Don't Tell the Groom (13 page)

‘So what you're saying is that Mark needs to come and meet you for us to get married here?'

‘That is exactly what I'm saying. As fun as it must seem with you organising this thing on your own, the actual marriage is a sacred vow and should not be part of the fun. That is the part of the day that your wedding is all about. That half an hour will change your life. Not the dinner you eat afterwards or the amount you dance. That half an hour and those vows you take are what starts your whole journey of marriage.'

I feel about the size of a two-year-old.

‘Can I call Mark and get him to come?'

‘If he's quick. We've got an Alpha course here at eight.'

‘OK, I'll make him hurry. Before I call him, can I just check that you're free on our date? I don't want to get him all the way here and be disappointed,' I say. I would hate to see Mark be upset about the one part of the wedding he's actually chosen.

‘Very well,' he says, opening the large black book he had wedged under his arm. ‘What date were you looking at, Penelope?'

‘The 18th of May.'

‘Next year?' he asks.

‘This year,' I just about squeak.

Reverend Phillips is not very good at hiding what he is thinking; his disapproval seems to be written all over his face.

‘Right. Well, you seem to be in luck. We have a wedding at 1 p.m. and then the rest of the day is free thanks to a cancellation at 3 p.m.,' he says.

‘Perfect! I mean, not perfect that someone had to cancel their wedding, but great news there is space for us!' Blimey, does anyone have a shovel to dig me out of this hole? This is all too good to be true. Both the church and the museum have the same date free. It couldn't possibly be this smooth-running, could it?

‘Can you tell me how much it is going to cost?' I ask.

‘It costs three hundred and fifty pounds. Then by the time you've added the wedding licenses and the charges for an organist, it will probably come to about four hundred pounds.'

Wow, that was a lot less than I was expecting. My mouth is agape in surprise. A good surprise, for a change.

‘And what about the marriage classes and the reading of the banns?' I ask. Surely they have to get you somehow.

‘The marriage classes are free and the banns certificate costs twenty-five pounds.'

‘That's such a bargain.'

Oh, I didn't mean to say that out loud.

‘Yes, it is,' says Reverend Phillips, sighing. ‘Now go and call your fiancé and we can talk about this seriously.'

I nod and run out of the church as quick as my little legs can take me to find a mobile signal to call Mark.

The next night I'm so excited that we have the church and the reception booked on the same day. Now I'm into full-on wedding planning mode.

If only I'd known sooner that it was cheaper to get married in a church than at a registry office. And we get a marriage preparation class thrown in for that, which makes it an absolute bargain. So with the seventy-five pounds we've saved by getting married in a church, I've decided to plough on with the invitations. We've just got the teeny tiny matter of sorting out the guest list first so that I know how many invites to order.

Mark and I are currently sitting on opposite sides of the room. It's like pistols at dawn. We're on about round three of drawing up our lists. We're both writing down the guests that we want to invite and then we swap pieces of paper. From there we get to challenge and veto each other's choices.

It's going pretty well so far. I've told Mark that we're only having eighty people as that will give the wedding a more intimate feel, and we've managed to shave fifteen people off
our first attempt at the guest list. Now we've only got to get rid of six more people.

‘What about Sheila and Tony?' I say, reading Mark's almost indecipherable handwriting.

‘They're my godparents.'

‘Yes, but do we ever see them?'

‘We see them at my parents' house on Christmas Eve every year.'

‘Oh, that's
those
people.'

So that's who they are. I'm not usually that rubbish with names, but Mark thought it was a good idea to take me home to meet his family for the first time on Christmas Eve five years ago. There were just so many of his relatives and family friends there that I couldn't take everyone in. And Sheila and Tony, as I now know they are, had introduced themselves to me and of course I promptly forgot what they'd told me. And now every Christmas Eve they embrace me like I'm their long-lost daughter and I have no clue who they are. But now I do. And so I suppose they'll have to stay on the list.

‘What about Kate and Sylvie?' asks Mark.

‘They have to come. I lived with them at university.'

‘And when was the last time you saw them?'

I wriggle in my chair. So I haven't seen them for a few years, but that's not what counts, is it, with old friends? I'm sure they'd invite me to their wedding, wouldn't they?

‘If you can't remember when you last saw them then they can't come.'

Gosh, Mark is being bossy tonight. It's quite a turn-on. I wonder if instead of the invitations we could go upstairs and, you know, practise for when we want to start stage six.

‘I know! They came to our Halloween party, when they were dressed as sailors.'

‘That wasn't Halloween. That was the nautical-themed birthday party you had for your twenty-fifth. So four years ago.'

Bugger. So it looks like Kate and Sylvie are off the invite list.

‘OK, what about NV I've never even heard of a friend called NV,' I say.

‘That's Nanny Violet. You're not suggesting we don't invite her?'

‘Of course not.' Stupid Mark and his stupid abbreviations.

‘Look, we've only got four more to go. And don't forget some people might not be able to come and then we'd be able to invite these people in reserve.'

‘OK,' I say, looking at the list. ‘What about Pam and Ben?'

‘Ben's an old family friend.'

‘Did you go to his wedding?'

‘No, but his wedding was in Scotland.'

‘Doesn't matter. If he didn't invite you, you don't have to invite them.'

Mark wrinkles his nose. Ha, I had him there. It seems he's met his match.

‘Fine,' he says. ‘Just two more to go.'

