Kate's Wedding (12 page)

‘Are you going to make me pose like Prince William when we get married too?’

‘Of course not. Our wedding day will be entirely unique. This is just for a laugh. We’ll do the Kate and Prince William pics, but we’re going to take lots of engagement pictures in our own clothes as well.’

‘Lots? How long is this going to take?’

‘I already told you you’re going to need a whole day off,’ said Diana.

‘I don’t have a day to take before the end of the year. Not since I took three days off for your birthday.’ And especially not since Diana had announced that she wanted to leave her ‘unsatisfying and overly demanding’ part-time job at the end of January. Though she had gone quiet about it for a while, Ben still wasn’t sure he had persuaded her against that particular idea and the thought that he hadn’t and that from 1 February he would be entirely responsible for all their bills was giving him sleepless nights.

‘I thought you said that you were important in your office. Surely someone will cover for you. They know how important this wedding is to you.’

Ben said that he would do his best, though he doubted that anyone in the office would consider an engagement shoot to be important. Not when there were deadlines to be met. In the end, he had to call in sick.

The day of the engagement shoot was every bit as busy as a shoot for a high-end advertising campaign. Not only would the wedding photographer and his assistant be in attendance, Diana had also insisted that her top choices for wedding hairdresser and make-up artist be there. It would be a good opportunity for them to try out her wedding look and for Diana to be certain that she wouldn’t have to look elsewhere. Never mind that having the hairdresser take a whole day out of her usual salon schedule would cost the best part of £300.

‘You could just go into the salon in the morning,’ Diana’s father suggested when she told him how much he would need to transfer to her bank account.

‘Do you want a nice photograph for your mantelpiece or not?’ was Diana’s response.

Neither was it just a matter of ensuring that the bride-to-be looked as good as possible. Ben was sent off for a haircut, while Susie, who had also taken a day off at her daughter’s insistence, helped to ‘dress the set’. The set that day was Susie’s living room. Though she lived in a house that was built in 1989 from a design based on four shoeboxes, Susie’s decorating taste tended towards the baroque. With its heavy velvet curtains and dark wood bookshelves (which housed a collection of leather-bound DVDs), her living room could easily pass for a stateroom in a palace. To add to the effect of opulence, Diana had ordered enough cut flowers to make a bee reach for the antihistamines. There were roses in every colour imaginable. Diana and Susie spent an hour deciding which shade of flower would match the fake blue Issa dress, only to come to the conclusion that none of them quite worked and, when he came back from the barber, Ben would have to go in search of some plain white roses that were a whiter white than the white roses Diana had already rejected.

‘Surely a rose by any other name,’ Ben mused when Diana told him what she wanted.

‘What are you on about, Ben? Get to the florist’s before they all go. People are waiting.’

Finally, two hours after it was scheduled, the shoot was able to start. Pete, the photographer, made a good job of hiding his impatience as his subjects got into position. The ‘royal’ poses were first. Diana had studied the newspaper cuttings carefully and was able to get into character right away. Ben found it altogether more difficult. He really had very little in common with the heir to the throne other than that they were both male and liked rugby. He was happy, sort of, to stand alongside Diana with his best ‘regal’ look on his face, but he drew the line at having to look more William-like, which would, as far as he could see, involve getting a bigger set of teeth.

‘Come on,’ said Diana. ‘It won’t work if you don’t put your all into it.’

‘I am not going to pull a
Prince William face
,’ Ben insisted. ‘I can’t.’

‘You can,’ said Susie. ‘Look. It’s easy. Look at this picture again.’

Susie did her own heir-apparent impression. It was frightening realistic.

‘Perhaps he should just smile naturally,’ said Pete. ‘Everyone will get the idea. In my experience, pastiches work much better if there’s a little hint of difference, a touch of the real couple coming through.’

Diana disagreed. ‘But he’s not trying at all. You can’t stand like that, Wills.’

‘Wills? My name is Ben, for God’s sake. Now you can’t even call me by my own name.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Diana, blowing little kisses in his direction. ‘You look so princely I just forgot. One more time. Just one more time, please. I’ll be nice to you all day.’

