How Not to Get Married: A Rather Fine Bridezilla

By Rachael Mantle

The top seven things I wanted to do with my life...
1. Meet The One
2. Convince The One that Im not a mentalist
3. Get him to propose before he finally figures it out
4. Have best wedding EVER
5. Live happily ever after on post-wedding high
6. Have attractive female child who I can regale with tales of mummys big day
7. Re-evaluate my priorities
What human people are saying about this book...
This is a SPLENDID book and made me laugh so much I leaked. Feel free to use that quote on the cover, Rach My Editor
I had a lovely day out Grandma
What do you MEAN you didnt enjoy your wedding? Mum
Who are you and why do you keep talking to me? Mother at school gate
I did not enjoy this book Sister
What do you MEAN you didnt enjoy our wedding? Husband
If Id written a book it would have been much better Anon

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: May 26, 2015
• ISBN: 9781504943215

Rachael Mantle

Although Rachael Mantle now lives with her family in a Cotswolds market town she was born in a forest. So basically, she’s part squirrel, part fairy – which goes some way to explain why she’s not quite like other people. That said, she really has to start taking responsibility for herself, get over the whole diamonds/Eggs Benedict obsessions and at some point at least ATTEMPT to move on from her feral mental state to one more appropriate for a grown woman. If not for her, for the same of her poor husband…

Book preview

© 2015 Rachael Mantle. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 06/26/2015

ISBN: 978-1-5049-4243-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5049-4321-5 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Chapter One – How NOT to get engaged

Chapter Two – How NOT to buy an engagement ring

Chapter Three – How NOT to pick bridesmaids or you can’t please everyone you know

Chapter Four – Be careful what you wish for

Chapter Five – How NOT to buy a wedding gown

Chapter Six – How NOT to pick a wedding venue

Chapter Seven – Box-gate and the attack of the killer glued-on crystal dots

Chapter Eight – How NOT to choose wedding hair and make up or No good ever comes from dating your favourite hairdresser

Chapter Nine – Why you should always listen to your Wedding Yoda and why you shouldn’t be crapola at getting to your target wedding weight lest it come back to bite you on your still fat arse

Chapter Ten – How NOT to find a sensible way to look half decent in the face area on your wedding day, but instead spend lots of time and money on eventually looking like a Geisha

Chapter Eleven – How trying to do the right thing somehow ends up with you being the one feeling like you are in the wrong even though its other people letting you down on something really important like your actual wedding day but they still make it about them… (breathe)

Chapter Twelve – The ‘Groom Annihilator’ and other stories

Chapter Thirteen – How NOT to conduct yourself in front of well meaning Pantomime actors and why the internet is obviously the devil

Chapter Fourteen – Think before you speak when answering questions you don’t understand from hairdressers. Then think again. And say NO.

Chapter Fifteen – We interrupt the start of Complainy-McComplainatron’s fifteenth chapter

Chapter Fifteen (rebooted) – Why professionals in the wedding industry should embrace list writing and the remembering of things that Brides say. Brides like me.

Chapter Sixteen – T’was the night before the wedding

Chapter Seventeen – ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGG

GGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

HHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(The still a ‘Miss’ part of the day)

Chapter Eighteen – Fern. Humph. What is it good for? Absolutely nothing, say it again.

Chapter Nineteen – Getting Married

Chapter Twenty – Why one should never ask a drunk usher or guest to play with fire or spray anything at midnight

Chapter Twenty-One – $200 burgers and the hotel from The Shining.

Chapter Twenty-Two – Lalalalalalalalalalala-bloody-la.

For Lily Clementine, Andy,

Ned the bump

and the wonderful little world that is

we three. And a bump.

2006 - the top seven things

I wanted to do with my life

1. Meet ‘The One’

2. Convince ‘The One’ that I’m not a mentalist

3. Get him to propose before he finally figures it out

4. Have best wedding EVER

5. Live happily ever after on post-wedding high

6. Have attractive female child who I can regale with tales of ‘mummy’s big day’

7. Re-evaluate my priorities

Is this book a true story or what?

You might be wondering (or you might start wondering by the end). I expect so. If you get to the end of course - else this is a massive, life fail, waste of time on my part when I could have been out in the sunshine, enjoying life. How terribly depressing. Still, let’s be positive and say for a minute that you do carry on reading, you’ll start to wonder if this is a true story about a disastrous albeit hilariously portrayed (shut up – it’s called self belief) wedding. Well, yes… and well, no. Look at it this way, if all the things happened to you that happened to me, would you be forgiving and understanding of the people who marred your big day, or would you be royally pissed off and want to write a book about it? Well exactly. So yes, it is essentially a true story, with some tactful name changes, told by someone with a bad memory, who doesn’t like to upset people they know, especially the family members, as my mum is a bit scary sometimes and I REALLY hate confrontation.

