Amy and Dan had been arguing half the night over the stupid guest list, Amy insisting that she wanted to invite about a dozen of her closest school friends to her wedding.
‘That means twenty-four people,’ said Dan ominously. ‘If we are having one hundred people between us you have used up almost a quarter of the quota on your school friends, some of whom you haven’t seen for years. You have to cut them back.’
‘They are the girls who shared the most important time in my life and were always there for me,’ she reasoned. ‘Not like your seven surf buddies, who will probably bring a partner each. You’ve only got to know them in the past three years, and only see them sporadically.’
‘They are my friends,’ he shouted. ‘I’m not keeping a clock on how long I’ve known them! You know they are the guys I hang out with!’
‘I started school with some of those girls!’
‘You want to have people from college and work, too!’ he kept on. ‘There’s Jilly. She didn’t invite you to her wedding! And Norah; you are always giving out about Norah.’
‘Everyone gives out about their boss, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t want them to be there on their big day.’
‘Well, I’m not inviting my boss or the partners from my firm.’
‘There are at least fifty partners in your firm,’ Amy retorted, getting annoyed with him.
It was stupid, because they were both sociable and had lots of friends from different parts of their lives. It was just whittling them down to the final few that was causing the rifts.
‘Why have you put Laura on the list?’ Amy went on.
‘Laura and I have been friends since I was five years old.’
‘She’s an ex-girlfriend.’
‘We were only fourteen when we went out!’ Dan protested. ‘Don’t be so stupid, Amy! I thought you liked Laura?’
‘I do,’ she grudgingly admitted. Blonde, beautiful Laura O’Reilly was a next-door neighbour of the Quinns, and had been around, floating in and out of Dan’s life, for years. ‘But she’s an ex.’
‘Look, my parents will invite the O’Reillys, so I feel I should invite her, too,’ he explained logically.
Amy sighed. She had a guest list file set up on her laptop, but no matter how many times she went over and over it with Dan they just couldn’t seem to reach an agreement on all the names. Apparently Carmel Quinn was in a fury about the numbers she’d been given, and Amy’s mum and dad – with so many brothers and sisters – were finding it really hard to decide which of the cousins they should invite. The whole thing was a nightmare, and Amy just wished they could make some sort of decision. Dan felt that their friends who were in pretty permanent relationships should be allowed to bring their partners, but that others – who were just on and off dating or seeing someone – should come on their own. It would cause ructions, but it probably was the only solution.
Dan was in a bad mood the next morning, and barely spoke to her when they were getting ready for work. She kept silent, too. They seemed to be constantly fighting about ‘the wedding’ or ‘the guest list’ or something stupid! Amy had never seen Dan in such bad form since they’d met and hoped his grumpy mood would blow over.
Norah was out of the office for most of the day, so Amy managed to get a chance to run down through all the names again. She phoned Jess and Sarah to see what they thought about it.
‘I wouldn’t expect you to ask my boyfriend if I was just dating someone between now and the wedding,’ Jess declared. ‘And I’m sure most of the girls will understand.’
‘We invited a few friends with the people they were dating to our wedding,’ admitted Sarah. ‘We all knew they wouldn’t last, and they all broke up literally a few weeks later. Do you remember Fiona and Terry? They broke up two days after! It was such a waste of an invite, as there were lots of other people we would have loved to ask!’
Realizing Dan was right, Amy took a few more names off their list. Also, seven of her school friends coming to the wedding was enough; apart from Faye, who lived in America now, they were the ones she saw the whole time. She managed to cull a few more people and emailed the changes to Dan immediately, before she could change her mind.
‘Good work,’ he emailed back. She reminded him they had an appointment that evening with a wedding film company in Leeson Street. She had searched the internet and they seemed to be one of the best. It cost a fortune to have a wedding filmed, but she wanted a memento to keep for the rest of their lives.
Dan was bored as they sat watching bits of other couples’ wedding DVDs. Gerry Henderson explained how he worked and what equipment he used and where he set up his cameras.
‘We have two in the church, as it makes it easier to get everything on film.’
‘And more expensive,’ muttered Dan, studying the price list.
‘We are not shooting a movie where we can say “take one, take two”,’ explained Gerry. ‘So we have only the one chance to capture something on film, whether it is the two of you walking down the aisle, or greeting your friends, or putting rings on each other’s fingers.’ Amy could understand it, but Dan was still sceptical, given the costs involved.
‘We are very heavily booked already,’ pressed Gerry. ‘As your wedding is only three months away we would need to put it in our books now.’
‘Dan, we need to choose a photographer, too,’ Amy said, as they walked out, having failed to decide whether to use Gerry or not. ‘Most of them are open on a Saturday. There’s one in Dalkey and one in Sandycove, and Mum said the one who did Fran’s daughter Katie’s wedding was great and pretty reasonable. He’s up in Dundrum.’
‘I’m busy next Saturday,’ Dan said obstinately ‘I’ve got a tear in my wetsuit so I need to buy a new one. I’ll go out to Wind and Wave in Monkstown to try and get one there. Afterwards I’m meeting the lads in Gleeson’s for lunch and to watch the big Manchester United match.’
Amy bit her tongue. He’d be gone for the whole day! She was about to explode at him, because he seemed to think that he was still single . . . OK, technically he was, but he should be equally involved in organizing the wedding.
‘Look, I’ll come to the marine shop with you,’ she said stubbornly, ‘then we can run out quickly to Dalkey and Sandycove to have a look at the photographers. I’ll call over to Mum’s on Saturday, too, and ask Fran if I can have a look at Katie’s wedding album while you’re watching the match, and hopefully then we can decide.’
‘Amy, why can’t you just choose a photographer and bloody book him!’ Dan said, totally uninterested. ‘I don’t give a rat’s ass!’
‘Well, I do,’ she said stubbornly, not wanting to let him off the hook.