These are your orders: Invitations and gift lists.

I do love a good wedding and the save the date card and invitation are the equivalent to a decent canapé – a delicious hint of the feast to come. Of course all good things can be ruined by the list of Stalinesque orders that usually accompany most wedding invitations nowadays. Such missives are usually in italic type to make the bad news easier to bear, and if the couple are really organised, they may have created a thoughtful website full of badly spelled asides like “Sandy enjoys playing with her pets and going to the beach. Tommy enjoys drinking lager from the can and playing with himself’.

Be warned, from the time that the super organised “save the date” card arrives, your life will not be your own. Multiply this if you are a bridesmaid. Of course, if you are a bridesmaid then you need a few tips about the hen party…

How to deal with hen parties

Like a Primark sale or a charter flight, hen parties can generally be defined as hell on earth, but with spa treatments and the sauna doubling as the equivalent of Dante’s Inferno. The combination of your mate’s other friendship groups all under one roof or sky, shoehorned into a range of activities THAT YOU ARE ALL GOING TO ENJOY whilst wearing matching T shirts (or pink velour tracksuits if she insists) is a recipe for either bemused detachment or indeed deep breathing and keeping your fists by your sides whilst counting to twenty. If you go to an activity centre, you can also take bets on how long it will be until the “Bride to Be” sash gets caught in her harness and an aerial rescue is performed.

Who needs a raging inferno and the concept of eternity when you are trapped having a bad facial with a stony-faced therapist for company in the name of your friend’s last days of freedom? My own memory of a hen party at a spa in Jersey is jogged here. I made the mistake of laughing in the swimming pool after a friend told a joke. Before long, there was the swish of linen trousers and flip flops and the manageress appeared, asking us to “respect the fact that there were other patrons using the facilities”. By this, I presume she meant the sole woman having her nails done in the charming B & Q type gazebo, whilst I lay in a vibrating “relaxation” pod with a J-cloth around my neck, but I could be wrong!

My personal favourites are hen parties where one girl forgets that she is NOT the bride and it’s time to hand over the princess crown and sash to someone else for the day. I don’t really want to play rounders on the beach, lie in a “thermal pod”, sit in a lukewarm Jacuzzi or go to a shite comedy club, I just want to go out for a meal and have some gin! Balloons and chocolate willies are optional. And please don’t suggest a day of aerial trekking and wall climbing if your friends are more the “do your nails” sort – you only need your character built so many times. More than once is often a waste of time and money.

If you are the bride or chief bridesmaid, then listen up. You may long for a visit to Euro Disney or New York, to be a pop star for a day or to think of all your friends laughing together over a bottle of Ernest & Julio’s finest. The truth is, if you don’t have £700.00 per person to spend and your friends don’t either, then you may need to re-think dancing with Mickey Mouse in the Parisian suburbs or trying to enjoy the Big Apple in under 48 hours. It’s a sad fact but someone had to say it.

Instead, think what could everyone do that most people would enjoy (employ the principles of utilitarianism – the greatest good for the greatest number – thank you Jeremy Bentham) – and your chosen ladies should enjoy the day. My heart just sinks when I see loads of women weaving disconsolately round city centres in bad t shirts, waving wands and spanking sticks for eight hours straight (often whilst wheeling trolley dolly suitcases, oddly) because one of their number is tripping down the aisle. Many a time in London have I caught sight of a gang of women dragging themselves through Leicester Square, each unwilling to acknowledge the following universal truths:

1) Leicester Square is (still) a hell hole!
2) You can get your portrait done in chalks by a struggling street artist, but it won’t look much like you, especially with that cowboy hat on;
3) There is only so much fun you can have in going round Claire’s Accessories, M & Ms world and then all sitting in Nando’s after a few too many in Yates’s Wine Lodge.
4)To be a brilliant chief bridesmaid you need to be rather like a dictator, a steel fist in a silk glove, with a will of iron and sense of determination that makes Margaret Thatcher look indecisive. Carry a calculator (ideal for sorting out the complex bill in the restaurant when one of your party decided she would only have a starter and nothing to drink), some pain killers and a good sense of humour. And above all, don’t forget the clock work willies to send across the table to the token strait-laced Aunt who always gets invited to these things and carries with her a sense of moral righteousness and indignation at any mention of risqué subjects.

Back to the wedding……the Gift List commandments

My personal favourite is the gift list, usually folded in with the invitation and full of things too expensive for most guests to contemplate. And brides, think about it. How often will you honestly use the 14 piece dinner service that you have asked for? If it’s every day, then go for it and be proud, but if your nearest and dearest have bankrupted themselves for a couple of charger plates that will see less action than the jilted Miss Havisham’s wedding breakfast crockery, then think on.

If you are single, weddings can be manna from heaven or molten lava from hell. If you are a single bridesmaid, multiply those feelings again (and if you hate your dress, think of it as character building and smile when the groom’s mother tells you that you have a lovely outfit you can wear again and again). Beware other predatory males. “Single female wedding guest” also appears to translate to “easy prey in pink polyester” at times. I once sat next to a married life coach who spouted on at me all night about how I had not yet been appreciated by someone special yet …..and proceeded to give me his card. Although when I look back at my outfit (and what I thought was an incredibly chic hairstyle at the time), then I am not surprised. Perhaps I looked as though I needed help!

If your kiddies do make it to the venue, then take them out if they start to holler. It is not charming to hear a two year old “expressing themselves” when it interrupts the vows of your friend, who will already be climbing the walls because her Spanx are cutting off her circulation and her new husband is also getting on her nerves. It’s a church, not a Montessori school reception class.

