Glass half empty?

I always suspected I was by nature a pessimist but this was brought home to me on Saturday when we arrived home after a trip to get an old buggy new wheels (joys of grannydom) and saw a pair of black, be-plumed horses waiting patiently in the street. “Must be a funeral,” I said. Then I noticed that the black horses were wearing white plumes and were harnessed to a carriage not a hearse. “Ooh, no, it’s a wedding,” I corrected myself. And indeed it was.

We have lived here for nearly 27 years (we moved in two days after the daughter was born, which was interesting) and this is the first time I can recall a street wedding. My daughter had already moved away before she married, as had the girl next door, and so far none of the other youngsters who are now 20- or even 30-somethings have tied the knot. But the block of flats opposite is now full of young couples who – unlike us back in the early 80s – cannot afford to rent, let alone, buy a house in London.

Quite of few of the neighbours came out to watch and wish them well. We think it was the bride’s mum in the pale green outfit with matching shoes and hat. The bridesmaids looked lovely in strapless, full-length garnet dresses. But the bride was truly beautiful in pale gold, with little lace cap sleeves and a bouquet of deep red roses.

We all clapped as she climbed into the carriage and the horses clip-clopped off towards St Barnabas’ church which is just round the corner. And I wasn’t the neighbour who observed that if I’d been the bride I’d have got them to go the long way round to get the most for my money. She just said what I was thinking.

Hatch, match, dispatch

Two weddings have been announced this week, by daughters of friends. The friends have already apologetically made it clear that we won’t be on the guest lists.

My old room mate from uni says her daughter and the intended have announced they will be inviting only those who share half their genes to the ceremony (and partners one assumes). Children will be banned.

They want a drinks party in the evening for their friends – with the emphasis on drink not food. The father who is footing the bill is not entirely happy about this and the elder brother has declared that a wedding isn’t a wedding without speeches and a sit-down meal.

The other friend – the mother of one of my daughter’s school friends and a founder member of our book club - says their happy couple has decided on a small ceremony at the local town hall followed by a drinks and nibbles reception to satisfy the crumblies (they are up to 60 on the FOTB’s side of the family alone), and then a party for the bride and groom’s friends in the evening.

I am very happy for both sets of mums and daughters and I’m sure both weddings will be wonderful, but it’s also a sure bet that will be plenty of drama between now and then.

The other exciting news this week is that the daughter of another friend is expecting her first baby – and she invited Mum along to see the grandson or daughter on the scan. A nice gesture, I tbought.

So that’s hatching and matching – and sadly there’s also been some dispatching. This week I made a donation to the Woodland Trust in memory of a writer I met relatively recently, but who will be just as fondly remembered as the journalist I worked with back in the 1970s whose rather jolly wake took place in an old Fleet Street pub.

Anne Robinson came which was rather unexpected, arriving with one of her ex-husbands, which was even more so. And nobody got drunk enough to quote her catchphrase in her hearing, which shows how much we've all grown up in the past 30-odd years.

What we wish for

The daughter has always been on trend. When she was little her bedroom was a shrine to My Little Pony and Care Bears. As she got older we all learned to live with her enthusiasms. Witchery, purple hair, tattoos, piercings.

Stuff mattered to her. A lot. Indeed, she once ditched a boy because he wore the wrong trainers. So I shouldn’t have been surprised by last year’s wedding. According to a survey just published by More magazine, getting married is what every young women now aspires to.

More specifically, today’s young woman wants to marry a man called James, who earns at least £25,000, by the time she's 25. Apparently, if she hasn’t nailed her Mr Right by then she fears she never will.

When I was 25 all I was interested in was making a success of my career, having fun and earning as much as I could in my own right. The last thing I wanted to do was settle down with one man and start nesting. Looking back, I suppose I was just following fashion, too.

Anyway, the daughter doesn’t seem to have lost her feeling for what’s hot and what’s not. She was 25 when she married, the man in question earns more than 25k a year – but he isn’t called James.

