extras. We can stage-manage the entire event for you as well, offering peace of mind with our fully bonded all-inclusive insurance. And should you require it, besides the venue, the catering and all that wedding arrangements entail, we can even arrange that special honeymoon if you would like us to.’
Noonoo, mid-flow, flipped the page on the chart to a picture of a traditional wedding, the bride and groom standing in front of a church with their family. Molly heard Jess groan.
‘Can we just stop a minute here please?’ said Molly, jumping into a split second’s silence between the words. ‘I mean, I appreciate that this all looks very impressive and I hate to rain on your parade, but Jess and I have already spent hours planning the wedding.’
‘Yes, we’re more or less there,’ said Jess.
There was a little pause, during which Marnie looked daggers at Molly. Jonathon said, ‘Molly, I know you mean well but Marnie went to an awful lot of trouble to arrange for Noo to come over today and I think we should at least look at what she has to offer. Marnie said the service Noo provided was very good – you have to admit Mimi’s wedding was wonderful.’
Marnie was nodding.
Yes, who could forget the unfortunate Mimi stuffed, corseted and magic-knickered into a shiny satin dress that showed every crease, wrinkle and roll of what lay beneath, a dress that would have looked fabulous on Marnie but was terrifying on someone shaped like an American refrigerator.
Mimi, who apparently suffered with her glands, had had her lank, greasy hair scraped up under a tiara the size of the Taj Mahal and clutched a bouquet shaped like a swan, a nod apparently to the ugly duckling made good. Everything had been swan-shaped, now Molly came to think about it.
The church had had so many flowers in it that guests could barely breathe for pollen and perfume, and the bridal couple and their twelve bridesmaids – having been driven to the church in a fleet of vintage Rollers – had been whisked away to their honeymoon in a hot-air balloon, from which Mimi had thrown her bouquet, nearly blinding the video cameraman when it hit him square in the lens.
Molly had a photograph of the happy couple grinning at the camera, Mimi arm-in-arm with a short, skinny, ginger boy with bad skin, buck teeth and a bulbous nose. They lived in Wales now; apparently he was something big in animal feed and a real catch. Molly remembered thinking if she’d caught him, she’d have thrown him back.
She would have felt sorry for Mimi, if Mimi hadn’t been a spiteful, selfish, peevish creature, who had tortured Jess from the moment they’d met.
‘What do you say, Max?’ asked Jonathon, the sound of his voice breaking into Molly’s thoughts. ‘Noo sound like a good idea to you?’
‘It’s fine by me,’ Max said. ‘I’ve already told Jess that she can have anything she wants. After all, it’s her big day and she already said that she and Molly are very busy. And I’m up to my eyes.’ He turned to Jess, who was staring at him open-mouthed. ‘Well, you said you needed help,’ he pointed out. ‘And now you’ve got it.’
Noo took that as a cue and launched straight back into the script. ‘While our main business is in the traditional market, we’ve done a lot more themed weddings in the last few years and have several more in the pipeline. A theme helps set the tone and establishes a style for the whole event, as well as making your wedding stand out from the crowd. It’s also more fun for your guests.’ Noo flicked over another page. ‘The discerning couple are becoming more and more adventurous. This summer we did our first Guys and Dolls wedding, followed by Gangsters and Molls.’
Molly stared at a wedding party all dressed up in mobster gear, the guests arranged around a 1930s V8 Ford complete with running boards. The bride and groom looked like extras from ‘Bugsy Malone’.
‘And we’ve just done our first Glenn Miller wedding.’ Noo flipped the page again to show the grainy interior of an aircraft hangar hung with bunting and banners. The buffet table, set with sausage rolls and jugs of squash, looked like it was laid out for VE Day. ‘These days your wedding celebrations can be almost anything you can imagine. Next year we’ve got a Teddy Bears’ Picnic wedding and a Moulin Rouge civil partnership – you should see the outfits.’
While Max, Jonathon and Marnie appeared to be totally enraptured by Noo’s presentation, Molly, Nick, and Jess stared at each other in a mix of disbelief and horror.
There were railway weddings, pantomime weddings, colour-themed weddings, football team weddings, weddings for the over 50s and finally what Noo referred to in hushed tones as the traditional family package which seemed to involve smiling plump girls marrying jolly bald men dressed in grey morning suits.
‘So you can arrange for us to have a church wedding?’ said Max enthusiastically.
Noonoo, tiny hands still clasped, nodded. ‘Certainly, if that is what you want. I mean if you’re prepared to pay we can do more or less anything.’
‘See,’ said Max triumphantly.
‘Well, there we are then, seems to me that we’ve got the perfect solution,’ said Jonathon, topping up his champagne. ‘Takes all the sweat out of it. Nonoo can arrange the wedding and all the details,’ Jonathon turned to his daughter. ‘I was thinking around a hundred guests. I appreciate I’m going to have to take the lion’s share of this – Now about the radio station, Molly, what do you think they can offer us?’
‘Us?’ Molly stared at him. ‘Jonathon, we are arranging our daughter’s wedding, not negotiating a contract for an engineering company.’
He looked puzzled.
And then Jess said, ‘Dad, please don’t think I’m being ungrateful but I really don’t want a themed wedding. I spoke to Jack last week and Bertie, who owns Vanguard Hall has offered to let us use it for the recepion, and my friend Helen is going to make my dress. And then the guys in the design studio where I work said they’d print all the stationery as a wedding present –’
Marnie looked totally aghast and to be fair Max didn’t look much better.
‘Jess,’ said Max.’ You heard your father. And you saw how lovely all those weddings that Noo’s arranged are. I thought we’d agreed that we want the whole thing to be really special, didn’t we?’
‘Of course I want it to be special,’ snapped Jess, ‘but I’m not getting married in a church and I don’t want to end up at some bloody hotel dressed up as Vera Lynn while someone from EAA records the whole thing for bloody posterity with commercial breaks to sell double glazing.’
‘You’re getting overwrought,’ said Marnie. ‘It’s understandable, we’ve all been there, darling. There is a lot of pressure when you’re getting married.’
Jess looked around in frustration. ‘I’m not overwrought – I’m just telling you what’s going to happen.’
‘It all sounds very cut-price to me,’ snipped Marnie. ‘You’ll be asking me to help out with the sandwiches next. And if it’s going to be on the radio, we don’t want to let the side down, do we?’
And then Max said, ‘Jess, my parents are very traditional. If we don’t have a church service then they won’t think it’s a proper wedding. And I suppose I was thinking traditional too – white lace, doves, orange blossom and morning suits. A real wedding.’
‘It’s a shame you didn’t say all this before when I asked you what kind of wedding you wanted,’ growled Jess.
‘I just want a proper wedding. I thought you understood that.’
‘With me dressed up as a meringue?’ said Jess grimly.
Max smiled. ‘No, you just being as beautiful as you always are.’
‘Ahhh,’ Noo sighed. ‘Isn’t that lovely.’
Molly suppressed the desire to lean across the table and punch her.
‘So a classic