I Heart London (17 page)

‘Agreed,’ Louisa nodded. ‘I can take care of the catering. And the booze.’

‘And we need to deal with the cake. I figure that’s going to be a tough one.’

‘There’s a woman.’ Lou waved her hand towards the window. ‘She lives around the corner. She makes everyone’s cakes. I’ll call her in the morning.’

‘A woman?’

For once, I knew exactly who this incredibly loose description referred to. Mrs Stevens had been making the neighbourhood’s celebration cakes for the past thirty years and did a fine job. If fruit cake, vanilla sponge, sugar roses and ribbon were your idea of a fine job. While I was pretty sure they weren’t Jenny’s, I was pretty OK with it. As long as I got my trough of Monster Munch.

‘She did mine,’ Louisa replied with an edge to her voice. As predicted, Jenny didn’t look utterly convinced, but I saw her put an ‘L’ next to ‘cake’ and we moved on.

‘So then it’s simpler things like a memory book for people to write in, pens, disposable cameras, any decorative touches we think of, invitations and RSVPs.’ Jenny paused to click onto another window. ‘And we’ve already sent the email out to everyone in the US. There’s no one else here you want to invite?’

By everyone in the US, she meant Erin, Sadie, Mary, Delia, James, Craig and Graham. There wasn’t time for handcrafted paper engineering and a calligrapher, much to Louisa’s dismay. I would have been perfectly happy with a Facebook invite, but Jenny said the least we could do was a proper Evite and follow up with paper invitations on Monday. So obviously we ended up with the Evite.

As for UK guests, Mum had already invited the family, so that was taken care of, and there really weren’t any old friends I was desperate to have around me. I’d always been a bit rubbish at keeping things going, and since I had been a borderline recluse during the last couple of years I’d lived in London, Mark had claimed any friends I might have thought were my own. Such were the trials of (a) working freelance and (b) only having ‘couple’ friends. No work buddies to come on to your mum or tell lairy stories about Christmas parties at your wedding reception. The relief. Of course, there was a measurable part of me that wanted Mark at the wedding. I wanted to take the high ground, show that I was a big enough person to want him at this special day in my life. And I was going to look a hell of a lot better than I had in the supermarket. Besides, he really needed to meet Alex. And then go home and cry in a corner about how hot he wasn’t. But maybe those didn’t add up to enough good reasons.

‘Then we need wedding rings, outfits for the wedding party − groom, father of the bride, mother of the bride, bridesmaids.’ She stopped for emphasis. ‘And of course the bride.’

‘Oh.’ I snapped back to attention. ‘You mean me.’

‘Well, yeah. You.’ Jenny tutted. Clearly I was in trouble for not paying attention. ‘You’re gonna need shoes and underwear and jewellery and hair and make-up, although I can totally do the hair and make-up myself. Then all we have left is photographer/videographer, party favours and a honeymoon suite. Oh, and I guess we have to send Alex’s ass somewhere the night before the wedding.’

‘I’ve got a friend of a friend who does make-up,’ Louisa suggested. ‘And I think her boyfriend is a photographer?’

‘So I’ll do the hair and make-up, but we do need a photographer,’ Jenny said, simultaneously acknowledging and ignoring everything Louisa said. ‘Someone to do all the standard shit, but someone who’ll do cool reportage stuff too. I’ll talk to Erin. And Mary. They may know some people.’

‘I could ask my old editor at the magazine,’ I added. ‘I know most press photographers don’t do things like weddings, but you never know.’

‘You never know.’ Jenny pointed at me with a pen. ‘Good idea, Angie.’

If I were a dog, my tail would have been wagging. I loved knowing I’d done well. I also loved how excited and engaged Jenny had become. It was ages since I’d seen her so involved with something. With anything, actually. If I’d known all it was going to take to knock her out of her funk was a shotgun wedding in another country, I’d have organized it months ago.

‘Don’t forget the hen and stag dos,’ Louisa added with an attractive slur on ‘stag’. ‘Although this might have to count as your hen do since we’re going to be so bloody up against it.’

‘Dude, if hen night and bachelorette party mean the same thing, there’s no way we’re missing that shit,’ Jenny corrected her. ‘I will make time. I will make an extra day in the middle of the week if I have to.’

‘Well, I do have some ideas,’ Lou shrugged. ‘Just things I was thinking about when we were planning all my stuff. Things I thought would work better for Angela when she got married.’

‘And I’ve got a ton of ideas too,’ Jenny said, getting excited again. ‘A London bachelorette! This is going to be so awesome.’

