s up in Dundrum.’

  ‘I’m busy next Saturday,’ Dan said obstinately ‘I’ve got a tear in my wetsuit so I need to buy a new one. I’ll go out to Wind and Wave in Monkstown to try and get one there. Afterwards I’m meeting the lads in Gleeson’s for lunch and to watch the big Manchester United match.’

  Amy bit her tongue. He’d be gone for the whole day! She was about to explode at him, because he seemed to think that he was still single . . . OK, technically he was, but he should be equally involved in organizing the wedding.

  ‘Look, I’ll come to the marine shop with you,’ she said stubbornly, ‘then we can run out quickly to Dalkey and Sandycove to have a look at the photographers. I’ll call over to Mum’s on Saturday, too, and ask Fran if I can have a look at Katie’s wedding album while you’re watching the match, and hopefully then we can decide.’

  ‘Amy, why can’t you just choose a photographer and bloody book him!’ Dan said, totally uninterested. ‘I don’t give a rat’s ass!’

  ‘Well, I do,’ she said stubbornly, not wanting to let him off the hook.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Helen pulled her car up outside Bibi Kennedy’s large house. She’d known Bibi for years and was delighted when Bibi had offered to make Amy’s wedding cake.

  ‘Helen, you know me, I love making cakes for my friends,’ Bibi had insisted, when Helen and Paddy had been round in Bibi’s house having dinner a few nights after the engagement.

  ‘Are you sure she doesn’t mind making my cake?’ asked Amy as they stood at the door of the big red-brick house in Donnybrook.

  ‘No,’ smiled Helen, ‘she says consider it a wedding gift.’

  ‘Amy, it’s lovely to see you,’ Bibi said, as she came out and welcomed them. ‘Come in and tell me all about your wedding.’ She smiled, leading them through the long hall to her huge sunny kitchen overlooking an amazing garden. ‘I love weddings and hearing all about them.’

  Helen smiled back. Some women played golf, some women played tennis or spent their time trawling around the shops or sweating it out in the gym, but Bibi’s passion was for cake-making and icing! Helen had never met anyone who enjoyed their hobby as much as Bibi did. She was constantly trying out new recipes, challenging herself with different designs and coming up with fresh ideas and concepts for cakes. There was no one like her for making a special cake, a one-off original. To have a Bibi Kennedy cake for your wedding was like having a one-off designer dress!

  Bibi had three fruit cakes baking in the oven of her large Aga, and the smell and the warmth of her kitchen reminded Helen of Christmas, when her mother used to turn out cakes and pies and puddings.

  ‘Honestly, I don’t know how you get the time to bake,’ sighed Helen, enviously. She avoided it like the plague, and only made cakes for birthdays. Bibi was one of the busiest people she knew: always fund-raising for charities and entertaining in her huge house as well as looking after her kids and a load of grandchildren – and she made it all seem easy.

  ‘Ask a busy person.’ Bibi smiled. ‘We tend to get things done.’

  Helen agreed with her on that. She herself was rushed off her feet at the moment, between going back and forwards to her mother’s and helping Amy with the wedding.

  ‘What date are you getting married on, Amy?’ Bibi asked.

  ‘Saturday the sixth of June, and the wedding is down in Castle Gregory.’

  ‘Lovely!’ Bibi smiled again. ‘Sean and I were at a wedding there about two years ago, and it was wonderful. Have you looked at any cakes, or got any ideas about what you’d like?’

  ‘I looked in one or two shops: Les Gâteaux and the cake shop in Rathgar, to see the kind of thing that they do.’

  ‘Did you see a design you like?’ quizzed Bibi as she made a big pot of tea and they all sat down at the large kitchen table. ‘Are you going to go for a very traditional cake, or do you want something a bit different?’

  ‘I suppose traditional,’ said Amy. ‘But really, I’m not sure what I want.’

  ‘Well, first off, you have to decide what cake base you want,’ Bibi explained. ‘For the cake itself, do you want a traditional fruit cake like those ones in the oven, or a chocolate biscuit cake, or a Madeira-type sponge? Also you have to consider if the cake is just for the wedding or if you intend to hold on to a small tier of it for a christening cake, which some couples like to do. The fruit is best for that.’

  ‘We haven’t thought that far!’ Amy giggled. Dan and she had talked about kids and both were looking forward to having a family, but as to saving a layer of cake for the christening – that was a just a step too far!

  ‘Bibi, what do people usually go for?’ Helen asked, curious.

  ‘The fruit cake is obviously the most traditional, but I find a lot of brides are going for the chocolate biscuit cake now,
as their friends all love chocolate and it’s almost like a dessert. Sometimes I mix them, depending on how many layers there are.’

  ‘So we could have a tier of each?’

  ‘Yes, if you want to.’ Bibi laughed.

  ‘The chocolate biscuit sounds yummy.’

  ‘Do you want to try a bit?’

  In a few minutes fingers of fruit cake, chocolate biscuit cake and sponge all appeared on a pretty floral plate.

  ‘Go on, try them!’ urged Bibi, as she poured the tea.

  Helen loved the fruit cake, but she knew the chocolate would be Amy’s favourite, as she was a total chocaholic.

  ‘Oh my God! We have to get this one, Mum.’

  ‘I thought you’d like it!’ Bibi said, passing Amy another slice. ‘Now, let me get my album and show you photos of some of the cakes that I’ve made.’

  Helen was astounded. She’d seen some of the magnificent creations Bibi had produced for friends’ weddings and anniversaries, but really had no idea of the impressive range of cakes her friend had created.

  ‘I also do a variety of icings,’ explained Bibi, as they looked at the album. ‘There is the traditional white icing with marzipan, or a rich butter-cream or a kind of American frosting.’

  The decorative icing work was intricate and time-consuming, and Bibi showed them sixty iced roses that she was making for a cake, with each individual petal piped and left to dry before the tiny rose was constructed and put in place.

  ‘So much work goes into it!’ said Helen, studying the photos, astounded by the delicacy of Bibi’s work, and the patience needed to decorate the cakes.

  Amy liked the pale-pink icing covered in roses, and another cake with a design of butterflies on every tier. There was also a stunning five-tier creation with a creamy-coloured icing made to look like old lace.

  Helen loved the simple white cake with white iced flowers tumbling down the side of it.