I was so excited the day I went shopping for my wedding dress. I’d been dreaming about it since the first day I’d put a hand-towel over my head as a kid and pretended it was a veil. I knew I was going to be a little curvier than the standard sample size dresses may cater for, but hey – I thought – the real thing will be made-to-measure and I’ll look fabulous – so what if a few zips don’t go all the way up to the top? I quickly found what looked on the hanger to be my Dream Dress – I couldn’t wait to try it on! The reality, sadly, was an uncomfortable experience – emotionally and physically – where the woman from the shop had to stand on a stool behind me tugging the dress up while my poor mother crouched underneath the voluminous skirt and pulled my boobs down from below. We couldn’t get it all the way up – or all the way down. I was trapped in it for fifteen minutes. It was meant to be one of the best days of my life, and instead I was left feeling obese and sad.
Helena, London
The owner, general manager and head of sales of the Lady in White bridal boutique was one Pandora Pritchard-Bailey (although Cleo had obvious doubts about that being her real name). Either way, Pandora Pritchard-Bailey was a woman of a certain age, with a forehead stiff from Botox and a creamy pink lipstick that bled slightly into the fine lines around her mouth. She held a shiny Mont Blanc pen over-elegantly between two fingers, like she thought she was Audrey Hepburn and it was a cigarette holder. She did, however, insist her assistant fetch her customers a bottle from the ‘champagne fridge’, so Cleo decided she quite liked her.
‘So ladies,’ Pandora drawled, rolling that pen over her knuckles while she surveyed her audience. ‘We have bride, and mummy, I presume. Now, where’s my Chief?’
‘These are all four of my bridesmaids.’ Nora had spoken up quickly, and over-loud, and it took Cleo a moment more to realise that Pandora had been asking which one of them was Nora’s Maid of Honour, and that Nora had spectacularly obviously dodged the question. ‘This is Sarah, Bea, Cleo and Daisy,’ Nora introduced. ‘And yes, my mother: Eileen.’ Pandora’s eyes flicked to each of them in turn; then, alarmingly, she started to jot down some notes in a moleskin notebook.
‘So, Nora, tell me about yourself and about your wedding,’ Pandora instructed.
‘Um. What do you want to know?’ Nora clutched at her champagne flute awkwardly.
‘Anything important,’ Pandora answered, impatiently. ‘It allows me to get a feel for the wedding so I know what sort of dress you’ll be requiring.’
‘Oh. I just thought we’d sort of just, look at what’s on the rails and pick a couple to try on,’ Nora mumbled.
Pandora clicked her pen in irritation. ‘We don’t do rails here,’ she announced, imperiously. ‘All of our sample dresses are stored downstairs in perfectly pH-neutral conditions, away from light, dust, pollution, and with the temperature set so that the relative humidity remains under 30%.’ She sniffed. ‘After the consultation I will use my experience to select six gowns and my assistants will bring them upstairs. That’s how we work here at Lady In White.’
‘Oh.’ Nora looked around at her maids, eyes pleading for help.
‘Er, well, Nora is getting married on New Year’s Eve,’ Sarah piped up, uneasily.
‘Yes, in a 19th century country manor house,’ Cleo supplied.
Eileen made a noise that would have made more sense coming out of a petulant teenager than a middle-aged mother of five; Nora shot her a look, half begging, half threatening.
‘How many guests will be attending the wedding?’
‘Well, we haven’t finalised the list yet, but probably about 100 in the day, maybe 200 in the evening?’ Nora answered meekly.
‘I see. And the groom?’ Pandora asked. ‘Tell me about him.’
‘Harry.’ Nora’s entire demeanour changed when she spoke about Harry; she relaxed in her chair and smiled up at the (frankly frightening) Pandora. ‘We met at school when we were little, but we didn’t get together until about two years ago, when-’
‘What does he look like?’ Pandora interrupted, still scribbling away.
‘Oh. Mid-brown hair, brown eyes. About six foot tall. Er.’ Once again Nora scoured the room for help.
‘I’m trying to get Facebook up for his profile picture, but there’s no 3G whatsoever,’ Bea complained.
‘Here.’ Nora pulled her phone out from her handbag at her feet and handed it over to Pandora; she had a photo of her and Harry taken at their engagement party as her wallpaper. Pandora gave the picture a cursory look before returning the phone and making yet more notations in her book.
‘And you, Nora – is that your natural hair colour?’
Nora put a guilty hand to the back of her head. ‘Pretty much.’ And it was pretty much back to basics in recent years – only perhaps ever so slightly more auburn than nature intended – miles away from the years at university and in her early twenties where Nora had almost ruined her hair completely by ping-ponging between raven black and bleached blonde.
‘And you’re how old?’
‘Thirty.’
‘And how old is,’ Pandora referred to her notes in obvious fashion, ‘Harry?’
‘Also thirty.’
‘Hmm. Career girl, are you?’ Pandora said the term like it left a sour aftertaste.
‘Excuse me?’
‘Waiting to get married. I see it more and more often nowadays.’ Pandora shook her head sadly. ‘You know, they say that if you don’t know you’re going to marry the man within a year of knowing him, it’s not truly meant to be.’
‘Well.’ Nora was a little taken aback, but rallied valiantly. ‘As that would have involved Harry and I getting engaged at age six, that probably isn’t really relevant in our situation.’
Pandora swiftly changed the subject. ‘And what sort of dress was it that you had in mind?’
Nora looked relieved; clearly she’d thought that Pandora wasn’t actually going to ask this. ‘Well, I’ve only really been looking online,’ she disclaimered, ‘but I think I’m leaning towards quite traditional, and as it’s a winter wedding I was thinking Duchesse satin?’
