‘Where are you off to?’ Paddy asked, as he pored over Saturday’s Irish Times, which he had spread out on the kitchen table.
‘I’m going looking for bridesmaid dresses with the girls,’ explained Helen, who was already dressed and ready for today’s big shopping expedition. Amy, organized as ever, had worked out quite an itinerary of places to go and emailed them to her, Jess and Ciara. ‘Amy’s meeting us in town.’
‘It’s a nightmare!’ Fran had warned her. ‘There’ll be blood and tears before the day is out! Katie and Lisa and the two other bridesmaids we had, Tina and Mary, were like lunatics . . . it was so embarrassing in the shops. I kept trying to pretend that I wasn’t with them. Most of the stuff is awful – you wouldn’t put it on a cat – so you can’t blame them for not wanting to try it on.’
Helen hoped Fran was exaggerating. She thought it would be fun to go shopping for the bridesmaid dresses with her two daughters and Jess, who was generally very affable and easy-going. For the past few months she had pored over bridal magazines like Wedding Day, Bride, Beautiful Brides, Your Wedding and The Irish Bride. She loved reading them and studying various styles of weddings. It had become almost an obsession, and she enjoyed looking at the photos and menus and reading about the different bridal dramas and problems.
She had showed photos of some dresses to Ciara, who had pretended not to look at them, and she had even caught Paddy glancing at the magazines, and been glad that he was showing some interest, despite his constant grousing about the wedding costs being way over budget.
‘Ciara, get up!’ she shouted up to her younger daughter. ‘I told Amy and Jess we’d meet them in town in about half an hour.’
She immersed herself in the weekend magazine supplement as Ciara appeared in a long grey T-shirt and a pair of Simpsons’ socks. Her black hair was in a tangle, her eyes still sleepy as she filled a bowl with yogurt and muesli.
‘I’m meant to be studying,’ complained Ciara.
‘You can study tomorrow,’ suggested Helen, worried as her younger daughter had been off-form over the past few weeks, and still looked washed-out.
‘I wish that I didn’t have to go!’ Ciara sighed heavily. ‘I don’t want to be a crappy bridesmaid and wear a stupid dress.’
They had been over this umpteen times. ‘That is why Amy wants you and Jess to choose exactly what you’d like,’ Helen said firmly, putting her mug in the dishwasher. ‘She’s keen you’ll both be happy with your dresses.’
Ciara yawned.
‘Ciara, I want you showered and ready to go in a few minutes,’ Helen bossed, not brooking any more objections. ‘The wedding is only four months away and you need to get a dress.’
When they got into town, Amy and Jess were already in the Powerscourt Centre, busy looking at the huge range of bridesmaid dresses on display.
Helen took a deep breath; there were literally hundreds of styles. Where should they begin?
‘I think we should start with a style first, and then see about a colour,’ suggested Amy, who was brimming over with enthusiasm.
‘I’m not wearing pink,’ Ciara said stubbornly.
‘We’ll see,’ said Amy, ignoring her younger sister’s objections.
‘We can go long, mid-length or shorter and just above the knee,’ Helen said.
‘I haven’t got great legs,’ admitted Jess. ‘I’m not really a dress type of person.’
‘OK, then let’s start with these.’ Amy and a shop assistant picked out four floor-length dresses in various styles and colours, asking the two girls what size they were. Ciara was a standard size ten but Helen pitied poor Jess, who said she needed a sixteen, but ended up having to try on an eighteen. Amy sent the girls into the dressing rooms with the dresses.
‘I’m not coming out in this,’ shouted Ciara. ‘It’s awful.’
Peering in between the curtains, Amy and Helen had to agree the long mauve silk dress did nothing for her. It looked like a nightdress, swamping her skinny frame.
Jess looked marginally better, although the full length and material added pounds, and made her look even plumper.
‘Try this gold empire style,’ suggested Amy, passing them each another dress.
Emerging from the dressing rooms, Ciara and Jess burst out laughing in unison: they both looked pregnant.
