It was only a matter of time… No matter how much I fought the urge, I had to bow to the inevitable. Overnight I have morphed into Bridezilla.
The arrival of my mother at the weekend has only added fuel to the fire and given me the perfect excuse to chatter incessantly about venues, colour schemes, table decorations and menus. Poor Lovely Boyfriend. The only stipulations he made about us getting married were a) I don’t write about his proposal and b) I don’t overdo the wedding chat. Oops.
The first sign that I was not going to be the chilled out, anything goes, type of bride that I had always envisaged occurred when I stumbled upon The Dress. Never thinking for one moment that I would entertain the idea of wearing anything resembling a traditional wedding gown, a chance sighting of the frilliest, fussiest and frothiest creation imaginable turned me into a woman on a mission.
The stick insect modelling it in the photograph I saw managed to make it look like a dreamy romantic concoction. No matter that the dress on me might evoke a dolly on top of a toilet roll type image, I simply had to have it. With the help of the internet and several frantic and desperate international phone calls I managed to track it down to a shop in San Francisco. As I write this, an extravagant explosion of beading, crystals and lace is winging its way to me in a little cardboard box.
And so the snowball effect took over. With such an impressive dress, I needed a wedding to match. Eschewing my previous notion of simple meze by the sea with a few close friends and relatives whose invites would have come via text message, I’m now in full on wedding planner mode.
I am assured this happens to the best of us and these symptoms I am displaying are perfectly natural, although I am having a hard time convincing LB of this. His fanciful idea of shorts, flip flops, souvla and Keo are now a distant memory and have been taken over by my plans for a string quartet, canap?s, chateaubriand and pink champagne. He has the permanent look of a rabbit caught in headlights and wonders who this neurotic, obsessive impostor that has replaced his normal girlfriend is.
It dawned on me that he was not treating the matter of arranging Our Big Day with sufficient gravitas when I asked him his views on the highly important subject of what type of flowers we should have on the tables.
‘Plastic ones?’ he ventured.
Good grief. There was no hope.
With my mother heading back to Scotland in a week’s time I would soon have no ally, so, with visions of lurid fake roses running through my head, I knew I had to enlist some back up. I suggested to LB that we forego our initial embargo on having a traditional wedding party and that I should have a bridesmaid. His initial reluctance soon ebbed when he realised that with this small concession his life would once again return to normal. No more weighing up the pros and cons of beef over lamb. No more detours to flower shops to discuss the veritable merits of roses over peonies. Trips out of Nicosia would no longer be for the sole purpose of finding our ideal venue. He would never have to hear the words ‘colour’ and ‘scheme’ in the same sentence again… Relief flooded his face and he was quickly volunteering to make the phone call himself to ask my friend to please be my bridesmaid.
I am glad to say she accepted and looks as if she will treat the arrangements with the same fervour as myself. Lovely Boyfriend is now able to wash his hands of the whole affair and asks only to be told when and where to turn up.
The only area that is off limits is his outfit. But I’m working on that….