It’s good she’s retained some sense of originality.

Trials and Tribulations

Back from (not-so-sunny) Spain and catching up with the news.

I see Ivana Trump’s wedding was suitably OTT. But it’s a story on the bbc website that has caught my eye.

A young lady from Birmingham called Ramona was all set to marry her boyfriend Wayne in July. The wedding was going to cost around £5000 – but then the bride-to-be lost her job. So how could Romana make her dreams come true?

Apparently she has been taking part in not one, not two, but three consecutive (one hopes) clinical trials. The fees she earned will pay for the wedding. Luckily she has not swollen up, turned black or had any parts of her anatomy fall off. She did get a rash at one point but it wasn’t serious. So that’s all right then.

The story didn’t make clear what contribution Wayne was making. Or why they decided to spend so much on one day in their lives when money was so tight. But then when has commonsense ever had much to do with weddings?

Poc ennuvolat

We are off to Catalunya tonight with some friends. The weather is not looking good. There will (probably) be no snow – but no central heating either.
Last week temperatures were in the T-shirt zone. This week they may be dropping into the thermals.
By obsessively checking the local weather forecasts I’m at least learning a few more words of Catalan. I think poc ennuvolat means a little hazy.
The number three son is to be left in charge. I will leave a list of Things To Do which he will, no doubt, ignore. As these include the ritual of putting out the recycling bins and bringing them in empty before they go AWOL, I expect any benefits of a week away will quickly dissipate on return.
The daughter, husband, grandson and two rugby-fan friends are coming to stay overnight at the weekend. They may also bring the mad dog. I have made up the spare beds and put out clean towels - and washed the dog's duvet.
It's hard to believe that a year ago I was counting down to the wedding. Probably because these days I'm poc ennuvolat.

Brides with bumps

Regular readers (well, one is always hopeful) may recall that last October I introduced my grandson, the reason why my daughter’s wedding was fast-forwarded a year.
I have no idea how many brides are pregnant when they marry – it’s not the kind of statistic the ONS supplies – but it must be a fair few. So it was a surprise how difficult it was to find a dress that would accommodate the daughter’s changing shape and still look stunning on the day.
We both surfed the net and came up with a few mail order possibilities. I held out great hopes for the yummy mummy sounding Isabella Oliver Belle Epoque dress but when it arrived (beautifully packaged) it was far too big, looked like a nightie and was not in the least bit flattering.
The main problem was not the bride-to-be’s expanding waistline (we could work out roughly how much bigger it would get by the day of the wedding and we used a cushion to simulate the bump) but her bust.
OK, it wasn’t exactly Katie Price proportions, but on someone who had been a 32A it might as well have been. And it was getting bigger all the time …
In the end we found a lovely Empire-line dress in gold and cream from Monsoon and with a little nifty needlework (by the mother-in-law as I pretend not to know one end of a needle from another) it looked a treat. Problem solved.
Skimming through the Daily Mail today (it’s work, honest) I spot a headline: Gowns for the bride with a bump.

It turns out that Tracey Wilkinson also had problems finding a maternity dress for her wedding. Seeing a business opportunity Ms Wilkinson has now set up Expectant Bride (http://www.expectantbride.com) which makes designer weddings dresses for mums-to-be.
Ann Widdecombe apparently thinks it’s a sad sign of the times. I think Tracey’s business will blossom.

Something borrowed

The need for diversions to alleviate wedding withdrawal symptoms is not quite as strong as it was. But anything about brides, grooms. mother-in-laws or receptions - especially bad behaviour to do with any of the afore-mentioned – is still compelling.

Throw Torchwood into the mix – and how could I resist?

It was all complete nonsense, of course, with shapeshifters and alien babies, not to mention Jack bursting in to stop the wedding as Gwen was about to make her vows. But Nerys Hughes was a joy to watch, especially as I noticed (rather cattily) that since the heyday of the Liver Birds she has accumulated even more wrinkles and poundage than me.