Otherwise engaged

There comes a moment in every late twenty-something’s life, when she looks around and realises everyone is getting married.

Last weekend was my moment.

The University besties are happily hitched (you can read all about always being the bridesmaid here) but in my school friends I had hoped that we had a few years yet.

Seems not.

For on a Friday night,  whilst catching up in our favourite curry house in Wolverhampton, drinking beer from a wine glass, one friend casually said: “So, ladies, what’s the etiquette on engagement rings?”

I almost choked on my aloo gobi.

Turns out, said friend and her partner are in discussions about this very matter. And she is non too pleased with his views on the ring. “He said he was going to spend £500. I mean £500?”

Seems he doesn’t know that one to two months' salary is the norm for these matters. Although it might be worth mentioning that this norm seems to stem from De Beers' marketing department, who I’d say have a somewhat vested interest.

“Oh no I quite agree,” added another friend (apparently planning her engagement this summer) “It’s one month’s salary, or £1000: whichever is greater.”

Friend B’s fiancé to be is soon to qualify as a doctor. My advice to him is: BUY THE RING AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE before your salary sees a dramatic spike skywards.

“But how can I tell him that £500 isn’t enough, without sounding, well, like a snob?”

By now ‘soon to be doctor’s wife’ had put away several wine glasses of beer, and had the perfect response.

“Just say, (adopts sinister whisper) £500? F**k you.”

Perhaps this seems a tad on the harsh side in the sober light of day.

But my friends are not alone. Getting married is synonymous with haemorrhaging cash.

The engagement is just the beginning, for thereafter lies the interrogation about the ‘big day.’ “Will you have a big wedding?” they will ask, looking at you as if you have become a giant living cashpoint. What they mean is: will you pay for 300 people to hate your wedding dress and whisper about your back-fat?

No, I wouldn’t either. 

The average cost of a UK wedding is £21,000. £21,000. Why, oh why, would I spend 21k on a wedding, when I’m trying to buy things – like, oh let me think, a house!

Call me selfish, but the idea of eloping for a two person ceremony followed by a fabulous five star holiday sounds like a far better option to me.

Whichever way I look at it, spending 20 grand on a wedding for £2000 of John Lewis goods is bad economics. I’ll buy my own toaster, thanks.

So ladies, I’m afraid I can’t agree with you on the ring. Surely it’s just the love that counts?

Although saying that, if anyone ever buys me one from Elizabeth Duke, I might have to reconsider my position.

----

Finally, I hope you’ll allow me to close with the words of a fellow Wolverhampton-er, Caitlin Moran:

“Perhaps we should just junk the whole idea of getting married in the first place. I’m generally against anything where you’re supposed to change your name. When else do you get named something else? On joining a nunnery, or becoming a porn star. As an ostensibly joyful celebration of love, that’s pretty bad company to be in.”

If you haven’t read Caitlin Moran’s: How To Be a Woman you really should. 

Always a bridesmaid



It could, of course, have been worse.

Having been a (blushing) bridesmaid twice in the past 18 months, I am starting to feel a little panicky about the old adage.

So it was with great interest, and a slight sense of the autobiographical, that I headed to the cinema to see Bridesmaids.

I needn’t have worried. I was holding onto the seat in front, convulsing with laughter as tears streamed down my face. And, even at my young age, was considering the merits of tena ladies.

If you haven’t been to see it, then stop reading this and go immediately. It is very funny. And definitely do not judge a film by its poster. There is not a pink dress or cowboy hat in sight.

And, for anyone that has ever worried about what hideous dress their bride-to-be friend might put them in, loathed a fellow bridesmaid, or fretted over a hen-doo, it may be a little close to the bone.

I’m going to tell you a story. It is January 2010. One of my two University best friends has just gotten herself hitched. I was a bridesmaid at this wonderful wedding alongside my other university pal.

The bride and groom looked as if they were straight off the pages of a wedding magazine. The historical village church was touched with frost on an icy January morn. Save the toastmaster, who was dressed a little like a lion-tamer, it really was the most perfect and romantic occasion.

And then, just like that, I was home. Alone. In a freezing cold Scotland, with post wedding blues, January blues and blue digits.

I was in a depression worthy of Bridget Jones. My best friend was married; I was pushing 30, and definitely going to die alone surrounded by cats. This was especially distressing given that I really hate cats.

And so, on a bleak January evening, as I ate my pasta and pesto dinner (did I mention I was also having the broke-as-hell-blues?) my phone rang. It was University best friend number 2. I joked to my flatmate, ‘If she’s calling to tell me she’s engaged, I’m probably going to have to kill myself.’