‘Ladies,’ I interrupted. ‘Really, the hen night is the least of my concerns. Can we just make sure I’m not getting married in Primark’s finest and walking down a non-existent aisle to the romantic yet tinny sounds of my cassette deck first?’

Both of my bridesmaids looked a bit put out.

‘I put music on the list,’ Jenny pouted.

Louisa brightened. ‘You could always wear my wedding dress?’

‘With all the love in my heart, I’m going to pass on that, thank you,’ I said, finishing my wine. ‘And the same goes if my mum even hints to either of you that I should wear hers. That woman got married in a fancy tablecloth. And I’m being nice by calling it fancy.’

‘Well, that’s our list.’ Jenny scribbled down a few last notes. ‘That’s the how, what, where and when. What I really need to know now is how you want it to feel. What does your wedding look like?’

I wasn’t sure, but I knew what my face looked like. Completely blank. What did my wedding look like? I was suddenly reminded of a very awkward session with a career counsellor Mark had organized for me one birthday (the old romantic). They’d repeatedly asked ‘what does success look like to you?’ I didn’t know it could look like anything and was therefore quite thrown. Luckily, Louisa spoke both professional and American and was able to translate.

‘How do you imagine your wedding, Ange?’ She patted Jenny on the flank like a knackered racehorse. ‘When you close your eyes and see the whole thing, what’s it like?’

In order to answer her question properly, I rolled onto my back and closed my eyes, holding my empty wine glass against my belly. My wedding.

‘It’s really simple,’ I said, imagining myself in the delicate, flowing white dress from Delia’s magazine, hair loosely tied back, a hand-tied bouquet of white peonies and flat, sparkly shoes that I knew Jenny would never allow. ‘Very classic and unfussy. Elegant.’

‘Nice.’ I heard Jenny scribbling away at her pad. ‘Keep going.’

‘And Alex is in a black suit. Is that OK?’

‘Not really,’ Lou answered.

‘Whatever you want is OK,’ Jenny replied, overturning Louisa in a tone that couldn’t be questioned.

‘Well, I’m sure he’ll know what he wants to wear,’ I carried on, hoping to avoid a confrontation over Alex’s wardrobe choices. We’d been doing so well. ‘But yeah, there are loads of flowers everywhere. White and pale pink peonies. On the tables and in vases. And lots of candles and fairy lights so at dusk we can make it all twinkly.’

‘Oh, that’s gonna be pretty.’ Jenny scribbled some more. ‘Anything else essential?’

‘Music.’ I wanted there to be dancing. ‘But I want Alex to be in charge of that. Or at least consulted, please.’

‘Got it,’ she replied reluctantly.

‘And I just want everyone to be really, really happy and chilled out.’

‘As far as I can tell, as long as we get you a frock and enough champagne to sink Wales, we should be all right,’ Louisa reasoned.

‘Sounds good to me.’ I couldn’t deny that the big party of my fantasy involved me and Alex surrounded by flowers and candles and fairy lights whilst necking champs.

‘I think it’s time to call it a night,’ Jenny said, all business, hopping up off the floor and bundling away her planner. ‘I say we reconvene in the morning when I’ve talked to Angela’s mom, and then, tomorrow afternoon, we’ve got a dress to find, ladyface.’

‘You think we’ll find it in one day?’ I popped the bubble of my designer dress fantasy. I wasn’t going to fall in love with something else if I was still clinging to the idea of a dress I’d only ever seen in a magazine.

‘Maybe two days,’ she said with a reassuring tone. ‘Louisa only just did all this stuff. You know all the best boutiques, right?’

‘She knows literally all of the boutiques,’ I answered for her. ‘From Brighton to Edinburgh.’

‘We only went as far as Nottingham − don’t exaggerate,’ Louisa said as she waved us out into the hallway. ‘And yes, I’ll dig out the numbers for the bridal places tomorrow. And all the other stuff. Don’t worry. Tim’ll drive you home.
Tim
.’

Her husband ran down the stairs as fast as his legs would carry him, car keys in hand. Either he was psychic or he’d been waiting for us to leave for some time.

‘I’m not worried,’ Jenny said with confidence. ‘There’s never any need to worry when you have a plan, and we’ve got a hell of a plan.’

‘Hitler had a plan,’ I muttered, wiping errant mascara flakes from under my eyes. ‘
X Factor
contestants
always
have a plan. Doesn’t always mean it’s going to work out.’

