How To Marry Your Husband (3 page)

Chapter Five: The Dress

Olivia isn’t a woman who gravitates towards dresses. She lives her life in trousers and a wide selection of polo or tee shirts. And by trousers she definitely doesn’t mean jeans – which make her (surely non-existent) stomach stick out.

So when Kieran asked her to marry him and she had the ring successfully on her finger, the next important item on her list after the invitations is The Dress. What on earth is she going to wear that will make her beautiful and slim and elegant and graceful and sparkly, all at the same time?

She has no idea. So she asks her fiancé. “What do you think I should wear to the wedding, darling?”

Kieran’s eyebrows leap up several notches and the look of a terrified rabbit spotting a passing farmer with a gun crosses over his face. He isn’t at his best with discussions about female fashion, at any level. “Whatever you think is best?” he offers uncertainly, before adding with a dash more confidence, “You’ll look lovely whatever you wear.”

He always says that, and Olivia isn’t sure it’s useful. She will have to try another tack.

“Well,” she says, drawing the word out to a ridiculous length. “I look good in green. What do you think about that, or maybe blue?”

This time Kieran looks truly shocked. “Aren’t you going to wear white?”

Olivia stares at him. “I look awful in white! If I wear anything white, I look like I’ve been in a fight with a zombie and come off worse.”

“That can be a good look,” Kieran protests, warming to his theme. “Anyway, aren’t there all sorts of different shades of white these days? There must be one you like.”

A good point, well made. She remembers when Jo got married last year and had talked about this very issue. At some point they discussed concepts like ivory and cream and ecru – whatever ecru might be. Another thought occurs to her.

“Do you mean
you’d
like me to wear white at our wedding?” she asks her fiancé.

At being asked a direct question, Kieran turns pale but holds his ground. “It would be nice,” he says with a gulp. “It’s traditional.”

“But would
you
like it?”

A pause, then, “Yes, I’d like it.”

Olivia smiles and gives Kieran a big hug. “Then of course I’ll wear white,” she says. “I love it when you express an opinion on my stuff – it’s so rare! I’m sure I can find one of those mystery shades of white that suits me. Just you wait and see.”

Funny then how the hunt for The Wedding Dress becomes a huge palaver. Olivia starts off feeling certain it will be simple. All she has to do is work out whether she looks better in ivory or cream – white, with her fair colouring, is a no-no from the off – then buy a dress which is okay. So she plans to go dress shopping with her mother. Olivia’s mother isn’t her first choice for a girly shopping experience, but as she is visiting her parents at the time anyway, it seems like a good idea. Besides, Olivia’s mother has the wisdom of being a keen dress wearer (unlike Olivia herself) and has also already been married, twice, so is to all intents and purposes the nearest thing to an expert Olivia can think of.

However, the shopping expedition is depressing and, by the end of the day, the dresses and the shops – they’ve visited every single wedding shop in the local town – blur into a nightmarish swirl of organza and lace. Olivia suits neither of these fabrics. She finds her
oh-this-is-interesting-and-thank-you-for-showing-it-to-me
lie face quickly enough. What she doesn’t find – or come anywhere near finding – is a dress which suits her. It’s obvious the local wedding shops aren’t used to a 29-year-old bride, and are instead entirely focused on dealing with brides barely into their teens.

At one shop, the name of which Olivia instantly wipes from her mind, the head assistant takes one look at her and shakes her head slowly. “I don’t know what we can do about you,” she murmurs. “Have you got any idea what you might like?”

“Something adult and non-shiny, and nothing too traditional,” Olivia responds. She’s about to add an explanation about how she’s really only just started her search and she’d welcome any other ideas (though possibly not from someone as confrontational as the said assistant) when the woman swings round and grabs a handful of dresses from the rail.

“Oh, don’t worry,” she says. “We’ll try you in these.”

