Monday 28 January 2008

Feathers And Antlers - by Kate

Hen dos. Stag parties.
Let us consider the edifying spectacle of a single-sex group (or is that a group sex of singles...?) in matching togas or tiaras, shrieking in super-stretch limos and swaggering (then staggering) from bar to bar, hellbent on humiliation and inebriation. When watching examples of the singleton's last hoorah, my reaction is usually a mixture of indulgent amusement and horror. Accompanied by wincing.
Despite the numerous wedding invites on my CV, I've only been to a few hen-dos. And actually, they were all varying degrees of fun. Mainly because none of them involved wearing L-plates, male strippers, indeterminate pub-crawls or the introduction of random items into bodily orifices.
In most cases, a (reasonably) civilised meal was a main focal point. At a couple, we went to health spas for some girly pampering; at another, we rented a stone cottage and did some walking; at another, we had an all-day, all-night house party. What they all had in common were lots of women out for a good time and fizzy wine. Which can be a lethal combination, admittedly.
So when thinking about my own hen do, I was determined it would be simple, cheap, fun and largely hygienic. So my Matron of Dishonour (Hen) was asked to look for a self-catering place with stroll options during the day (to a local coffee-shop, perhaps, and/or a beach), for communally-cooked meals and a chance to party in private. Cheapness and a south west location were also preferred.
Amazingly, she found a place in North Devon that ticked all the boxes and could sleep up to 18 for around seven pounds per hen per night. That's some roost.
The one thing worrying me is that my MoD (Hen) - I also have an MoD (Clothing) and a Matron of Honour (Bridesmaid Whipper-In) - despite being a much loved friend, is also the woman who shaved a perfect stripe down the chest of one of our male friends who'd unwisely passed out at a party while she was there. Let's just say it adds a certain frisson to the proceedings. Blue hair dye, or even worse, mousy brown hair dye have been casually mentioned in my hearing. I'm telling myself it'll be fine. It'll all be fine.
In fact, it's Theo I'm more worried about. His alcohol tolerance is alarmingly low. He is also somewhat hirsute and I fear for his eyebrows/hair/beard/chest-hair. I have asked his best men (one of whom is a woman and therefore probably more dangerous) to be gentle with him and to please return him undamaged. I just suspect their interpretation of "undamaged" may be different to mine. Oh well. By having the stag and hen dos so early, we've at least allowed two months for things to grow back again. Most things, anyway.

Saturday 26 January 2008

Suit you sir....

Today I am going to buy a suit. The wedding suit.

My parents have generously given me some money towards it (my Dad calmly took out his wallet and peeled out some fifties.... hmmm something tells me they'd planned this) and Kate's friend Pete is kindly coming with me to help me choose. Apparently he has an eye for this sort of thing, which is just as well as I haven't got a clue. I hate shopping for clothes. I dislike spending money on something I perceive as purely functional and find clothes shops intimidating and off putting places, either full of drab, dull, uninspiring clothes or filled with loud, pumping music and hideously fashionable attendants. In either case they never have anything you want, and thus I always end up leaving with a pair of jeans that vaguely fit but aren't quite comfortable and are bound to tear at a seam within 3 months, but after putting myself through the horror of
shopping I'm damned well going to leave with something. As a result I love Christmas, as it gives people with far better taste than me (i.e. my sister, my girlfriend, my ex-girlfriend even) an opportunity to give me clothes that will allow me to be seen in public with them. I am currently wearing a shirt from my mother, a jumper from my sister, underwear from Kate, and some trousers I bought from a charity shop 10 years ago.

Still the plan is to buy a suit that looks great for the BIG DAY but will be fully suitable for formal occasions in years to come. Which is just as well as I tore the knee of my Dinner Suit (purchased by my mother 9 years ago) doing a commando roll in the middle of the road after Jenny's wedding, so I do need another. I just hope Pete knows what he's doing as I am clueless - the last suit I bought was from the school second-hand uniform store and it was about 3 sizes too big and only stayed up after I cut another hole in my belt.

Still, the signs are good. Pete and I have arranged to meet in the York Cafe for a fry-up and finish up with a boozy lunch on Park Street, so he is clearly the man with the plan. I may just survive this. I've raided Kate's airplane-Valium supply just in case things get really dark....

