Hen Party 1: 4 days to go

The preparations for Bride 1's hen party have hit fever pitch. With the Chief Bridesmaid en route from New Zealand the majority of the work has fallen to us lesser mortal bridesmaids. My week is shaping up to look like this:

Monday

• Job interview for really good job that I'd love

Tuesday

• Get up early to buy tax for car which ran out two days previously
• Pick up parcels from Post Office (for hen party 3)
• Go to two different supermarkets to buy ingredients for baking for hen party
• Get bridesmaid dress fitted 
• Go to different shopping centre to try on potential dress for Wedding 2
• Learn how to make meringue
• Practice baking for the hen party

Wednesday

• Make up mix CDs of cheerful songs to play at the hen party
• Finish sorting out my room and do laundry

Thursday

• Bake butterfly cookie lollies for the hen party bags
• Bake mini chocolate cupcakes
• Fill party bag with goodies for the hens

Friday

• Prepare mini lemon meringue and strawberry cheesecake pies
• Decorate butterfly cookies
• Ice cupcakes
• Buy helium balloons
• Drive to Rugby with baked goods and balloons safely in the boot
• Distract Bride whilst we sneak surprise mystery guest into her house (her sister who is chief bridesmaid and supposed to be travelling in Asia on her way home from living in New Zealand for the last two years)
• Bridesmaid sleepover
• Freak out because I haven't heard about the perfect job yet

Saturday

• Get up at the crack of dawn
• Drive 4 complete strangers to the canal
• Have a lesson in driving a narrowboat
• Decorate said narrowboat with balloons and banners
• Drive narrowboat for 3 hours to the nearest pub for lunch whilst the hens drink pink fizz and eat cupcakes
• Drive narrowboat back again
• Drive 4 not-so-strangers back to Bride's house
• Cook BBQ and mix cocktails for the hens
• Be a gracious hostess (ie try not to get drunk and embarrass self in front of new friends or fall asleep in the corner)
• Wrap Bride in toilet paper wedding dress
• Play other cringingly embarrassing hen party games that I am yet to research
• Wash up and generally clean up
• Collapse into bed (hopefully!)

Sunday

• Bridesmaid day of fun (yet to be determined fun)
• Drive home again

Shouldn't be too hard or much work, right?! What could possibly go wrong?? Well I was thinking about this in the middle of the night when I couldn't sleep before the job interview and wrote a little list:

1. Bride thinks it's all a lame idea, hates it and is disappointed
2. Mystery guest surprise goes all wrong or someone lets the cat out of the bag
3. Hens don't get on and are stuck on a very small boat for six hours of awkwardness
4. Boat crashes or sinks or refuses to move
5. We balls up the locks and have to get rescued, and end up looking ridiculous
6. Canal is ugly, boat is horrid and pub is non-existent
7. All the baking gets destroyed in the car or is just generally vile
8. Being unable to drink all day because of driving duties will make me very in need of a drink by the time we get back to the Bride's house and I get sloshed whilst cooking the BBQ and embarrass the Bride who promptly disowns me
9. So tired from all mad preparations, sleepless nights of worrying, getting up early and rushing around like a blue arse fly that there will be no energy left for small talk - will be miserable antisocial cow with eyebags the size of shopping trolleys and will probably cry
10. We give all the guests food poisoning with the BBQ food

Surprisingly enough writing this list didn't cure the insomnia, I expect it made it worse! To top it off I had a chat with my bridesmaid counterpart who will be joining me in this list of joy, she has chewed off all her fingernails. We make quite a pair but at least we're in it together! 

If I survive this weekend I will be giving a full report next week!

The movie of my life - Bridesmaids

On Saturday Brides 4 and 5, two fellow bridesmaids and I trundled off to the cinema to see Bridesmaids, for research purposes of course. I had heard many good things from everyone who had seen it and was naturally very excited! I wasn’t disappointed.

I have a new hero in Kirsten Wiig. She is, quite frankly, a genius. Not only is she gorgeous and her acting wonderfully funny and touching in all the right places but she co-wrote the thing so she’s really clever too! If you’ve not seen her in Whip It, I really recommend renting it, although be warned, it’ll lead you to dust off your pink Barbie roller skates and fishnet tights!

