When I was very young I had a clear picture of how things were going to be on my wedding day. First ingredient: a blue-eyed bridegroom. Next: myself in a white satin crinoline edged with pearls, and carrying deep red roses to match the velvet dresses of the bridesmaids. These would be a pair of merry little twins with black ringlets, green eyes and heart-shaped faces.
Well, I grew up amid a marked lack of pearl-edged crinolines and precious few merry little matched brunettes. My bridesmaids were big girls who wore lilac and my husband has hazel eyes. In real life that’s the way it goes. Furthermore, our wedding group shows me lurking somewhere behind three large ladies with shopping baskets who happened to be standing outside the church at the time.
‘Now let’s have a picture with everybody in it,’ cried the photographer and they must have taken him literally.
Nevertheless, I look back on my wedding day with fond affection. At this stage I still had a clear, unswerving picture in my mind of how it would be on honeymoon. You know how it is in daydreams – the Noel Coward stage setting in which our swain, twitching with barely concealed passion, strides masterfully out on to the starlit balcony where we – in cross-cut peach satin and silver eyeshadow – breathlessly await.
We found the address of a suitably picturesque hotel. Blissfully I collected together a gorgeous trousseau and just for a big joke I added, at the last minute, a voluminous red flannel nightgown. All the way down to Cornwall I creased myself with laughter – partly champagne-induced and partly at the prospect of the big red flannel joke to come later that evening.
(David had to work quite hard at reshaping my character in early married life. Certain aspects of my personality then must have been quite sickening.)
En route he dropped me at a below-street-level ‘Ladies’ where I shed confetti over the two dear old souls in charge of it.
‘You just got married, ducks?’ they cried. ‘Aah, i’nt that luvly,’ and they followed me up on to the pavement and gave us both a rousing cheer and a final wave. ‘It’s not everyone who gets a good send-off from a public convenience,’ said my bridegroom as we drove away. At last we reached our country hotel where mine host, in velvet jacket, was presiding benignly over a vast topside of beef and several newly wedded couples seated along the central refectory table. A log fire blazed and to make the whole scene even more super, a film director arrived with friends for a meal and there among them was Sean Connery at the next table. I caught David’s eye and smiled and he leaned towards me and whispered throbbingly in my ear:
‘Why are you sweating like that? It’s dripping off your chin. You’re not letting that Connery chap go to your head are you?’
Alas, I continued to drip into my roast beef, the room grew blurred and, with my teeth chattering like castanets, I was eventually led away to the bridal couch.
‘It’s just the aftermath of all the wedding arrangements,’ said David. ‘Try and make an effort to brace up.’
‘C-c-could you h-h-hand me my nightie,’ I stuttered. ‘Th-th-that one there – the w-w-warm r-red one.’
‘Good God!’ said David. I had a bad case of Asian ‘flu. The hoteliers were very nice about it. They brought extra blankets and grapes on a silver salver and they didn’t even mind when all that feverish sweating soaked through my red flannel nightdress and turned the bedclothes pink.
‘What a honeymoon!’ muttered David bitterly, loading his camera and trudging off out to snap seagulls. ‘I do think you might try to make a bit more effort.’
Three days later he crashed alongside and they brought in extra grapes.
I suppose we were lucky really that we had to face up to reality right at the beginning of our marriage. There was none of that: ‘My goddess, my queen, let me kiss your lovely fingertips’ which so often swiftly degenerates into: ‘Shut up hag – I’m only off to the boozer with the lads.’ With a honeymoon like ours we had to start married life with a sense of humour.
Other brides who’ve been put to the test early include the wife of the chap who said: ‘You won’t mind, will you love, if I slip away from the reception to see the Everton replay?’ Or how about: ‘I know darling – let’s just close our eyes and stick a pin in the map – hmm, yes, well I expect Slough is quite nice really.’ And, ‘Well, of course I know how to get to London Airport quickly. We’ll just drive straight to the centre of London and ask someone.’
Yet another variation on the theme is ‘Sweetheart, I’ve told you over and over again – I really didn’t know our darts team would be staying at this hotel.’
Or to get things off to a really ratty start, how about two friends of mine who actually did say: ‘I know – let’s both give up smoking on our wedding day!’ If you can weather that for starters then boy, you’ve really got a marriage going between you!
As for me, one of these days I’ll be lurking out there on that starlit balcony, all set for our long-overdue second honeymoon. And if, by then, my mate’s masterful stride is a bit doddery and my cross-cut peach satin a bit bulgy in places, well once you’ve started married life with a double dose of influenza just about anything else is going to seem like a blissful daydream.