Tuesday 22 January 2008

And in other news....

Kate and I went to meet with the lovely Susan Osman today. That's right - her off the tele! Susan and Kate know each other from Susan's time as presenter at BBC Radio Bristol/Points West when Kate, as Union Rep, was fighting her corner in various negotiations. These days Susan, as well as still presenting occasionally on BBC News 24, is an ordained interfaith minister and will be performing the spiritual (as opposed to legal) part of the wedding ceremony.

It was a really great meeting actually. I'm naturally sceptical but Susan was very down to earth, open to our input and ideas, and basically saw eye-to-eye with us on most things. We'd already written the vows and decided on songs/readings that we wanted in the ceremony; Susan helped us put it all into shape and, perhaps, more importantly help me realise that this part of getting married is all about us, for want of a better phrasing, showing off. We don't need to do it - we'll be legally married by the time we get to the spiritual ceremony at Manor Hall - but we want to, because we want to do something memorable and emotional to demonstrate our commitment to each other. We only get to do this once after all.

So Kate and I have to now come up with something that is symbolic for us to incorporate into the ceremony. Well we don't have to, but we want to. Susan suggested lighting a candle but I'm not so sure. Apologies to those who have done so in their ceremonies, but it seems a little bland to me. We need to come up with something that has meaning for us. We're both into Radio, so perhaps we could exchange radio mics, or podcast the ceremony so people could listen again? Suggestions welcome!

Tuesday 15 January 2008

THAT Dress

Pressing your nose against the window of Pronuptia isn't really a good idea. First of all, it's cold and possibly insanitary. Secondly, the sight of some of those tulle and rhinestone confections carries the risk of instant diabetes. And thirdly, the numbers on the price-tags can make your eyes water. In fact, the prices are probably considered Very Good Value by those who've taken out a second mortgage to fund their fairytale. To those of us intending to go travelling on our (meagre) savings after the wedding...well, anything in three figures feels dizzyingly extravagant. I'd made myself promise I wouldn't spend more than 99 pounds maximum and I was determined to stick to it.

So what are the other options?

Second-hand. I've got no problem with that, seeing as my favourite local boutique is called Save The Children. But charity shops don't tend to have much in the way of bridal wear. There's a (possibly mythical) speciality Oxfam, but generally it seems the stores send most donated wedding dresses off to places where they can make more money for the cause. Or they just don't tend to get many because the frocks are either kept in a box until death or divorce, or sold for hard cash. Which usually means at least three figures.

It's certainly not uncommon for a bride to spend a grand or more on her gown. I mean, how often in this age of jeans and hoody do we get the chance to dress like a princess for a day? So when you've got the chance to live out all your girlhood fantasies at once, you should definitely go for it. And how. Take Jordan, for example. Actually, best not.

Yep, dressing to excess is considered the Done Thing when it comes to getting married. And once you start racking up the acreage of satin and chiffon, the inches of embroidery become feet and a profusion of sparkly bits alights like fallen snow, well it tends to hit you hard in the purse department.

Then, just I was starting to despair at finding something with a bit of wow at prices more Primark than Pronuptia, my fair godmother appeared. At the arrivals gate at Bristol Airport. And not so much a fairy godmother as my own mother.

Stopping only for a restorative glass of red wine, she all but marched me to the shops and before you could say “Peter Andre” I was camping it up in a succession of show-stopping numbers, feeling like a queen. And gawbless'er, when we found The One I was granted an early wedding present and Mum's credit card took the hit. AND The One was half-price in the sale.

So what's it like? As far as my beau's concerned, it has a one hundred and twenty eyelet laced corset (to offer some challenge on the wedding night), is similar to a marquee, needs four grown men to lift it and has wheels on the train. That's a real train. It's going to be fantastic. We're just going to need a wider aisle, that's all.

Monday 7 January 2008

If your name's not down...