Clear?

No?

Well if it makes you feel better all you really need to know is that no bunnies were boiled during the making of this wedding…

Weddings I’ve attended, that I can remember anyway

1. Aunty Ann’s – bridesmaid (Bride’s side)

2. Uncle Ian’s – bridesmaid (Groom’s side)

3. Aunty Sue’s – guest (Bride’s side)

4. Uncle Max’s – bridesmaid (Groom’s side)

5. Cousin Michelle’s – guest (Bride’s side)

6. Uncle Trevor’s – guest (Groom’s side)

7. Ginny & Shaun – evening guest (Both)

8. Louise & Scott – evening guest (Bride)

9. Mark & Lydia – helped make invitations by hand (Both)

10. Anita & Richard – bride’s hair & preparations on day, helped arrange Turkish reception (Both)

11. James & Katharine – guest (Groom’s side)

12. Robin & Dawn – evening guest (Both)

13. Random work colleague of bf – evening guest (Neither really. Didn’t really care)

14. Jennie & Ben – sang during signing of register (Bride’s side’s)

15. Louise & Gee – sang, drunkenly, uninvited, at reception (Bride’s side)

16. My sister’s – chief maid, helped arrange whole thing with Mum (Bride’s side)

17. Holly & Nic – sang as walked down aisle both ways (Bride’s side)

18. Matt & Anna – guest, but did get up on stage and sing with band, fell over on stage (Groom’s side)

19. Rob & Lydia – decorated toilets & sang at reception (Groom’s side)

20. Paul & Martene – guest (Groom’s side)

21. Louise & Mark – (Bride’s side)

22. Phil & Donna – guest (Groom’s side)

23. Mine – did every damn thing (Bride, literally)

24. Emily & Neil – main helper (Both)

25. Claire & Kieran – did Claire’s make up (Both)

26. Uncle Ian & Hayley – guest (Groom’s side)

27. Valerie & Neil – guest (Bride’s side)

28. Nathan & girl I don’t know (unsurprisingly, evening guest of groom)

29. Dan & Charlotte – decorated reception (Groom’s side)

30. Jim & Hannah – guest (Both)

31. Scott & Kate – guest (Groom’s side)

32. Kerry & Duncan – guest (Groom’s side)

SPOILER ALERT:

Don’t worry, we do get married and live happily ever after and shit…

Chapter One

How NOT to get engaged

O n August 12 th 2007 I had the worst hangover I have ever known. Appropriately so, considering it was the result of my worst night ever. Okay, so when I say worst night, I don’t really mean the worst night as such. The day had been glorious. It was the day our friends Rob and Lydia got married, number nineteen on my big, fat, ridiculously long list of weddings to attend. It was one of those occasions where I assumed the role of ‘friend of groom’ as I have known Rob for several years through our wonderful (though totally unrecognised for its brilliance) musical collaboration Kanute (available at all good record stores… well if you Google it you might find it on the internet. Someone in a tiny shop in Germany probably has a copy of one of our albums knocking around, or propping up a table, or used as a coaster).

The day Rob and Lydia were married was warm and bright, the way August days should be but rarely are on our little island, and I was donning the essential wedding guest wear of a little strapless number, with a big feathery fascinator in my slightly twirly-for-the-occasion hair. The main event took place in the beautiful, tiny and ancient church in the middle of St Agnes, Cornwall. The service was lovely and the normally slightly tomboyish bride was a picture of girlie loveliness in her glittering strapless sweetheart full white wedding gown (with veil). After the service, the guests spilled out into the sun-drenched street and there was time for a very quick pint… followed by a more desperate, gulpy, not that enjoyable, ‘seemed like a good idea but wasn’t’ pint to round things off, while we waited for the bus to trolley us up a tiny winding lane to the cliff-top reception marquee.

Now, the most important thing you should know about me is that I’m one of those people who often gets asked to do things for people’s weddings. Possibly due to my being a bit of a wedding monster (yes, hands up - to a scary level) but also because I am a singer and, lets face it, most people don’t know a singer – not a massive wedding enthusiast singer anyway, who is happy to do pretty much anything for free to help people out and be a part of their special day. You know that bit in the speeches when everyone gets thanked? Well, I have to admit, I’m a complete sucker for that bit. If I’m mentioned, that is. Otherwise, who cares?