When I grow up I want to be just like  Kirsten Wiig!

Poor old Annie, it didn’t take much for me to drum up empathy for her. We seem to be in a frighteningly similar situation; single, broke, living with our mums, unemployed and with a crappy love life. We even share that Bridget Jones-esque feeling of inadequacy when faced with smug marrieds and people with careers. Luckily I don’t have to go through anywhere near the level of crap that she has to with my bridal parties. None of my fellow bridesmaids will go out of their ways to ensure the train wreckage that Rose Burn’s character Helen does and my sister would never dream of demoting me to an ordinary bridesmaid. Mind you, it ends up ok for her, she gets the girl (well girly-man Irish cop) and makes up with her BFF and totally makes bitchface Helen shrivel HOORAH! 

Perhaps there’s hope for me after all...

Anyway go and see it if you fancy a lot of laughs, some cringingly gross bits and a musical finale! 

A progress report

The last few weeks have been a total blur of catching up with people, gadding about the country generally having a marvellous time. New houses have been visited, babies cooed over, engagement rings admired, fiancés met, vast amounts of BBQ/picnic/pub food and cider/Pimms/bubbly have been consumed, all helped out by the unseasonably beautiful weather that we have been blessed with over here. I’ve even celebrated Easter Christmas (a new family tradition that involves Christmas dinner on Easter Sunday complete with crackers and decorations because I missed real Christmas last year!) and been on a living room safari camping trip with my godson, George.

It hasn’t all been fun and games though, I have also put some serious hours into planning hen parties for weddings 1 and 3 as well as trying on 30+ bridesmaid dresses. The good news is that we have chosen a dress (well a skirt and top) for wedding 3 and they’ve been ordered, (and not in size 18s either! Hoorah!) and are well on the way to having a most excellent hen party for Bride 1. I’m 10 days into a 2 week kick start diet and have lost 5 pounds already, which unfortunately means that eating no chocolate or cake really does pay off and it’s not just a vicious rumour circulated to make women feel guilty and miserable.

Is it any wonder that job hunting has taken a back seat when there’s so much fun to be had? or that I’m no further along with my moving to London plan? In fact I’m beginning to go off that idea...

Wedding 1: 21 weeks to go DOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

Wedding number one takes place on 3^rd September in Shrewsbury which is just under 5 months away.  Having been in Australia since the happy couple became engaged I’ve not really been involved in any planning. I was consulted over the bridesmaids’ dresses which will be floor length and, hunter green (otherwise known as St Edmund’s bogie green, the colour of my school uniform).

A week or so ago I received an email from my bridesmaid colleague stating that she had ordered her bridesmaid dress and that I should probably get a move on if I want mine altered in time for the big day. Grudgingly I dug out the old tape measure and did a quick 1, 2, 3 of bust, waist and hips. Balking slightly at quite how large they sound when in centimetres I called the wedding shop and prepared to put in my order. Now, I am not by any means skinny and I did put on a fair bit of weight, about a stone in fact, whilst I was in Australia (I blame homesickness comfort eating and my insatiable sweet tooth); but normally for a dress I would fit in about a UK size 12 so imagine my shame, disgust and outrage when the helpful and slightly baffled shop lady told me that I would have to order a size 18!! She clearly sensed my misery when she suggested that perhaps I would like to pop into the shop and have her measure me ‘properly’ (clearly I can’t be trusted with something so complex as a tape measure!) I reluctantly agreed and made an appointment for the following Monday.