‘What about Mike and Amanda?' I ask, looking at his list. I'm quite surprised that he even put them down. They're his boss and his wife. ‘Can't you just invite them to the evening? You know he always makes you nervous.'

‘I guess that's true.'

It was. They came round to dinner once and Mark was so nervous that he developed a funny little laugh that sounded like he'd inhaled a helium balloon. It was not a fun evening.

‘Great. Then that's that. Eighty guests.'

Wow, we did it. At this rate we are going to be well within my budget.

All I have to do now is design the invitation. I've already bookmarked a cheap-as-chips online printer. They have these handy templates, so I just need to make a few personal tweaks, and
voilà
, we have invitations. Although we don't have actual invitations yet as I'm being tight and we have to wait for twenty-one days for delivery. But hey, sometimes it says they'll ship faster, so fingers crossed. And they will still be here more than six weeks before the wedding.

I might send everyone a quick little email to let them know the actual date, just to be on the safe side.

I look at the PDF version of the invitation and I can't help
but smile. To be in keeping with the ‘don't tell the groom' theme, they've only got the church details listed. It simply says ‘Reception to follow'. I'll pop a little printed card in with it, with the details of the nearest hotels to the museum (once I've researched them), and I'll let them know that it is only a fifteen-minute drive from the church to the reception.

Somehow seeing the time and location of our actual marriage ceremony underneath our names is making it all seem so real. In three months Mark and I will be husband and wife. It's so close now that I feel I can reach out and grab it. I've just got to make sure I don't do anything else stupid to mess it up.

I can't believe that two whole weeks have gone by since I booked the wedding venue and the church and made the invitations. That is
all
I have done. But those are the most important bits, right? We are actually getting married and we have somewhere to go after and our guests will know about it thanks to the invites, all for the princely sum of £932. I'm going to gloss over the fact that we don't have anything to eat, to listen to, or for me and Mark to wear. But that's fine. I've got well over two months to deal with those little details.

‘Bye, Betty. See you next week.' I wave as Betty walks off to the bus stop. She's got her son and her grandchildren coming to lunch at her house today so she can't stop with the other ladies for coffee after our Saturday club.

For once I'm not rushing off to make it look like I'm back
from Zumba. I've told Mark that I'm taking Lou to see the venue and for the first time in ages, when it comes to the wedding, I'm not lying.

It has taken me a long time to get Lou to come and see the venue. We've both been very busy lately, me with my ‘work' aka secret wedding plans and Lou with … well, she has been really vague with what she has been up to.

I've been very secret squirrel with Lou. I haven't told her anything about where she's coming to meet me. I sent her a text with the postcode an hour ago in the hope that she'd just put it in her sat nav and not Google it first.

I want her to be as blown away by the venue as I was without having any preconceived notions. I sort of want it to be a test of what the other guests will make of it when they get here.

I'm just keeping my fingers and toes crossed that she likes it as much as I do and that I didn't get carried away because it was the nicest place I could afford. I'm doubting my judgement more than I used to; after all, I did spend £10,000 on bingo to buy a dress that would have cost me maybe £3,000 and a pair of shoes that would have cost me £550. I know I've said that maths is not my strong point, but even I can work out that I could have practically bought three sets of shoes and dresses for the money I lost.

There's Lou's car now. She hasn't noticed me yet, which
is a bloody miracle as I'm waving like a Looney Tune. But I can see her mouth is agape. Like ‘count the fillings on her teeth' agape.

Now she's noticed me, and I put more energy into my wave as if to acknowledge I've seen her see me.

I can't wait for her to come to me, so I bound over to the car park like an excited puppy.

‘What do you think?' I ask before she's had a chance to get out of the car.

‘It's amazing! However did you find it?'

‘A lot of Googling. I was just trying to find something different.'

‘Well, it certainly is. Mark will never in a million years guess this. I was saying to Russell earlier that my money was on it being a castle. That's a bag of Maltesers that I owe him now!'

If only I'd bet Maltesers rather than actual money. Knowing me, I probably would've eaten as many Maltesers as I'd gambled. I might have been a whole lot fatter but at least I'd still be able to afford a castle. I've got to stop thinking like that. This place is beautiful.

‘Now, I'm meeting with the caterers after you, so I don't know what the arrangements are fully. But if it's a nice day we're going to have the welcome drinks out here on the lawn.'

I desperately hope it is an amazingly beautiful day for our
wedding. The lawn out the front is sheltered within walls of the former barracks, which almost remind me of a castle wall. There is a big oak tree in the corner that would provide shade for our frazzled guests and there's a rose garden in the other corner with trellises and benches which will make the perfect backdrop for our photos. If I ever book a photographer, that is.

‘Oh, it will be great. Are you going to have any music out here? A string quartet? Oh, I know – a steel band. That would be fantastic.'

It really would. In my dream wedding that's exactly the kind of thing I would have had. I can't tell Lou I can't afford it.

‘I don't think Mark likes that kind of music,' I say, and I practically shove Lou up the stairs.

‘Now imagine that we will have pictures of us taken on the stairs.'

‘Lovely, just lovely. This venue is so perfect, I can't believe it. What's it like inside? Is it all arms and armour?' asks Lou.

‘It is in the main museum, but not where we're having the reception.'

‘You all right, Penny?' asks Ted as we walk round the revolving doors into the reception.

‘Fine, thanks, Ted. Just showing my friend the wedding set-up.'

‘Oh, very good. They've just finished setting up for today's wedding.'