I am making spreadsheet listing potential wedding guests. The guest list in fact. I have been spending quite some time on it actually – researching surnames and names of children, colour coding it into my friends, Kate’s friends and mutual friends. I’ve been putting in form fields indicating whether an invitation has been sent out, whether there’s a plus 1 to account for and if they’ve RSVP'd.
There’s a word to describe this. No, it’s not anal. No, as befits a former Bristol Uni Arts student, “Procrastination” is what I’m perfecting. You see with the date set and the venue booked it’s all getting a bit political. What I’m doing is basically trying to put off, for as long as possible, that horrible moment where we are going to have to choose which of our friends and relatives we invite to the wedding and who we don’t. Among my married and soon to be wed friends this is the moment that is commonly cited as being the hardest bit about organising a wedding. I can completely understand why. Manor Hall – our reception venue – holds 150 in its dining hall. A pretty decent size and actually room enough to hold all the friends we’d like to invite. So, potentially there’s no problem. The thing is, of course, that our friends have partners and children. This is where it all gets a bit tricky. Our friends’ partners are doubtlessly wonderful people, candidates for Nobel Peace Prizes the lot of them, while their children are clearly going to be perfect angels beaming back at us from the wedding photos in years to come. But many of them we’ve never met, and those we have we barely know, and so it won’t ruin the day for us if they can’t be there. Hence the dilemma: which of our friends gets a plus 1 (or in the case of some families, a plus 4)? Who gets crossed off the list to accommodate somebody known only to us as the second name on a Christmas card? It is, frankly, heart-rending – having to rank your friends, scoring them on criteria like how well we know then; how long we’ve known them for; how often we see them; how much fun they are at a party and (often crucially) whether they invited us to their wedding or not. Horrible compromises are made, along the lines of “they live locally – they can get a babysitter and leave the kids at home” or “they’ll know lots of people there, so they won’t mind coming by themselves”. We both secretly worry that the other is managing to sneak a greater proportion of their friends on the invitation list and we’re both secretly feeling a tad guilty about it. Then there are problems like the ex-couple who no longer speak to each other – do we invite him or her or both and just let them sort it out between them? And this is before we’ve even got on to the family politics….
Bloody hell.
At least we’re having a buffet so we don’t have to worry about doing a table plan. Or so we thought…

Thursday 3 January 2008

His & Hers

HERS

Getting engaged...what I have learned so far:

-There is a strict order in the conversation following the announcement:
1. Congratulations! Have you set a date?
2. Can I see the ring?
3. Where's the wedding?
And sometimes...
4. Are you pregnant?

-People are nicer to you.
-Parents are proud.
-Parents are relieved.
-A slight smugness is unavoidable.

Getting married...what I have learned so far:

-Almost everyone loves a wedding and wants an invite, including people you can't remember actually having met in the first place.

-Designated tracks are laid down for the wedding train; once you get on, it's impossible to get off (without pulling the emergency chord and the fine is usually a lot more than £50).

-The wedding industry is a money-gobbling, cost-multiplying, taste-destroying, guilt-inducing, many-tentacled monster and should ideally be avoided.

-It is fatally easy to cause offence, even before you've sent out the invitations.

-A groom who helps make the arrangements is a rare and beautiful thing.

Having been a guest at up to thirty weddings so far (most marriages still intact) and waitressed and sung at countless more, I went into this happy enterprise feeling reasonably confident I could spot and avoid the pitfalls and sashay towards the Big Day with little more than a light heart and a sparkle on my left hand. My betrothed is already scoring top marks when it comes to thinking up ideas, suggesting practical ways forward, solving problems and generally pulling his weight on the wedding-planning front. What I hadn't quite bargained for was the sheer quantity of advice from all directions, the unexpected and diverse ways our efforts to save money (but invite as many people as possible) could be scuppered and how tricky it can be to navigate around the W whirlpool.

Anyway, we've managed to borrow a venue for free, so that's a good start. We've designed our own invitations on the computer and they have mostly gone out with the Christmas cards. Unexpectedly, the frock and attendant accessories are already sorted (thanks to a generous mother and girlfriend), the vows are composed and the post-nuptials suite is booked at a local hotel (online, saved 10%, didn't mention it was for newly-weds).

Next missions: procuring beautiful and meaningful (but inexpensive) rings and getting the groom to get a haircut. The second of these will definitely be the toughest to achieve.