‘I don’t think a long length does anything for the girls,’ suggested Helen. ‘Maybe they should try on something a bit simpler and less fussy.’
‘I love the colour of this dress,’ said Jess, appearing in an oyster-coloured silk knee-length with a lovely swing to the skirt. ‘But the bust is far too small for me.’
Helen laughed, as Jess was literally bursting out of it.
The dress fitted Ciara perfectly but made her look as if she needed to go to the doctor for severe anaemia.
‘The colour is barf!’ she said, sticking her tongue out.
An hour later they had exhausted every possibility in the shop and hadn’t found a single dress that either girl liked or fitted into properly.
‘Let’s try Coast!’ suggested Amy. ‘They do great cocktail, dinner and party wear.’
Coast, up on Stephen’s Green, was busy, but they bagged a sales assistant and a dressing room. Helen found a comfortable seat from which to survey the proceedings. There were racks of pretty dresses, she thought. They were bound to find something here.
Ciara liked a grey fitted cocktail dress with a tight skirt.
‘I’d never fit into that,’ pleaded Jess.
‘Anyway, the two of you are not wearing grey, black or brown to my wedding,’ insisted Amy, as she trawled through the displays.
‘This pale pink with the floral hem is very popular for weddings this year,’ said the assistant, ‘and also lots of people are going for this red with the white tie bow for their bridesmaids.’
Amy didn’t really want her bridesmaids dressed like everyone else, but agreed to the girls trying them on.
Ciara looked fabulous in the red, with her long mane of dark hair and pale skin. Even though you wouldn’t have expected it to, it suited her Goth style.
Jess emerged from the dressing room puce with effort. ‘I can’t even get the zip up,’ she explained. ‘There’s no give or stretch. There’s no way I’ll fit into the bloody thing.’
‘That’s the largest we have,’ said the assistant loudly, embarrassing Jess even more.
‘But I like the red,’ said Ciara, getting stroppy.
‘Well, you’re not having it,’ snapped Amy, putting the red dresses back.
‘Why don’t we take a break and all go for a coffee?’ Helen said diplomatically, sensing the heated atmosphere and leading them over to the café upstairs overlooking the Green.
‘Well, at least we know now,’ she ventured, sipping her frothy cappuccino, ‘that the girls don’t suit floor-length and that we need a material with a bit of softness and give in it for Jess, nothing too tailored. There’re bound to be loads of places that have lovely dresses.’
‘One of the teachers in my school got married last August, and got her bridesmaid dresses in Monsoon. They looked lovely in the photos,’ Jess ventured. ‘It’s only down the street, so maybe we could have a look there.’
The Monsoon dresses were beautiful – full of colour and detail and sparkling beadwork – but were a little bit too ethnic-looking to Amy’s mind.
They tried the other high-street stores like Laura Ashley and Next and found nothing suitable. One sample dress in one of the big stores was so dirty-looking that Ciara refused to put it on. ‘I’d get a disease from that!’ she said, pointing out the grease and make-up and sweat-stains that spoiled the plum-coloured satin shift.
Footsore and weary, they soldiered on, crossing the Liffey to Arnotts and Clerys, at both shops drawing a blank.
‘Some of the dresses are so fussy,’ complained Amy. ‘Why can’t someone design a simple bridesmaid-style dress that comes in two lengths and a huge range of colours that everyone would wear? It’s not rocket science, surely!’
‘This is torture,’ complained Ciara, downing tools and sitting on a stool. Helen could see that Jess was about to join in the protest, too, so she suggested feeding the troops at the nearest fast-food outlet.
‘We can go to the Food Emporium,’ coaxed Amy. ‘We can get everything we want there, and eat quickly, and get back out shopping.’
Thirty minutes later, revived, they set off again, this time deciding to hit three bridal boutiques in the city centre.
Pink, pink, and more pink and plum was all they seemed to offer.
‘I’m not wearing any of them,’ swore Ciara, as she pulled on a blossom-pink off-the-shoulder ballet-style dress.