‘All right,’ said Ben. ‘Just for you.’

Diana draped her arm through Ben’s so that her engagement ring was perfectly on display. At least, a ring was on perfect display.

‘Where’s your engagement ring?’ Ben asked, as he clocked a very different-looking bauble on his fiancée’s ring finger. The extravagant diamond ring that had cost him so dearly had been replaced by a dazzling blue sapphire in a collar of diamonds. It was a replica of Princess Diana’s engagement ring with a central stone so big it could only be a fake. He hoped his Diana had put her real diamonds somewhere safe. Ben was still paying for them, after all.

The new ring wasn’t a fake.

‘They did a part exchange,’ Diana explained. ‘But what you’d already paid didn’t quite cover it. It was three hundred pounds more. You can pay me back later.’

‘You said you didn’t mind what engagement ring I chose. I chose that other ring for you.’

‘I know, but . . . this is what I’ve really always wanted. I didn’t know it until I saw Kate Middleton wearing one, but I really love it. It’s so unusual.’

Unusual? There were probably thousands of rings exactly like it circulating the country right now.

‘But I thought you loved that other ring?’

‘Isn’t it a girl’s prerogative to change her mind?’ asked Diana.

‘Am I allowed to change mine?’ Ben muttered under his breath.

Pete had seen many things, but he had never seen anyone look quite as uncomfortable as the groom he was photographing that morning. The results were not good. The bride – a real Bridezilla – really knew how to pose, but in just about every picture her fiancé looked as though he would rather be eating his own feet. After half an hour, during which Ben did not loosen up, even with the application of a glass of cava from the celebratory bottle that Pete always brought along to engagement shoots, it was time to give up on Diana’s royal dream.

‘I think we should try some shots of you guys in your own clothes now,’ Pete suggested.

Diana scowled at Ben. ‘You didn’t make any effort at all.’

However, the other photographs were not much better. For the rest of the afternoon Diana was in a sulk and barely addressed a word in Ben’s direction. Sure, she turned on a megawatt smile whenever the camera was pointed in her direction, but she had no smile for her fiancé’s benefit. Instead, Pete thought with a slight chill, she seemed to be directing all her best expressions at him. Pete hated it when a bride flirted with either him or his assistant. It really wasn’t right. But then misplaced flirtation was far from being the only thing that wasn’t right with this particular pair.

The phrase ‘The camera never lies’ was rarely far from Pete’s mind when he first met a new couple. A micro-expression caught on film – or digitally, as it was these days – could reveal a whole different story behind a so-called happy event. While Diana had her make-up touched up for a fourth time, the photographer and his assistant went through the frames they’d already captured and shared a knowing glance when they came to a picture in which Diana’s face was frozen in an unfortunate tooth-baring expression that brought to mind the American serial killer Aileen Wuornos en route to her trial.

‘Delete?’ suggested the assistant.

‘No, I think I might keep this,’ said Pete, transferring the picture into a file that he would not show his clients but which might raise a smile from several of his photographer friends. ‘It’s Kate Middleton meets
28 Days Later
.’

‘I’m ready,’ Diana announced. Ben got wearily to his feet again.

‘We’ve got about three hundred shots to work from here,’ Pete tried. ‘If you’re feeling tired, then there’s really no need to keep snapping away. I’m sure you’ll be pleased with the results we already have.’

‘But we haven’t recreated the iconic pose from
Titanic
,’ said Diana. ‘I definitely want some shots of that.’

Ben assumed another pose and thought of England. Everyone present, apart from Diana, gritted their teeth and thought of England as the shoot went on for the best part of another hour.

Chapter Twenty-One

The following day – a Saturday – brought another engagement shoot. Kate and Ian were about as excited by the idea of spending an afternoon having their photographs taken as Ben had been. They tried to wriggle out of it, but Trudy, the photographer, persuaded Kate that it was important to go through this particular trial.

‘I want to get to know you both properly,’ she said, ‘so that I can take the best pictures possible on your actual wedding day.’

‘I’m sure you’ll do fine without the practice,’ said Kate.

