I need to confess something.
Last summer, I was bridesmaid to a woman who made Miranda Priestly look like a relaxed yoga instructor.
Let’s call her Charlotte.
Charlotte had been my friend since university, but the moment she got engaged, she transformed into a dictatorship wearing a £4,000 wedding dress.
We had mandatory bridesmaid meetings. Mandatory. Like we were preparing for a military invasion rather than watching a woman marry a man who still says “amazeballs” without irony.
She demanded we lose weight, banned fake tan, insisted we all get identical manicures, and sent us a spreadsheet ranking our hairstyles by “photographic suitability.” I came fourth. There were four bridesmaids.
The final straw came when she told me I couldn’t bring my boyfriend because he was “too tall and would ruin the symmetry of the photographs.” He’s six foot three, Charlotte. Not the bloody Shard.
Anyway, three days before the wedding, she gave me responsibility for the seating plan.
Big mistake.
Because I knew something she didn’t. Her new mother-in-law and her mother’s best friend had been having a bitter feud since a disastrous neighbourhood barbecue in 2018.
Apparently, there had been accusations of stolen potato salad. I never got the full story. But I knew those women absolutely despised each other. So naturally, I seated them together.
At the top table. Right next to the wedding cake. Now, before anyone calls me evil, I genuinely thought they’d just exchange a few frosty glances.
I did not anticipate the mother-in-law announcing, halfway through dessert:
“At least I didn’t bring shop-bought coleslaw and pretend it was homemade, Sandra.”
Sandra responded by calling her a “sanctimonious old cow.” Within thirty seconds, someone had thrown a bread roll.
Within two minutes, the wedding cake was on the floor.
The photographer captured the whole thing. The pictures are extraordinary. Charlotte spent the evening crying in the bridal suite. I spent it drinking champagne with the DJ.
She’s still speaking to me, somehow. She thinks the hotel messed up the seating plan. And last week, she asked me to be godmother to her first child.
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