HIS

It helps me to maintain a grasp on the enormity of what Kate and I are undertaking by conceptualising our route to wedding glory in Sports Journalese. Hence, our score so far:

Days engaged: 84
Days to W-Day: 86
Screaming rows: Nil
Admonishments: 2 (me) 0 (Kate)
Teary moments: 0 (me) 2 (Kate)
Parental guilt trips: 2

Nothing separating the team at the moment them. I’m sincerely hoping for the aggregate to favour teary moments over admonishments come March, but it’s too early to predict right now. Unsurprisingly enough the admonishments have been earned by those classic wedding traps: male indifference and male unwillingness to spend money. Though seeing as it’s mainly her money in the first place why I should care if she wants to throw it away on a classy hotel room on the wedding night when the same amount could stretch to a week in the Aegean is anyone’s guess. Actually, the fact that Kate earns twice what I do is a key factor in the lack of any screaming rows in the match so far: if she can’t afford it then there’s no way I can. So there’s no nagging to spend £2,000 on flowers, and the decision to go big, cheap and cheerful was enthusiastically adopted as a game plan early on. Hence we quickly settled on a formation of registry office, blagged venue, BYO buffet and asking friends to DJ/take photos/decorate - though the lack of church service did earn a parental guilt trip (from my mother).

However, complacency must not set in. I have learned that no matter how early on in the day the groom must not be lulled into uttering those fateful words: “whatever you want my darling.” Contrary to popular belief these are not the correct words. Oh no. The groom must be ‘involved’ in all things, and having just woken up and still the wrong side of a cup of tea is no excuse. I must be prepared to discuss the vows at a moment's notice. The second admonishment was thus earned. But once the vows were written and rehearsed it turned into a teary moment of love-struck poignancy. The moment reminded us both of why we wanted to make this commitment in the first place. So, not a bad save really. Tackling that tricky haircut during the run in is going to be a much tougher proposition.

Tuesday 1 January 2008

The Proposal - by Kate

I'm not a great follower of tradition. More a purloiner of those I think I can use. Which is why, when Theo announced his intention of making me his intended (a very welcome intention), I thought perhaps it was time to resurrect the Age of Chivalry. Courtly Love. Which, if I remember rightly from my English Lit O' Level, involves the Fair Maiden giving her Knight In Shining Armour three difficult and dangerous tasks to fulfil before favouring him with her hand. In marriage, just to make that clear. After all, we'd only been together a few months and it seemed reasonable to make sure it wasn't just the cider talking.
So he was sent forth with the following instructions:
1. Clear your overdraft
2. Write your MSc dissertation
3. Ask permission of both my parents
I reckoned a little belt-tightening and careful husbandry (good practice, after all) would take care of the first; a lot of harrumphing in front of books and computer the second; and a display of true valour the third.
Number One, the tricky alchemy of turning red to black, was pulled off with the help of a new, full-time job and more importantly, its wages.
For a while, Number Two seemed locked in a loop of determination, cups of tea, damnation and despair. But at last, enlightenment came, fifteen thousand words (plus bibliography) were committed to paper and life as a post-graduate student was laid to rest, amen.
As for Number Three, neither parent even attempted to hide their relief at the prospect of finally getting shot of their oldest daughter (especially once they realised they weren't expected to pay for the wedding) and capitulated with disappointing ease.
Of course, once the tasks were fulfilled, I fell easy victim to all sorts hilarious antics from Theo. Like sinking to the ground with a meaningful look in his eyes, then tying his shoelaces. Or the birthday present, announced with hand in breast-pocket and the words, “I've got a very special piece of jewellery for you, Darling...” which turned out to be a necklace. In mitigation, it was pretty special.
In the end, the proposal came on his birthday, almost exactly a month after all the conditions had been satisfied. I was reaching the end of the Drive programme on BBC Radio Bristol (sitting in for Ben Prater, the usual presenter, who'd just notched up his second child) when in walked my gallant suitor, bearing a box of chocolates and a bottle of Champagne (sword and shield).
Thus, with the romantic words (mine) “It's seven o'clock, here's the news with John Armstrong,” he dropped to his knees, asked me to marry him and produced a ring. Which didn't quite fit. But it was only a minor setback. How could I say anything other than yes when such hopeful, shining eyes were gazing upon me? He was and is, after all, My Knight In Shining Armour. No Fair Maiden would do any different. And nor would I.

in the beginning...