Page 39 of Husband Material
So Bridge got changed, and while it wasn’t quite what she’d chosen and didn’t fit quite perfectly, even after Judy had gone at it with pins, I had to admit Bridge did look remarkable in it. Sure, it was a bit dated, but it really did make her look like a princess. And since she’d always been one, deep down, I thought she deserved to look like one too.
BY THE TIME THE BRIDALparty was lurking outside the walled garden where the ceremony was due to take place, there was still no sign of Oliver, which meant the replacement dress was definitelythedress, and I was going to have to maid the honours without my boyfriend. It was barely two, I was already knackered, and all the running around had left its mark. Its sweaty, sweaty mark. So, from a certain perspective, Oliver’s absence was a plus because he wouldn’t be able to see or, for that matter, smell me.
I was just reflecting on how disgusting I was when the “Wedding March” kicked in. Bridge gave an I’ve-been-waiting-for-this-all-my-life squeak and, letting her father take her arm, glided triumphantly through the archway and towards where Tom was waiting. And, to give him credit, he looked a lot less shocked than he might that his bride-to-be had shown up in a frock that Cinderella’s fairy godmother would have turned down for being a touch OTT.
The music crescendoed and Bridge sailed on, and Bridge’s train very much…didn’t. We’d been aware there was a lot of it, but between me and the bridesmaids we’d managed to kind of carry it as a bundle without getting a full sense of its terrifying magnificence. Now, however, it was unfolding like a giant snake in an exploitative B movie. And because we hadn’t had the foresight tostretch it back in a straight line from the door, it was also cornering really badly, meaning it was dragging heavily past the aisle and making aggressive moves at the guests. A hapless second cousin had to snatch her child out of its way.
At last, Bridge was at the altar and the bridesmaids were twenty-five feet away, wrangling a cascade of silk that had already swallowed three chairs.
“Dearly beloved,” began Judy in her loudest posh-person voice, which was pretty damn loud. “Oh, I say, that’s fun, isn’t it? I haven’t said that in years. We are gathered here today to celebrate the union of this woman, Bridget Dawn Welles, and this chap, Thomas No Middle Name Ballantyne. Then, once the party’s over, they’re going to go and do the legal bit at an actual registry office.”
I could hardly see because I was miles away, but Bridge seemed happy enough, despite the somewhat unorthodox delivery. And Tom had the same look of slightly dazed contentment that every bridegroom has had on his face since the beginning of time.
Judy, too, seemed to be having the time of her life. “Now, I’m meant to say something about marriage and how jolly seriously you’re supposed to take it. But, honestly, I’ve always thought it works best when it’s a bit of a laugh. My most successful by far was my fifth husband. We kept each other in stitches constantly. Then one evening we were out on his yacht and he laughed so hard, he fell overboard and was eaten by a shark. And, as I’ve told every man I’ve ever slept with, it doesn’t matter how you start or how you finish, it’s the bits in the middle that matter. All of which said, I hope this wedding will be a wonderful start to Tom and Bridget’s life together.” She paused for about half a second. “Now. Vows.”
They’d written their own, of course, and they were terribly sweet and terribly sincere and—this probably makes me a horrible human being—I forgot them the moment I heard them. Thenagain, they weren’t supposed to be meaningful to me; they were supposed to be meaningful to Tom and Bridge. Oliver arrived about halfway through, got stuck in the entrance with the bridal party because of the mega-train and, being a far better person than me, took the whole situation impeccably and even seemed to find the vows genuinely moving. After the vows came the rings, ably presented by Tom’s best-man-slash-brother Mike who, unlike the rest of the male guests,hadchosen to rock a rose-gold suit and was kind of putting the rest of us to shame.
“And so,” concluded Judy, “by the power vested in me by absolutely no bugger, I declare you a legally nonbinding man and wife. You may kiss the bride if you want to be disgustingly American about the whole thing.”
To nobody’s surprise they did, in fact, want to be disgustingly American about the whole thing. I glanced sideways and saw Oliver wiping a tear from his eye, which was unfair because he wasn’t as close to Bridge as I was and had never slept with Tom. At least I assumed he hadn’t. And to my shock and happiness, my brain didn’t vanish down a rabbit hole of wondering who Oliverhadslept with before we’d started dating, and instead agreed to carry on being genuinely happy for Tom and Bridge in a really straightforward way. It was almost disorienting to have a positive feeling that didn’t dredge up a single insecurity or neurosis, but I suppose all the Tom-vanishing, church-burning, dress-losing chaos had worn that part of my psyche down. Which just left the part that liked Bridge and Tom and was glad they were married now.