‘What kind of professional would I be if I didn’t do everything in my power to bring you wedding-day perfection?’ was Trudy’s retort.

Then Ian’s mother said that she wanted a picture of the happy couple for her mantelpiece. And so did Elaine and John. They couldn’t wait until the wedding.

‘I’d like one too,’ said Tess. ‘You can pose as Kate Middleton and Prince William.’

‘We are not posing as Kate Middleton and Prince William,’ said Kate, ‘no matter how much it would make you laugh.’

‘You’re so boring,’ said Tess. ‘I was going to get it printed on a tea towel for your Christmas present.’

‘Thanks but no, thanks.’

Luckily, Kate knew that Ian would agree with her. There was no need for some silly pastiche. They would just be themselves. To that effect, they both dressed as they would have ordinarily dressed at the weekend. No ball gowns or tuxedos for them. They both wore jeans. Kate washed her hair but didn’t spend an especially long time styling it.

Because Trudy was based down on the south coast – Kate had picked her at random from the photographers at the bridal fair – Ian and Kate were going to travel down to meet her there. It seemed like a good idea. For a start, it would give Kate another opportunity to see her parents, who were in need of buoying up as the day of Elaine’s surgery grew nearer. Plus, there would be far more beautiful venues there than in London. Kate had no outside space at her flat. Ian’s scruffy little garden was overlooked by half a dozen other flats and neither Kate nor Ian relished the thought of the neighbours seeing them prancing around in front of a camera. They would think they had gone mad.

Unfortunately, Trudy was not of quite the same mind. After Kate explained that they wanted to keep things classy, she reminded Kate and Ian that her speciality was ‘quirky’ wedding photographs. She wanted to give each bride and groom she worked for a wedding album that would keep them smiling into old age.

‘For that you need something different. I’m going to tune into your deepest desires,’ she promised, ‘and give you a set of photographs you never dreamt possible.’

‘Really,’ said Ian, ‘some simple poses would be OK.’

Kate agreed.

‘But that’s so boring!’

‘Please,’ Kate pleaded. ‘He’s right. It’s not as though we’re kids. We’re not quirky people. Some simple, classic, casual poses will reflect the way we are just fine.’

‘As you wish,’ said Trudy.

Kate should have guessed the moment she saw Trudy at the bridal fair that a photographer with bright green dreadlocks was hardly going to take a traditional approach, but Trudy tried her best to achieve the look Kate was after.

The trio walked down to the beach. It was bare and stark in the winter, but Trudy approved of the light reflected off the water. She said she liked to shoot with natural light wherever she could.

‘What about my wrinkles?’ Kate asked to break the ice.

‘I can Photoshop them out if you wish.’

Kate made a note to stop joking about things like wrinkles and saddlebags, since it was becoming clear from people’s responses that these days she actually had them.

‘We’ll start here,’ said Trudy.

Ian scouted out a large piece of driftwood that would make do for a seat. He and Kate sat down at either end.

‘Snuggle up a bit.’

‘It’s not very well balanced,’ Kate explained. ‘If we move closer together, we might fall over.’

‘But you don’t look very romantic.’

Ian reached out his hand. Kate took it.

‘Better?’

‘Just about.’

Trudy quickly ran through fifty frames.

‘There’s not a lot of dynamism here, folks. Laugh with each other. Ian, tell Kate a joke.’

‘Why is it that being told to make a joke chases just about every funny thought I ever had right out of my head?’ Ian complained.

Kate forced a smile at his observation.

‘I am hating this,’ she told him.

‘You look lovely,’ Ian reassured her.

‘Come on! You look like you’re advertising health insurance,’ said Trudy, ‘and this is the picture to show how you’re getting on with real life after your breast-cancer diagnosis.’

Kate bristled.

‘Was it something I said?’ asked Trudy. She carried on snapping without waiting for an answer. ‘Don’t look at the camera like that, Kate. It’s even worse than before.’

Ian shook his head slightly to let Kate know that there was little point telling Trudy she’d come a bit close to the mark with her breast-cancer comment.