Olivia isn’t impressed with the selection given to her, all of which seem to be shiny, ultra-traditional and for women at least ten years younger than she is. However, there is no time to object as she and her mother are whisked away to the changing room in the corner.

“Let me know when you’re done,” the assistant says and disappears to the other end of the shop where there is obviously something far better to do.

Olivia and her mother are left well and truly alone. For a long moment, they stare at each other, and then they both start to laugh.

“Well!” Olivia’s mother says. “Somebody got out on the wrong side of the bed this morning. But I suppose seeing as we’ve been left with this little lot, you might as well try it on.”

“I suppose so,” replies Olivia, doubtfully, as she sifts through the treasures. She discards four of the seven at once as being far too frilly. She picks the least shiny of the rest of them and starts to struggle into its complex folds. Still chuckling, her mother helps her, and finally they arrive at a position where Olivia is more or less wearing the dress, rather than it wearing her.

Olivia can’t see much in the changing room mirrors. “What do you think?” she asks her mother.

“I’m not sure, to be honest. There’s a big mirror in the main salon. Why don’t you look in there?”

There’s something about her mother’s expression that doesn’t bode well. Olivia makes her way out of the changing room and into the main salon, heading for the mirror she’s glimpsed on her way in. She almost knocks down the sales girl, but to be honest she isn’t too bothered – as Olivia is preparing for the worst.

The worst doesn’t take long to arrive. What Olivia sees in the mirror is not the vision of sophistication and beauty she is desperately hoping for. Oh no. Instead she sees an old bag stuffed unceremoniously into a shiny dress made for a shiny – and far thinner – younger woman. The top makes her bosom look non-existent and the train makes her bottom look huge. She opens her mouth to express protest at this nightmarish sight but just then the shop assistant thrusts a posy of silk flowers into her hands.

“There you go!” she says. “That’s the finishing touch for you.”

It certainly is. With the false flowers in her hands, Olivia looks more like the Wicked Witch of the West dressing up for a party than a Blushing Bride of the (South-) East. She can’t help it. She starts to laugh again. A moment later, her mother joins in. The family laugh has always been a raucous joyful noise as far away from a genteel titter as can be imagined. The shop assistant turns crimson and begins to protest.

This only makes the two women laugh all the more.

“I’m sorry,” Olivia says when she’s stopped laughing and has wiped the tears from her eyes. “I’m sorry, but this dress is truly horrid and I wouldn’t buy it if it was the last dress on the planet. And these flowers are even worse. Who wants plastic flowers at a wedding? I’m not going to carry flowers anyway – they’re so last year, don’t you know.”

Olivia has no idea if this is true or not, but she’s never let the facts get in the way of a good story ending, and she isn’t about to start now. The assistant harrumphs – yes, she really does! – and stomps away. Olivia finds she doesn’t care about that either. Goodness me, but choosing a wedding dress can be stressful, and not very successful either.

“Come on, Mum,” she says. “I’ll take this pesky thing off and we can go get a coffee. What do you think?”

“Now
that
sounds like perfection,” her mother replies.

And it is.

A couple of days later, however, and Olivia is no further forward in her search for a dress. She tries to explain to Kieran, but the moment the word ‘dress’ is mentioned, she can see his brain shutting down. It’s disappointing how she’s gone through a whole town and found nothing that suits her and everything that doesn’t – not to mention standoffish assistants, but Olivia isn’t the time of woman to give up so easily at the first hurdle. Besides, she can’t go down the aisle naked.

So she decides to try Guildford instead – when she and Kieran are married and properly living together, it will be their nearest town and, even better, will be a whole new centre to explore. All those shops! Surely there will be something there that would suit her? There ought to be.

Guildford, she decides, won’t let her down.

In the end, however, it very nearly does. This time, Olivia decides to go alone. This is probably a mistake as shopping for anything, even a wedding dress, isn’t an activity she enjoys. As a result, she becomes bored more quickly on her own, and begins to get rather slapdash in discounting the rows of dresses she encounters. Much to the confusion of one or two assorted assistants.