Luckily for everyone I am prone to exaggeration.

And so I empathised somewhat with Annie, as Lil, her old and dear friend announced her engagement. Panic. ‘I’m feeling a bit hot’, said Annie as Lil flashed her rock. Annie must whoop and hug with delight, but in her heart, she is horrified by Lillian's disloyalty at leaving her behind in the dismal pit of spinsterhood.

NB: (as they may be reading) being bridesmaid for my best friends was a delight and an honour. I still maintain that there is something intrinsically strange about dressing adults in the same clothes, but it was moving, special and an utter pleasure.

But, as anyone who has ever been a bridesmaid will know, that there is something about someone else's impending marriage that makes your existence seem second best.

In this brilliant film, even the married bridesmaids – those who have attained the great prize – instantly become disenchanted with their lives. A gentle bridesmaid, newly married, confesses her discontent with never having sex. A bridesmaid mother confesses her horror at sharing the house with three teenage sons "There's semen everywhere. One blanket actually cracked", and at her husband's insatiable conjugal needs, "I just want to watch the Daily Show once without him entering me".

I spat my malteasers clean out.

There is vomiting, there is drunkenness, there are jokes about sex, (all of which featured in my own bridesmaid experiences) but at its heart this is a lovely little film about friendship, and what it means to be female.

This film is not clichéd or lazy. It is witty and honest, providing a refreshingly true portrayal of what it is to be a modern woman; not one of the dreadful vacuous chick flick stereotypes that we have come to know and hate in so many films of recent years, but one of the lass who is suffering frostbite in Scotland whilst her best friends are getting hitched left right and centre.

Luckily for us, reality has made its way into this Hollywood movie.

Unfortunately the reality is that many of us are just one engagement away from a breakdown.

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Sophia, this one is all about you.


Take an English castle, buckets of romance, an unseasonably sunny Saturday, a stunning ivory frock, sniffles in the church and inappropriate jokes in a speech.

Sounds like a right Royal Wedding.

Of course I am delighted for Miss Middleton, but this weekend, it was about a slightly more local breed of celebrity. The wedding of my dear friend, Sophia Potter.

She was complaining this weekend (it was her wedding day, she’s allowed to be demanding) that she had not yet featured in my blog. Well, Potter (now Ridley) – this one is for you.

I have just spent the weekend at a wedding that would not seem out of place in Jane Austen. But think slightly less demure women, more free-styling on the dance-routines and a few additional jager-bombs.

As a bridesmaid at said event, I am delighted to report that Sophia just about managed to stay on the right side of bride-zilla.

There were no hideous peach dresses, no ‘table-plan’ parties and no ridiculous demands.

Why do even normal girls go so gaga over weddings? It is beyond me. Even my sensible friends have done strange things, like growing their always-short hair long so it looks ‘weddingy’ in the shockingly expensive photos. The whole thing is a giant, frothy white puzzle that I just can’t crack.

A friend’s sister has even put limitations on the colour her skin can be for the wedding day. No sunshine or (horror) fake bake permitted for any of the bridesmaids, lest they upstage her golden hues. Best get inside and cover up then huh?

Sophia’s wedding was, of course, absolutely wonderful. Grand and ancient church, a vision of white floating down the aisle, dramatically throwing the bouquet over her shoulder and cutting into a giant cake. (I feel I should add that the wedding cake was made entirely of cheese. Not a cheesecake, you understand. A cake made of cheese.)

She even had Royal Wedding Top Trumps on the tables for the Wedding Breakfast, (meaning dinner, served at tea time) which she had blagged for free, pre-release from the publishers. Bravo, Money Saving Madam doth salute you.

She did the big day with style, grace and a drink in her hand.

However, I’m not entirely sure that The Big Day is for me. Maybe it’s a money thing. Maybe it’s media saturation (did you know that there are whole TV channels devoted to weddings now?). Or maybe it’s celebrities.  I mean, what on earth were Katy and Russell doing with those elephants and tigers and turbans?

I am happy to be proved wrong, but at this moment, the selfish notion of eloping for a two person ceremony followed by a fabulous five star holiday sounds like a far better option to me. I’ll buy my own toaster, thanks.

Sophia was slightly worried that one of my earliest posts, I don't was aimed at her. Well my dear, I did warn my engaged friends to look away, and Money Saving Madam has a duty to her readers to state the costs associated with attending these grand affairs.

But my dear, it was worth every penny. It was a magical weekend.

I do however have Potter-Ridley commemorative mugs available for sale.