‘You’re too old for Duchesse satin,’ Pandora interrupted, with a dismissive wave of the pen. ‘Maybe Charmeuse satin, with the right make-up.’ She scrutinised Nora’s complexion closely and jotted down another note. ‘And what were you thinking about style?’
Nora took a moment to gather herself. ‘Um. Well, I quite like fit-and-flare, mermaid-style.’
‘Stand up,’ Pandora barked, and Nora shot to her feet. ‘No, you’re too short for fit-and-flare,’ was Pandora’s damning conclusion. ‘But maybe a sheath style with a bit of a trumpet.’ She scribbled one last time into the moleskin. ‘Okay.’ Her two assistants appeared immediately, one at each elbow. ‘These six.’ Pandora passed them her notebook and they disappeared behind the scenes. ‘Nora, if you’d like to come into the dressing area and get prepared. We’ll need to wash your hands with our special soap.’ Without waiting for a response, Pandora disappeared behind the curtains. Nora followed, with the gait more of someone headed for their execution than a bride about to try on her very first wedding dress.
It was ten minutes before Nora emerged, with a face like thunder and a dress that was somewhere between Grecian myth and porn. The material hung heavy, thick and shapeless; Nora’s average-sized chest was just about held in place by the one bejewelled strap. It showed more than Nora’s most risqué bikini ever had. Pandora was holding one of Nora’s hands, and paraded her around the small sitting area like a trotting show pony in a ring before manoeuvring her onto a small box step in the very centre and fussing and faffing with the material of the gown.
‘So ladies.’ Pandora gestured towards Nora with one delicately French-manicured hand, as if there was a need to remind them all why they were there. ‘First impressions.’
Cleo’s entire consciousness was of Nora’s unexpected cleavage. She was pretty certain that if she opened her mouth and tried to speak, she’d probably say boobs, tits and/or knockers. She glanced over at Bea and caught her mid-grimace and of little-to-no help.
‘Oh, it makes an impression, alright,’ Daisy said bluntly. ‘Two big ones.’
Eileen’s hand was fluttering at her collarbone like she was having some sort of an episode. ‘I think we’re looking for something a little more modest, now,’ she said in a tight voice. (Cleo wondered what dear old Father Michaels would make of this dress.)
‘Modest.’ Pandora echoed the word like it was in a different language to hers. ‘What are we thinking? An illusion neckline? Kate Middleton sleeves?’
‘A front…?’ Daisy suggested under her breath.
‘Maybe something a little more traditional,’ Nora clarified apologetically. ‘And with a bit more oomph?’ She gestured to the heavy fall of the sheath-style gown. Cleo may not be the owner, general manager and head of sales of a bridal gown salon, but even she could see that this dress was doing absolutely nothing for her friend.
Pandora surveyed Nora. ‘Hmmm.’ She resumed writing in her notebook before thrusting it in the vague general direction of one of her assistants. ‘Replace three and six with these two gowns,’ she ordered; the girl scurried off to do her bidding. ‘Come on then.’ Nora was shooed back into the changing area with a great deal less dignity than she’d been led in with.
Nora was on gown number five before they reached anything approximating what they’d been expecting to see. Pandora had finally been persuaded to put Nora into a mermaid-cut dress (even though they were apparently reserved for women five foot eight and over). The heavy beading on the flare of the skirt whispered against the floor as Nora performed her circuit of the room before stepping up on the box.
‘Now we’re getting somewhere,’ Bea cheered. ‘You look amazing, Mel.’ Nora shot her a scrunched face smile.
‘Now, this dress comes in ivory, alabaster, oyster, bone and winter white,’ Pandora advised them, tugging at Nora’s neckline in a surprisingly intimate fashion as she did.
‘Which colour is this?’ Sarah enquired.
Pandora turned her heavy stare on her. ‘This is the oyster.’
‘Oh.’ Sarah blinked. ‘Well, it’s lovely on you, Nora.’
‘Well, I think that the whole off-white colour palette washes you out, personally,’ Pandora frowned. ‘It must be the pale Irishness of you.’
Eileen, who up until that point had sat in a largely disapproving silence, drew herself up. ‘I wore ivory on my wedding day,’ she announced grandly. ‘And I was very like our Nora. Granted I was a fair bit younger when I got married,’ she acknowledged after a moment; Nora stared up at the ceiling lights as if praying for strength.
‘I think you’d be much better off looking for a dress in champagne. Or perhaps blush,’ Pandora insisted.
Eileen looked as horrified as if the woman had just suggested her daughter get wed in a Nazi Storm Trooper uniform. ‘Oh no,’ she fumed. ‘It’s bad enough she won’t be getting married in the family church. She will be wearing white.’
‘Mammy!’ Nora’s patience had reached its end. ‘She will be wearing whatever she wants to wear, because it’s her wedding, remember?’
Eileen waved one impatient hand. ‘Of course, of course; but there are limits, child.’
‘Nora,’ Cleo interjected quietly. ‘You’d better hurry if you’ve got another dress to try on – the next appointment is in a village about fifteen minutes’ drive from here.’
‘You know what, I think I’ve seen enough here.’ Nora unceremoniously hiked up the skirt of the dress as best she could and stepped down from the box step without waiting for Pandora’s steadying hand and marched off to the changing area; Pandora trailed her, aghast and finally silent.
It was only when they got back to the hire car that they realised Nora had nailed three glasses of champagne whilst at the Lady In White, and was completely incapable of driving.