'Awful'. Says the first review, (no stars). 'DO NOT USE! Only recommend to your worst enemy'. (No stars). 'Orange, streaky, ruined my wedding' says the last one I have time to read before the therapist returns with my sister and bridesmaid who is looking amazing having been recently sprayed with a tint they call 'Belgian Chocolate'.
After my other sister is coated in a sticky layer of chocolate with a dash of 'Lusciously Dark', I pad, shaking, through to the broom cupboard to stand against the darkly stained wall, eyes suspiciously squinted, arms cactus stiff, ready to be hosed down with cold paint.
Once the deed is done, the beautician having escaped with her life, we swagger off smug, trying hard to walk without actually moving, heads rotating like olive-skinned terminators, arms like rifles floating away from our bodies, aimed haphazardly.
For the last what, month? 2 months? 6 months? My mind, conversation and actions have been focused around this 3 day point, this glowing, pulsating, living-but-not-quite-real crystal in my future towards which I advance. It began as a bit of a joke: my obsession with talking-thinking-dreaming about The Wedding. 'Let's Get You Married!' said a pull out wedding guide my mother joke-thrust into my hands.
Table centres and place names and flowers, garters and guests, dresses and diets and honeymoons and something called wedding favours and cakes like mansions and all so very very un-me. I clam up when people ask me what my colour scheme is. Make vague noises when asked about table runners and confetti.
So jokingly I become this parody of a wedding-obsessed bride.... All yoga and green smoothies, body brushing and secret pinterest pages covered in glittery dresses and canapes..... Until, suddenly I actually am that girl, and all I want to talk about is my dress and show people pictures of my fiancé - and insist on calling him my fiancé so they'll ask about the wedding so I can tell them the ALL about the plans.
Except our wedding is not 'normal'. It's not the wedding you read about in a magazine, one that's over in 10 hours and all you have to do is show up in a big dress and drop £25 grand on a venue and caterers. Of course it couldn't be normal. Not when Andy (the hubcap) does what he does - which you all know is make big shiny parties. Design, build and perfect spectacular things in which people have the time of their lives. How could it ever be normal? It was set in a garden and made possible by the people that have been there since before the beginning - my mother and father.
They were the hosts. They were the workers, the chiefs, the bosses, the orchestrators, the facilitators, the wedding cake makers, the support, the chefs. The people who lost sleep over whether we should eat blinis or oat cakes. The team with which we planned everything, the pair who rolled up their sleeves and were phased by nothing. The winners who said YES to a three day party in their garden (and inevitably - their home - sorry guys). The pair who flinched at nothing, even the 200 strong guest list. The people who made us believe it was possible to do everything ourselves and the people who hopefully you met and raised a glass with and marvelled at just how fucking AMAZING they are. They opened their home to our collection of colourful ragamuffins, our hoard of festival heroes, our glamour pusses, glittering girls, beer-brewing chefs, muscled, power-tool-wielding chippies, fluffy dawn fairies, soaked, grass-covered kids; and they kept smiling and loving it till the bitter end.
So there was the yoga and dresses and many hours on the phone to my stylist - the one the only Carmen Frock On. And the freaking out about the golden leaves and just how we were going to fit everyone in. There was the EPIC hen do. There was the doing absolutely everything at the last minute. The endless emails about the bar and carbonation techniques and the brewing of the beer after no sleep. The spreadsheets and lists and administrative errors.
Then there was The Crew. Oh the crew, the crew.
The Dream Team.
You guys made it all happen. Not only that, but you distilled the stress. You pulled the tension away from us and absorbed it until we felt not a bit. You allowed us to enjoy the Best Week Of Our Lives which is the Best Present you could ever have given us. 'Thank you' will never cover what we feel.
(NB. At the time of writing, all presents remain unopened in Wales with a little bit of our souls so THANK YOU - individual heartfelt thanks to follow when we make it back there to restore the last, crucial bit of order.)
So, it's Wednesday at midnight and we are all pretty pissed having given up on the non-drinking and are awaiting the arrival of the 2am crew. Dee is still painting the dance floor. Industry and hard work is occurring everywhere. The 2am crew arrive despite being pulled over by the police and having to load 12 huge tables into an already full van. Making the impossible possible has been the theme.
Thursday is megaday. Sue has clocked up over 100 brownies and loaded and unloaded the dishwasher over 50 times. Martin erects a heroic number of bell tents, clears the entrance to the barn so we can block it again and promises to look after babies. Sofas are being fixed then hauled into sofa town. Benches are being made. Jeffrey doesn't put down his power tools for the entire week. The site manager (Your Niece) is in control of every aspect of the build - from the relative minutiae of clearing of the tables after crew meals to the positioning of dancefloors to the levelling of land. Christa is wildly hoovering the Stags Dorm and Onny is making coffee after coffee while Bex strims the shit out of the garden. The quad is lumbering around completely laden with decor and tables and God knows what else. Signs are painted. Flowers are being arranged offsite by my new mother-in-law. Romantic arches are strung together out of hazel collected just moments before by my horticulturalist and her wingman. Leaves are laminated. More brownies are made. Even more ice is bought. Table plans remain unwritten.
The Tagines. 'To tagine' has been made a verb. You gave it a name Jona, Jona and Bex. An entire day and night of cooking and tasting and stirring and chopping - good God the chopping - an absolute marathon: endless sacks of veg, an unbelievable feat by Bex, Jona and Jona, Timbo, Reen and Sue. Stirring the lamb with a spoon half the size of me made by my father in order to stir the pesto he created in our garden shed while I was still a baby. Everywhere, the most meaningful of moments are happening so simultaneously I can't keep up or take it all in.
Thursday - as is traditional - we are separated for the night in preparation for the Friday grand re-union at the alter. Andy tells me this is ridiculous. But it only adds excitement. We do however meet a lot sooner than expected on Friday morning over a table full of unprepared canapes, a nail-biting bride and a huge scrawled list of jobs (to be dished out willy nilly).
Cut to 11am and someone notices me frying pepperoni. My team of wonder women take me away. A glass is put in my hand. Rollers are wound into my hair. Calming scents surround me. My sunshine Laurey gives me a facial and a crystal to clutch while I panic over my vows and whether they will get the music right at the registry office. My darling mother massages my feet and whispers soothing words while she paints my nails, sands away the callouses and scolds me for my lack of foot-care regime. Dee arrives bearing my utterly amazing, gorgeous and magical power ring. The tears begin. They don't actually stop, but rather hover behind every shaking sentence, dammed by my ear to ear grin.
Then - my God - I walk to my very own kitchen (which is completely destroyed by its being forced non-consensually into becoming an industrial kitchen which pumps out meals from dawn to dusk.) Amidst this bombsite of bottles and vegetables, my father is waiting and we make nervous chit chat over barely-sipped bubbles. I keep looking at the clock and biting my nails. "We need to be late." He tells me, a smile on his lips.
He drives me in a four by four to a room full of waiting friends, family, loved ones. As we walk in I can hardly breathe with excitement, love and overwhelming gratitude.
And speaking the words I have heard so many times in films, as I gaze into the brown eyes of my love, my best friend, my soul mate I can barely - still can't - believe how one girl could be so very lucky, so very blessed.
Saturday is a whole other story folks. So this is TO BE CONTINUED.
All my very best and endless love
Lowri Thomas Ellis Clarke
x
