Here Comes Your Man

they knelt before the priest, a curious mix of grown up but looking so young (rather like a new school child in their first blazer and tie), her in an intricately pleated silk dress of her own design, he in his own version of morning dress. he had stood nervously at the front of the sparse but cavernous cathedral expecting her imminent arrival. the bridesmaids led the way up the aisle and then her entrance. his face lit up and he beamed at his bride as she walked confidently on the arm of her father, her outside appearance giving away none of the anxiety of the day to which she had professed as she had been helped into her dress.

they knelt before the priest, watched by 3 bridesmaids and his best man, in front of an audience of 75 of their closest friends and family, dwarfed by the magnificence of the cathedral. he helped her back to her feet and they looked at each other in excitement and with true love as they spoke their vows and exchanged their rings. they left the church as man and wife, showered with rice which glistened in her hair as she listened to his speech in which he stated that love changes ones reality, like a tiger in a room, and she was part tiger, part love of his life.

they stood together in front of their friends as the music started to play, and they danced the quickstep and their faces next to each other were a perfect emotion of love, of stillness in the spinning room, in the spinning world.

Wedding Preparations

This time next week I shall be in Finland for M's brother's wedding. The hen party safely over, it has been a frantic few weeks helping with the various other preparations. I have been helping put together my bridesmaid dress in sessions which felt rather like advanced couture dress-making the modular version as I learnt extremely quickly why one does not, if one can help it, cut fabric from a piece of material spread on a sheet over floorboards in a room which only has side-lighting ("it looks like a mouse bit it out of the fabric Rachel") or why when one is sewing French-seams it is better to have in mind the overall objective first rather than trying to do each of the four parts in turn and find that mistakes made on each stage have dire implications for the progress of the seam. Still, the next time I need to make a boned bodice I am well equipped to make a decent stab at it likewise the next time I need to cut out pattern pieces from silk chiffon crepe I know that I am to refuse.


Given the amount of wedding preparations going on around us it was nice to escape for a night out with M yesterday. We decided to celebrate our anniversary with a meal at Firehouse in South Kensington. The food was wonderful, the service even better and we had a fabulous night. We spent three hours over our meal, ending with chocolate fondue with strawberries, raspberries and marshmallows to dunk and beautifully made espressos before heading down to the bar to linger over mojitos.

Wedding Fever

Image by Rebecca Portsmouth

Facebook. It has a lot to answer for. In amongst the usual catching up with friends past and present I have discovered that nine people I know are getting married this year (this does not include the three or so weddings which have already occurred this year). Apart from M’s brother’s wedding, and a family friend’s reception later in July, I am not required to attend any of them. This is a relief, not least because I can barely afford to pay my rent at the moment, let alone pay for flights, presents, dresses and the curiously named fascinators which seem ubiquitous at every wedding this year (or at least all of the other weddings whose pictures have appeared on facebook already). It is a relief because the words ‘wedding’ and ‘marriage’ had become dirty words in our household.

When a girl is faced with news that her oldest friend from gymnastics, one of her school friends, her boyfriend’s brother, her boyfriend’s brother’s ex-girlfriend, two good friends from university (to each other) a school friend of a friend, two of her boyfriend’s colleagues and one of her own colleagues are all getting married within the space of 6 months, it is inevitable that her own thoughts will lean towards marriage, or at the very least, weddings. These thoughts range from the insignificant “if it were me, I would do this” to the rather depressing “why are my friends so sorted when I am not”. And, of course, being a girl who talks so much that her father imposes a word free room when she is at home and speaks roughly what she thinks the vast majority of the time, I talked. About weddings. A lot. From the excitement of being a bridesmaid, to the disbelief that yet another friend had been proposed to, to the skill of a photographer I had booked for a ball who also specialised in weddings, to dresses to present lists. I talked and talked. And the boyfriend grew quieter and quieter each time I mentioned the word ‘wedding’.

I say had become dirty words because last night things came to a head. The boyfriend asked if I could stop pressurising him into marriage – that he wasn’t ready for marriage; we weren’t grown up enough, we had no money. He thought that every time I mentioned anything to do with a wedding I was pressurising him to propose. It was such a horrid conversation and I felt so helpless. Torn between feeling like a child and also like an adult, I don’t think I am alone in wondering about the future of a relationship that is 5 years old. School age. Not future as in shall we break sort of future, just wondering at what point one suddenly decides that one is old enough, mature enough, financially sorted enough to get married. Why getting married is such a step, when we live together already. And why if we are happy together than marriage means anything to me at all anyway, why I am I desperate to achieve something which I essentially already know. Pressurising him was never my intention; and I certainly never wanted to reach the point when I could not talk about anything to do with weddings for fear of making him feel cornered.

And so we talked, long into the night and reassured each other of our worries. And we shall continue, in our committed relationship of non-committal and I shall try to only mention my friends’ weddings in the context of them not me. And one day, maybe, when I am least expecting it, the boyfriend will ask me. And until then I shall try and stop torturing myself. And try to stay away from facebook.