I can, it turns out, use a tape measure effectively after all, those five years spent at university clearly paid off! Triumphantly I pointed out that those were the same measurements that I had given over the phone not realising that in fact that meant that I was indeed the dreaded size 18. The kind lady, still slightly baffled, pointed out that when ordering a dress order the dress in the size that fits your largest sized part so in my case although my bust is only a mere size 12, I have a size 18 waist and so the dress must be ordered in a size 18. I just don’t understand how, in the short space between my bust and my waist, and it is short I am only 5ft 2inches tall; I can jump up three whole dress sizes. It just doesn’t make sense. Clearly there is a conspiracy amongst bridesmaid dress makers to make bridesmaids feel rubbish and brides feel smug and skinny. All in all it’s very upsetting for a body-conscious weight obsessed permanent dieter. Contrary to all strong urges I didn’t give any creative suggestions as to where the dress could be shoved nor did I run to the hills screaming at the top of my lungs, I didn’t even scarper to the nearest airport and jump on the first available flight to a far flung destination. No, I sucked it up and dutifully handed over my credit card only flinching once or twice when the poor woman wrote out the receipt...perhaps I am developing a mature sense of inner poise, it is only a number after all...nah I went home and, rather counter productively, drowned the inner poise in half a box of Celebrations. HOORAH!

Five Weddings & No Funerals

Writing about five different weddings is going to get pretty confusing so I'm going to make it easier for myself and anyone silly enough to read my nonsense by giving a run down of each wedding and the key players.

Wedding 1 - Sept 2011
This is the wedding of one of my housemates from university, for simplicity we'll call her Bride 1. She met her intended, Groom 1, whilst we were in our final year at Bath University. She is currently training to be a doctor and is therefore uber busy and impossible to get hold of. I am one of a trio of bridesmaids, the other two are her sister, who lives in New Zealand, and our other ex-housemate, who is also Bride 3. Bride 1 announced her engagement and asked us to be bridesmaids via a Facebook message and since then I've hardly heard a peep out of her. To be fair, I have been living in Australia, so am mildly out of the loop despite this being the electronic age of communication. Bride 1 is slightly hopeless at keeping in touch at the best of times, I think we've all been together a grand total of 4 times since we left Bath 6 years ago so me and Bride 3 were a bit baffled to be asked to be bridesmaids to be honest. My key responsibilities on the day will be to wear the dress (hunter green, strapless and floor length), hold the flowers, smile and then not get too drunk, cry or fall over. I'm waiting for my proper brief at a weekend of planning to be held in May.

Wedding 2 - October 2011
Bride 2 and I have been friends since we were eight; we went to the same primary school, secondary school and college, Brownies, Guides and tennis lessons. I am meeting Groom 2 for the first time later today, they got together whilst I was away so I haven't had the pleasure yet. My main responsibility for this one is to do a reading but I also have a few more; look fabulous in a dress of my choice (woop woop to not being a bridesmaid), not get too drunk, cry or fall or fall over and generally have a marvellous time with all my lovely friends.

Wedding 3 - December 2011
I'm excited about this one, it'll be my first winter wedding and between two of my favourite people. Bride 3 is another housemate from university and she met Groom 3 whilst we were in our first year. I'm going to be bridesmaid along with her sister, we start dress shopping this weekend. Apparently my main responsibilities are to prevent the hen night from devloving into a horrible sordid affair with naked waiters, strippers and sex toys and to look after Mother of the Bride 3 on the day and stop her freaking out. The usual try not to not get too drunk, cry or fall or fall over also applies.


Wedding 4 - Aug 2012
This is the BIG one - Bride 4 is my little sister and bestest friend. I have so many responsibilities for this one that I can't list them. Mostly though I am the Chief Bridesmaid, hen weekend organiser and general wedding planner. The other two bridesmaids are our best friends that we grew up with, also sisters and we have a flower girl who is Groom 4's goddaughter. It's going to be great fun with all our family and friends there. Groom 4 is in the Navy so there will be officers in uniform everywhere complete with ceremonial swords (used for cutting the cake!?!) and they're going to have the reception in a lovely old building in the dockyard. It's going to be a beautiful day...


Wedding 5 - Sept 2012
Last but in no way least, is the wedding of one of my best friends. There aren't many details yet but it's going to be lovely. The best thing is that I have no responsibilities at all, as long as I'm there she'll be happy!


So they're the weddings in a nutshell, apologies that it doesn't make very interesting reading. More wedding based humiliation to come soon.....