Once in a Lifetime. Cathy Kelly

an hour and a half be long enough?’

      ‘You’re an angel!’ said Natalie gratefully. An hour and a half would get Lizzie and her mother done. Everyone else could fend for themselves.

      She went into the bedroom to tell Lizzie the good news and was waylaid by bridesmaid number three, Steve’s sister, Shazza, who’d insisted on being a bridesmaid, and having got her wish had been doing her level best to take over. ‘I think we should all put our hair up,’ she said.

      ‘What?’ Natalie asked, bewildered.

      ‘Up, it’s more flattering,’ said Shazza, holding her own blonde hair up to demonstrate.

      Shazza had gone against Lizzie’s dictat that spray tans would look ridiculous at a February wedding and was the rich brown colour of an Italian handbag. Everyone else’s skin was pure Irish blue.