Bridenstein

It all started when I turned 29. I looked around at all my friends- most of them were engaged, married or pregnant- or all of the above- and here I was, living separately from my boyfriend of five years (cos that’s the way we liked it) spending our money as we pleased and all of that. My tales of travelling for weekends away, shopping for shoes and going out on the town fell on deaf ears. It seemed all my friends wanted to talk about was the size of their engagement ring/ their wedding/ the baby/ the new house and trips to Ikea. Buying shoes and travelling were no longer of interest.

I could tell people were speculating about our relationship. My parents, my family and friends, were constantly asking whether we’d bought a ring yet. I would snap at them that we were taking our time- but really, we just weren’t thinking about it. But with each question and each hint I started to scrutinize my life against those of my peers.

I began to wonder- ‘was I really happy? Shouldn’t I be married, planning, where was I supposed to be? Where was I headed? What was I doing?

As me and my man sat on the couch I asked him:

‘Where are we going with this?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well look at our friends, they are all getting married or having kids or whatever...’

‘Is this what you want?’

‘Yes, I think so’

‘Well if it’s what you want, then let’s do it!’

‘Really?’

‘Is that you proposing?’

‘Well I’ll do it properly when I get the chance’ he said, he gave me a huge kiss.

He did do it properly, a week later, he went down on one knee in the local pub. It was a cringeworthy attempt at romance.

I was relaxed at first- thinking everyone would stay off our backs after the engagement was announced, but a new type of quizzing started:

‘Are you taking his second name?’

‘Have you set a date?’

‘How long do you think you’ll wait before having kids?’

And then the wedding questions-

‘What venue have you picked?’

‘Have you got the rings picked?’

‘Who are your bridesmaids?’

‘Who is doing the flowers?’

And it just went on and on. It started out as a simple wedding with thirty people, and ended up turning into this monster- my Mum would ring and ask me if I’d remembered to invite Auntie Mary and then another and another. ‘We’ll she’d be offended if she didn’t get at least an invite to the reception’.

That was when the wedding fever set-in. I felt my head spinning- well meaning friends recommending bands- ‘I’m thinking of Ocean Blue’ I said to my friend Jenny, ‘Oh no, Ocean Blue aren’t great, go for The Jangles, they’re much better’. ‘The Jangles?’ ‘Yea, definitely’.

The stress of it.

I started planning to the point of ridiculousness, every detail . I wanted it to be ‘traditional yet memorable’. These were the two words that I kept in mind as I researched everything. The money kept totting up and going up and up. We would have to borrow through the hilt for this.

I didn’t care, I was becoming Bridenstein- it was horrendous- so much to arrange, dress fittings, bridesmaids dresses, photographers, cameramen- I realised that it was taking over my life.

My relationship with my hubbie to be began to feel the strain as we argued about seating plans and wedding bands.

‘Your aunt Blanche smells of wee, nobody wants to sit beside her’ I said.

‘Don’t say that about Blanchie’.

‘It’s true, I can’t put her near my family’

‘Well, I’m sorry if my family offends you’.

We bickered constantly, with my manic wedding planning- our sex life went out the window, we couldn’t afford to go anywhere or do anything,

So finally, there we were, that fateful morning. My dress wouldn’t fit. I started to hyperventilate. My bridesmaids tried to calm me down. One of them passed me a glass of champagne. As I drank it I began to feel calmer.

The words ‘husband and wife’ weren’t making me feel physically sick any more.

I grabbed another champagne flute. The photographer snapped away, as I knocked back another glass. The bubbles were starting to make my bodice expand so I demanded a glass of white wine, which was duly brought for me. I ignored the concerned glances my five bridesmaids were giving each other. I needed this. This fucking wedding had stressed me to the point of insanity, and I wasn’t enjoying any of it- squez into my dress, pins sticking into my head, eyelashes being glued onto my eyelids, makeup being constantly fiddled with, being pulled and dragged out of with people fussing around me. This wasn’t my wedding- this was not me. This was not ME. I’m the most laid back person I know, the most blaze person i know.

I felt more like myself the more I drank.

The girls refused to give me any more alcohol so I disappeared into the living room and snuck a few swigs of the vodka in the drinks cabinet. It didn’t really taste like vodka, but i carried on.