For this wedding, Rob and Lydia had asked me to both ‘do things’ and ‘sing things’. It was actually the strangest ‘do things’ request I had had to date, in that they asked me to sort out the toilets. I’d forgive you, at this point, for assuming that we might not be as good friends as I have suggested, but they didn’t want me to, like, clean them or provide them or anything of the sort. They were concerned that the port-a-cabin style loos wouldn’t look very pleasant and hoped that I could make them nice.

By the time I’d finished, I’m happy to say, they were the best bloody wedding toilets the world has ever known – there was a Bedouin tent-style powder room with a variety of scented products, everything you might want or might have forgotten to bring, fairy lights, fresh flowers and ivy entwined walls, a large pink glass Buddha. Unsurprisingly, it was a major talking point of our table; one unusual way to break the ice with a table full of unknowns, I suppose, which is always a daunting prospect and can be quite hard work after a while, reducing the length of time before I begin to suffer my usual ‘wedding lag melancholy’.

Then there was the singing bit – belting out jazz standards on the top of a cliff whilst a lively sea breeze (the bad kind not the cocktail kind, more’s the pity) did furious battle with my fascinator. This too went smoothly and without a hitch – although we did have to go around the songs twice as the bride and groom missed us the first time. I’d got into it by then though, so was happy to carry on battling it out, feathers flying.

All was well and good through the day – she turned up and no one backed out at the last minute, and did I mention that the toilets were a resounding success? Okay, okay, I was very proud of those toilets, alright? Plus I didn’t get blown off a cliff during the singing, despite a few too many G&Ts. The table full of strangers, mostly other musicians, turned out to be a jolly good laugh, the barbeque was yummy, a Kaiser Chief did a bit of guest DJing and the finale fireworks over the sea were utterly, magnificently magical. It was the first wedding that my boyfriend and I had attended together and it seemed to be going really well. I had a good feeling about him (I swear to God, the night we met he had a glowing halo thing going on. Seriously, I saw stars).

So, what on earth is she talking about, you may now be asking? How is this a bad night? Well, weddings traditionally never seem to end well for me and this was to be no exception. I really need to introduce you to my scale of good to bad.

The top five weddings that have not ended well for me

1. Wedding number 2) Flower girl did a wee on the seat next to me. I KNOW people questioned my explanation.

2. Wedding number 8) Boyfriend at the time ditched me to go away camping, leaving me as apparently fair game for the best man to drool over rather forcefully. This prompted a ladies loo rant on my part along the lines of What the hell does he think this is?! I’m not some bridesmaid who’s gagging for it!, at which point the ACTUAL chief bridesmaid ran from a cubicle, hopes dashed and crying, as she was rather hoping they might get it on that night.

3. Wedding number 13) Wailing at the top of my lungs (appropriately, rather like a fishwife) You’re killing the fish, you’re killing the fiiiiish!!!!!!! at my boyfriend’s mate, who was manhandling the goldfish in the hotel pond as we waited for our taxi.

4. Wedding number 17) Decided, in all my drunken brilliance, that getting up on stage with the band I used to sing with was the best idea EVER, resulting in my catapulting myself along the stage into the unsuspecting brass section. Quite unrelated, I’m sure, but that was actually the last time I ever ‘guested’ with the Cheesegraters.

5. Wedding number 18) Just one week later, in beautiful Barcelona, when the couple I was sharing a tiny flat with had a conversation along the lines of… What the hell do you mean you slept with Rachael last time you were here??!!

eeeeeeeerrrrrm.

But anyway, let’s not get into that now. Ahem. So, back to Cornwall…

Midnight was the time, apparently, of the last bus provided to ferry guests back to St Agnes, a fact that we were blissfully unaware of. We carried on until our dancing feet were all worn out. My head was starting to throb, my boyfriend’s constant requests for me to dance despite afore-mentioned poorly feet were starting to bug me, the wine was starting to bite back and it had started to rain. And when I say rain, I mean the ‘two seconds in it and you looked like you forgot to take your clothes off before having a nice dip in the Indian Ocean’ kind of rain.

We were - how shall I put this lightly without looking like one of those awful wedding guests that everyone dreads and points at while tutting and feeling superior? - we were shamefully plastered. We made what seemed like the perfectly sound decision to walk back to our hotel, on our own, in the pitch black with no torch, along tiny unlit