The dress

I will keep this brief. Your inspiration is Kate Middleton in the State Coach, not Jordan in a pink pumpkin carriage with a mad candy floss whirlwind out of My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding. Wear what suits you. Just because it is your wedding day, it does not mean you will suit a strapless dress. Beautiful boleros were made for just such occasions to hide big British arms (BBAs). Also, just because the dress is the most expensive one in the shop, it does not always mean that it is the loveliest.

Accessories are fab BUT, again, you don’t get more points for raiding the dressing up box. A veil is usually stunning. A veil and tiara can be breathtaking. However, a veil, tiara, fur shrug, hand bag and horse shoe could be taking sartorial matters too far. That said, silver shoes can look spectacular with your dress and can actually be worn again.

Whilst on the silver theme, which bride hasn’t been accosted by a well meaning friend or relative proffering a plastic horse shoe at the crucial moment? This is usually done when you are posing for photos and all you can think of holding on to is your bouquet in one hand and your husband in the other. It is a bridesmaid’s job to hold this token of kindness for as long as her friend asks her to.
Also brides – bear in mind your bridesmaids, please. Unless you have scored in the friendship stakes with a family of identical triplets, they won’t all look the same in the same dress. Ditto make up – unless you all have the same colouring, the makeup artist (and I use that term loosely given the evils I had had wrought upon me in my time) can only do so much.

Wedding make up is an art of great expectations (cheekbones and dewy skin) but potentially grave disappointments in the form of Aunt Sally cheeks and Cruella de Ville lipstick. If you catch sight of yourself and think “Pierrot Clown” it may be best to rethink the slap. Or just do what one of my friends did and sneak off to the bathroom to add lashings of her own mascara.

Should you fake it? Musings on the art of self tan

I think yes to a hint of colour (and aside from magic pants, nothing knocks a dress size off you faster), but no to the cult of the mahogany bride complete with acrylic nails – extra points for diamante tips – and hair extensions.

What not to wear

I go to every wedding with my eyes on stalks about what guests will be wearing – and I don’t just look at the frocks. Ultimately, the lesson is never ever to wear anything that you can imagine on Princess Beatrice or Eugenie, or for that matter, anything that could be mistaken for an outfit choice from My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding (dance moves not included, alas).

I have made several outfit mistakes over the years, and hindsight is a great friend! I have turned up at more ceremonies than I care to remember with my hair in a chignon and a floral ensemble fighting with the church flowers for space and have later been told by friends that I resemble a (slightly) younger Princess Anne. I have worn what I thought was a fabulously chic fascinator which in fact resembled a dead macaw. I have been the chubby bridesmaid in the oddly coloured dress and I know well the despair that a dyed satin court shoe with matching wrap can bring. If you’re lucky, you will be thrown a satin drawstring bag as well.

As I say though, women aren’t the only offenders against the gods of fashion at weddings and men too must also answer to the fashion police. Why some chaps think it is ok to turn up in a short sleeved shirt (when it’s not on a tropical beach) and no tie or jacket is beyond me, but I also have a sartorial fear of the men who insist on wearing gangster “ice-cream” chic, which would appear to combine some facets of morning dress with gold waistcoats, white shoes and an oddly long walking cane. The jacket will usually have a Nehru collar and you will hear the wearer of this striking item from a long way off, as the knee length jacket will be rubbing against the beige trousers. Eeeeeek.

Out of favour – what to put on the tables and how to plan them

Aside from pink velour bridesmaid tracksuits, some of the biggest mistakes people make at weddings are to do with over-dressing the venue, or as some accurately put it, the “crap in the marquee”. One person’s pink and purple balloon arch is another person’s own personal hell.

In terms of dressing the marquee, “been there, done that ideas ”, includes table quoits, trivia games (if we wanted to play scrabble or hand round a tray of objects to recall then we could have stayed at home), almonds in net bags (these tend to follow you round and have to be dusted after two years when they fade), glitter confetti and, dare I say it, old school table cameras. How many pictures do you want of your friends tits on Table 6?

Whilst on the theme of tables, again you could cringe at these but DO think of table names and table plans. The starting point is keeping people apart who hate each other and work from there. Generally, it’s also better to keep exes apart unless you want a war of words over the speeches, only to find them making up furiously two hours later behind the (posh) portaloos.

(Almost) finally, an anecdote, because if nothing else, these are surely what weddings are best for, apart for believing in the happy ever after. My great friend (whom I shall refer to as “L”) phoned me once, traumatised, after a ceremony and reception she had attended from which she was still reeling in shock. On further questioning, L revealed (haltingly, it must be said) that the wedding had not been a complete success. The bride’s fake tan was on the darker side of mahogany and the harpist was reprimanded as the bride progressed down the aisle for “playing the wrong thing’. And how was the poor DJ to know that there were two versions of “Killing Me Softly” – their first dance song? Unfortunately he chose the faster one….containing expletives.

At last, the cake came into view, heaved manfully across the lawn by two brave waiters. A meringue masterpiece was revealed, complete with beady eyes and chocolate sponge claws. And so, the legend of the Snowy Owl Meringue was born. Still, the piece de resistance arrived post wedding in the form of a round-robin email from the recently spliced couple. “Thanks for all your pressies!” read the missive. It also contained an unbeatable offer to buy a DVD copy of the happy couple’s memorable nuptials for the bargain price of £12.99.

Finally, let me leave you with an image of how to get it ever so slightly wrong at weddings. My theme was “floral and fabulous” but alas the execution of a concept sometimes goes awry and on reflection it is not surprising that the only man I pulled had his face painted on – was made out of wood. But that’s a story for another time.

Until then, keep throwing the confetti and hang on to your Spanx, because without weddings, what would we have to look forward to?