‘You used to have something like that when you were younger,’ Helen remembered.
‘We had matching ones,’ Amy joked. ‘I was about eleven or twelve and Ciara was four or five! We were like two ballerina girls!’
‘I think the colour drains me,’ said Jess, pirouetting in the mirror.
God give me patience, thought Helen. Her feet were killing her. She suspected she was getting a blister and she didn’t know how much more of this trying-on she could take. Anything that suited one bridesmaid seemed to look awful on the other, and the things the girls liked Amy didn’t! They were never going to find dresses.
By late afternoon they were back up on Grafton Street searching in Brown Thomas to see if they could find something suitable. The dresses were certainly different, and Amy insisted on picking out a rich heavy satin emerald-green dress with a wide full skirt from the expensive Italian designer collection.
‘Try these on,’ she barked, ordering the girls to the dressing rooms.
Helen couldn’t believe it when the dresses actually suited the girls, and fitted them both. The colour wasn’t what they had been looking for, but with Ciara’s black hair and pale skin it looked really well and it made Jess’s fair hair and skin glow, and her brown eyes look sparkling and enormous.
‘I like this,’ Jess said, twirling around confidently. ‘It’s a real party dress.’
‘I don’t. I feel like I should be doing Irish dancing in it,’ complained Ciara, doing a bit of a jig.
Helen tried not to laugh at her antics as Jess copied her.
‘I’m too tired to try on any more!’ Ciara said defiantly, pulling her jeans and boots back on. ‘I’m going home, and I don’t care what you say, Amy, I’m not putting on one more thing.’
‘Please, Ciara!’ begged Amy. ‘The shops don’t shut for another twenty minutes.’
‘I told you, I’m going!’
‘It is getting late,’ Helen reminded Amy. ‘We can always try somewhere else another day. Lots of people go out of Dublin, or you can order online. Anna’s girls got their dresses for Sheena’s wedding from some website in America, and they looked lovely.’
‘But we don’t even know what suits them or fits them or what colour to get!’ said Amy, exasperated. ‘So how could we possibly order something online?’
‘It was only an idea!’
‘Listen, Amy, I’m going to the cinema at seven thirty so I need to go now, too,’ Jess said, grabbing her bag. ‘Your mum is right. There are lots of other places to try. I think that there is a big wedding place in Swords and Malahide, and there are some great shops in Kildare. When Deirdre got married we got a dressmaker to make the bridesmaids’ dresses.’
Amy couldn’t hide her disappointment.
‘Your dad will be wondering where I am.’ Helen laughed, trying to defuse the awkward atmosphere. ‘I promised I’d make a curry as Ronan and Krista are coming over.’
‘We’ll have to go looking for the dresses after work on Thursday, and then maybe again next Saturday,’ Amy insisted doggedly.
‘Sorry, but I’ve a teachers’ meeting on Thursday night,’ Jess apologized.
‘And I’m working on Saturday,’ said Ciara.
‘Well then, we’ll go the following week and I’ll book the appointments.’
Ciara gave a groan of protest at the thought of even more shopping.
Jess threw her a look of sympathy as she said goodbye.
‘Why don’t you and Dan come to dinner, too?’ Helen asked her elder daughter, noticing how tired and stressed she looked. ‘There’s lots and I have poppadums and chutney and the works. It would be nice, all of us together.’
‘Mum, I’ve too much to do,’ Amy replied fiercely. ‘Dan and I are sorting out the guest list, which is a fecking nightmare, and going through the menus from the caterers.’
‘Maybe you could do that afterwards or tomorrow?’
‘Mum, do you realize how many things there are to do for a wedding? Dan is out three nights a week, and I work late one or two nights. I need to catch him at the weekends if we are ever going to get things planned properly.’
‘Amy, love, it will all sort itself out. Honestly, weddings just come together,’ she advised. ‘You want to enjoy it. It’s such a happy time for you both.’
‘It won’t happen without a lot of work and effort, Mum!’ said Amy grimly.