Being a practical woman, she starts at the bottom of the High Street and works her way up through every single possible shop until she is nearing the top of the street. Olivia discovers several facts during that time: yes, she can keep going on coffee alone; the High Street is more of a hill than she’d thought; cobbles aren’t the best surface to walk on – she nearly slips twice and it’s nowhere near winter; and it would have been far less tiring if she’d started at the top of the street and aimed down the hill to the bottom.

The one thing she doesn’t discover is a dress. That said, she does now have several criteria for her perfect dress fixed for all time in her head. It is this mantra she repeats to herself as she approaches the final wedding shop in town: a small independent nestled at the curve of the road which goes by the bizarre name of ‘Talassio’.

Olivia thinks it sounds Italian but has no idea what it means – she’s no linguist. The shop won’t have anything suitable anyway, but she’ll be damned if she gives up without trying every single option. So, taking a deep breath, she opens the door and gives Guildford one last faint throw of the dice.

As she steps inside, the woman at the far end of the narrow but sunlit room lined with wedding dresses on all walls turns towards her and smiles. Not just a polite smile to a customer, but a smile as if she’s only been waiting for Olivia’s arrival and is thrilled she’s finally made it.

“Good afternoon!” the woman says, as she walked towards Olivia, hand outstretched. “What can I do for you?”

And then, as if by magic, it is as if Olivia has known the answer to her wedding dress problems all along and she’s only needed this welcome to unlock it.

“Actually,” she says, “What I’d really like is a three-quarter length dupion silk wedding dress in ivory with a simple waistline and decent sleeves, please. I hate my arms, you see.”

The sales assistant nods and gives Olivia a searching gaze. Then she takes one of the dresses from the nearest rack and holds it up in front of her. “Then this is the one you want,” she says. “It’s a bridesmaid’s dress but fits your requirements perfectly. It’s not ivory, but that doesn’t matter. The colour is irrelevant right now. Try this on and see if you like it. If you do, we can order it in the colour you like.”

Olivia blinks. Admittedly, the dress is a soft pink colour – which isn’t her style at all – but apart from that it perfectly embodies all the items she’s asked for. She also likes the assistant’s calm, direct but kind-hearted approach. She doesn’t feel like a second-class bride here.

She reaches for the dress. “Thank you. I’ll give it a go,” she says.

In the changing room, Olivia hangs the dress up for a few moments and looks at it. She likes what she sees. It feels like an adult dress for an adult wedding, which is the effect she wants. It doesn’t take long to get the dress on either as she doesn’t have to deal with yards of unnecessary lace or frills, so a plus point there.

Once she’s smoothed out the material over her bottom and adjusted the shoulders, she steps out into the salon to get a better view in the mirror. The assistant is waiting for her and nods as if she’d been proved right at something.

“Very good,” she says. “Very good indeed, in my opinion. But the main thing is: what do you think, madam?”

“Please,” Olivia says, “call me Olivia. Everyone else does.”

“Thank you, mad… I mean Olivia. So what do you think?”

Olivia smiles and gazes at her reflection in the enormous mirror. Funny how big the mirror actually is – so much so that when she first came in, she’d imagined the salon to be much larger. The room is in fact quite small, but light and bright and very calming – all the things Annabel has hoped to associate with her wedding dress search but hasn’t so far experienced.

Well, she’s experiencing it now.

Okay, the dress is the wrong colour for her – though bizarrely not by much – but it’s a simple and elegant dress for a real woman. It skims her waist in a reassuringly slimming manner and makes the most of what the Good Lord has chosen to give Olivia in the chest department. Which isn’t as much as she personally would have liked, but she’s never been one to complain.

“I like it,” she says at last. “It’s almost perfect, except for the colour. You did say this style came in ivory, didn’t you? Have you got something similar I could try, for the shade?”