By the time we got to the church I was drunk as a skunk. My bridesmaids looked on in horror as I nearly killed myself on my train. They had tried to load me up with coffee and other water, tried to make me sick but it didn’t work- in fact, I had drank Poitin and the water made me drunker. The aisle looked 100 miles long. I could see my fantastic boyfriend at the end of it and I started to feel nauseous. I just about managed to keep my bile down. The smell of the flowers, the smell of the incense (I hadn’t set foot in a church in ten years), the look of expectation quickly turning to horror and shock on the faces of the people lining the aisles. I carried on swaying up the aisle, the smell of booze reeking from every pore. I managed to reach the pulpit and gave my darling a skewed, drunken smile. His jaw literally dropped. My droopy eyes swept towards the priest- his face was like thunder.

‘Please step to one side’ he said.

I stepped to one side, just about.

‘Are you drunk?  ’he hissed, his furious red face contrasting highly against his white hair, and making me giggle like a nervous schoolgirl.

‘I’ve had one’ I said, I turned around and winked at my hubby to be.

‘I think you’ve had more than one young lady, you should be ashamed of yourself to step into God’s house in such a state and claim to make your solemn vows before him-you are an utter disgrace’.

I was taken aback.

He stood up at the pulpit and his voice boomed and echoed around the room.

‘I’m afraid I am unable to perform the ceremony today, the bride lacks the capacity to give her consent to this marriage due to the fact that she is absolutely ossified’. He shut his bible with a snap and disappeared leaving an atmosphere of utter confusion and horror in his wake.

My husband to be stood up on the pulpit and apologised.

‘I’m afraid my fiancée has had a little too much to drink, we will meet you all back at the reception’.

They all started to file out of the church.

I passed out after that.

I remember waking up being carried over the threshold of the bedroom, and immediately getting up to vomit.

I collapsed in my beautiful dress beside the toilet. Graham came in to me and loosened my bodice and held my hair to allow me to vomit.

Nothing says I love you to a woman like a man holding her hair while she gets sick. It is the most unutterably romantic thing.

‘I’m so sorry’ I mumbled.

He laughed. He stroked my head.

‘Come to bed’ he said. He helped me out of my ivory prison, he pulled the pins out of my hair and it flowed down my back. He brought me over to the bed and he held me.

‘What is everyone going to say?’

‘They’re delighted’ he laughed, ‘they got to skip the boring church bit and got straight onto the drinking and eating bit- don’t you mind that. How many boring weddings have we been to? All we want to do is see the bride and get to the reception’.

‘True’, I laughed.

‘Well they got to do that- this is the most perfect wedding ever! As usual, it is all about the guests, and very little to do with the actual bride and groom’.

I laughed- he was so right. They were all enjoying a drink on me.

I slept off the worst of the drunkenness before making my way downstairs.

I insisted that the meal and the party would go ahead.

‘I decided to make my speech.

‘I really must apologise to everyone here for what happened today. I was suffering from nerves and as you probably had guessed. In the frenzy of the past few months I actually lost sight of what marriage was about- a solid relationship. It should not be this hard to say to the world’

 I turned to him and pulled him to his feet-

‘I love you, I love you more than I could ever imagine loving anyone, and I know that we will be together forever, and we will be happy together forever, and we can do it our way, and do it all in our own time and that’s okay’.

I heard a whimper as my mother let out a sob. I could see real emotions in the eyes of everyone in the room.

‘That is all I wanted to say, it is so simple- I just wanted everyone to know it’.

Then, we kissed.

The whole room erupted in applause.

We spent the whole evening dancing and singing, enjoying our families. The food was really nice- the most expensive feckin meal I’ve ever eaten.

We did eventually get that bit of paper.  Four years later after we’d backpacked around the world had lots of fun and built a house together I fell pregnant, I found out just before we flew out to Las Vegas. We were delighted and terrified.

‘Let’s make it official’ Graham said.

‘What?’

‘Let’s make this baby legit’

I laughed nervously.

‘Don’t be scared’ he said, ‘I know a way to take an edge off the nerves’.

We got married in the Little White Chapel dressed as Marilyn and Elvis and drove off in a pink Cadillac to our cheesy hotel room to consummate our marriage.

Of course, the baby would get the other version of the wedding, without the vomiting of course.