‘Hitler didn’t have my commitment to a vision,’ Jenny said, her eyes flashing. ‘Don’t sweat it.’

‘Right, I’m going up to bath Grace.’ Louisa kissed us each on the cheek. I was so, so relieved to see the two of them getting along, I could have cried. It had occurred to me that they might not. ‘And I’ll talk to you in the morning.’

‘Talk in the morning,’ I said with a wave and followed Tim out to the car.

‘Hey, Jenny,’ I said, following her into the back seat. ‘Before we actually start calling people and buying things, do you think it might be a good idea to run some of this past Alex first?’

She pulled a very unpleasant face for a moment and then sighed loudly. I wasn’t sure if this was professional Jenny who didn’t like to be second-guessed or drunk Jenny who didn’t play well with others, but either way, you’d have thought I’d just asked her to give Alex a kidney. ‘Jenny.’ I tried to echo her stern face but I just wasn’t as good at it. ‘It’s his wedding too.’

‘And I’m already allowing his douchebag friends to come along,’ she replied. ‘But fine. You can tell him what we’ve agreed. And tell him he needs to get his ass into a suit. I don’t want to have to babysit that motherfucker in a tailor’s. I know the dude can dress himself.’

Woah. High praise indeed.

It took around seven seconds for Jenny to ascertain that my mother’s plans for the catering would not meet the ‘simple, classic and elegant’ theme of my wedding. I happened to think sausage rolls were completely classic, but Jenny wasn’t having any of it, and it wasn’t a battle I was interested in fighting at that moment. She was throwing around words like ‘arancini’ and ‘beignets’ when I skulked up the stairs and shut the bathroom door before texting Alex. A couple of minutes later, the door opened up and a very handsome black-haired gentleman appeared.

‘Is this where we hang out now?’ he asked. ‘Because your parents have, like, three times the number of rooms we have at home. We don’t have to have our one-to-ones in the tub.’

‘It’s the only room in the house with a lock,’ I explained from my seat on the closed toilet lid. ‘Admittedly it’s not the sexiest.’

Alex smiled and pulled on the light cord, blacking out the bathroom. The street lamps outside cast orangey shadows across the white tiles and gave out just enough of a glow for me to see him swooping in for a kiss.

‘Of course, there’s a chance I’m wrong,’ I said, catching my breath. ‘Fun afternoon with my dad?’

‘He had a really great nap,’ he said in between kisses to my face, my throat, my shoulder, my collarbone. ‘I went for a walk, did some reading, actually played around with some new song stuff. There was a guitar.’

‘Ahh, that’s mine,’ I replied. ‘From my Britpop phase.’

‘Nice.’ He clearly wasn’t interested in hearing about my Britpop phase. It was best that he didn’t, to be honest − those flares did me no favours, and I think we were both far more interested in what he was doing at that precise moment. ‘I don’t know if it’s all this wedding planning, your dad’s Scotch collection or being made to sleep in separate rooms, but I’m going kinda crazy over here.’

‘I need to talk to you about the wedding,’ I squeaked. This was entirely unacceptable behaviour for my mother’s bathroom, but so entirely necessary. ‘I have about a million things we need to decide on.’

‘As long as you’re there, I’m there and we end up married, I am super-cool with everything else,’ he replied, hands searching in the darkness. I couldn’t help but be slightly dubious, but he did seem far more interested in getting my dress off than choosing between bone, cream or ivory table coverings. ‘I want what you want as long as I get you at the end of it.’

‘That’s not true and you know it.’ I was trying to keep my voice even, but being dragged onto the floor and straddled by your fiancé who you haven’t so much as touched in three days makes it very difficult to keep yourself in a serious place. ‘Jenny wants to bring in goats as ring bearers.’

‘Sounds amazing.’

‘And do liver and onions for the reception.’

‘My favourite.’

‘And we’re going to get Lionel Blair to dance me down the aisle.’

‘I’ve always liked his work.’

‘Do you know who he is?’

‘No.’

The bathroom floor was not the most comfortable place for a romantic assignation, but it was difficult to argue with Alex’s insistence. Every stroke of his warm, strong hands swept away a wedding worry. Where would we hire glasses? Didn’t matter. What if we couldn’t get a cake made on time? The guests would get Fondant Fancies and like them. And a wedding dress? Meh. I’d rock up in a bin bag and save myself the hassle.

‘How long do you think we’ve got before they come looking for us?’ Alex whispered, although how I was supposed to concentrate on what he was saying when all I was aware off was the sound of his fly popping open was beyond me.