The happy couple turned to face their guests and were about to make a joyful procession out of the walled garden when they ran into the train issue. It was taking up the entire aisle, had already made a good attempt at wrapping itself around Bridge’s legs as she turned, and was currently dragging through the crowd in quite an ominous way.
“If everyone could stand back,” I tried, “I think we’re going to have to…gather and swing. Bride’s family, please keep your heads down.”
It wasn’t the most dignified exit in the history of matrimony, especially because a small swarm of overenthusiastic page boys and flower girls insisted on showering us all with confetti while we tried to do the sartorial equivalent of turning an eighteen-wheel van in a residential street.
Everything that followed next was a bit of a blur. I remember Oliver’s palm at the small of my back steering me from handshake to handshake and photograph to photograph, where I’m sure my fears of looking like Bridge’s stoner cousin were starkly realised. Then he guided me to Judy’s surprisingly fancy sixteenth-century tithe barn for the wedding breakfast. And there Oliver sat beside me and did the heavy lifting in six identical conversations with other top-table guests that I hardly knew.
I even managed to start enjoying the food before I remembered that I was soon going to have to make a speech. And actually, I was okay with speeches. I made them fairly often as part of my job. Except this was different because it was Bridge, it was Bridge’s special day, and she’d remember what I said to her on it for the rest of her life. So I’d worked hard. I’d worked really hard. Almost embarrassingly hard, in fact, because there was still a part of me that defaulted to the it’s-okay-I-got-a-D-because-didn’t-study excuse.
And, eventually, I’d got the speech to a state where I liked it. Where it was all written out neatly on paper and everything because I thought scrolling through my phone at my best friend’s wedding would look bad, and now it was tucked away safely in my breast pocket.
In the breast pocket of the shirt I had spent the last seven hours sweating through. A fact that I only noticed when Tom got to the end of his own speech and said, “The maid of honour.”
I stood. The paper was…fine? A little bit wrinkly. Although I was regretting having made my notes with one of Oliver’s fancy fountain pens. It had felt very grown-up at the time, but biro would have stood up to the elements—well, the elements of my stressed-out body—way better. The speech was now mostly little rivulets of blue within which I could just about make out fragments of what I remembered as moving-slash-hilarious testimonies to my long friendship with Bridget. Except now they’d been reduced to “—nce we met at uni—ity” and “—vered in s—wbe—y b—mange.”
Bugger.
Taking a deep breath, I briefly flirted with the strategy of continuing to inhale until I had composed a new, even brillianter maid-of-honour speech from scratch, but my lungs gave out far too quickly.
“What…can I say about Bridget?” I asked a room full of glazed-faced guests, and then paused slightly too long in the vain hope one of them would tell me. “What…indeed,” I continued. For some reason, nobody was coming forward to help me out.
I felt a light pat on my arm and looked down to see Oliver looking up at me with an expression that, to my surprise, was far closer to sayingYou can do thisthanWhy are you making a fool of me in public.
“I suppose…I can say…that she’s my best friend.”Brilliant start, Luc. Just keep doing facts, and you’ll be done before you know it.“And, actually, that’s…sort of everything? She’s…the best. She’s always there for me, even when I’m not there for her. She’s good in a crisis, even though she thinks she isn’t. She’s kind and she’s generous and she sees the good in people, and I wish I could be more like her.” Fuck, was I tearing up?Bring it back with a joke.“I was going to tell an embarrassing story,” I tried, “but I realised it would sound like I was bitter about that one time shestole my boyfriend. Which would be particularly petty since she’s now marrying him.” I turned to the groom. “Tom…yeah, right call, mate. You’ve got great taste.”
There. That was a conclusion. I sat down. And was just congratulating myself on a job well done, or at least a job not fucked up too terribly, when I remembered the job had a bit more to it. So, like Chumbawamba, I got back up again.
“Um,” I said. “I think I’m also supposed to thank a bunch of people, but as you might have noticed, I’ve kind of lost my notes which means I’ve forgotten who I’m supposed to be thanking and for what.” I briefly wondered-slash-hoped this was a wedding-themed anxiety dream. But, no, I was definitely here, definitely awake, definitely blowing my maid-of-honour speech. “Whoever you are,” I went on with wild optimism, “thank you very much. You’re great.” I very nearly sat down again when I realised I had to make a toast as well. “To Tom and Bridge. Who are also great.”
There was one of those silences you don’t ever want to hear during a speech.
“To Tom and Bridget,” said Oliver firmly. “Who are also great.”
“To Tom and Bridget, who are also great,” the room dutifully echoed.
And I sat down faster than I had ever sat down in my life.
