New Beginnings

Two practice weddings and a two-hour admin session later, I began my new job in August. August. Mid-wedding season. I realised very quickly that romance had blinded me to the reality of this job. I knew nothing. Suddenly, several bridal mags and a wedding etiquette book, courtesy of Amazon, got lost in the fathoms of hard slog.

Lugging tables out onto the dance floor, ironing table cloths, folding napkins, polishing glasses, removing hand smears from patio windows and hoovering an acre of carpet all proved relatively easy in comparison with having to assemble a 3-tier cake topped with fragile glass-blown swans. All this dressed with the best my amateur dramatics could offer. Smiling fake confidence I was exhausted at the end of my first solo performance. ''John" I sighed, to the young chef, "I'm going home now to put my feet up! - large glass of wine and Sex and the City". "Too much information I think" he grinned, going scarlet. "Eh?" I retorted. Puzzled. "Sex and the City? It's a TV show!" "Oh!" he exclaimed. "I thought you said sex on the settee". How we laughed.

And, what a performance my first debut turned out to be. The couple were Jock and Sharon; a heavy-mouthed Scotsman and a polite, young, creative lady who had made her own cake and designed her own flower arrangements. Plastic ones. Our receptionist pointed out that Jock was Karaoke King in town and had stalked her some months earlier, so ducked below the high wooden wall of the reception desk every time Jock waddled past.

This was a Civil Ceremony and as Sharon handed me her 3-track CD, I realised with sheer horror that I would have to play DJ at this solemn affair. "Track one is my entrance, track two when we're signing the register and the final one is the Wedding March!" Feeling slightly light-headed I made my way to Bob, the friendly Canadian Assistant Manager. We quickly worked out a strategy involving nods and signals via the Registrar and off we went. All seemed to go quite well and I found myself blinking back tears as Jock and Sharon took turns to recite their chosen poem.

A good hour later, guests sipped at Pimms and slurped pints of Grolsh, when all of a sudden, an almighty racket broke loose in the pretty landscaped garden to the rear of the hotel. Jes*s Chr*st what the hell was going on?! Three terriers were locked in a viscious brawl surrounded by flailing suits attempting to pull them apart. I danced around them nervously not knowing what to do. One of the dogs was finally pulled off another, then two of them ran hell for leather into the Banqueting Suite. I continued to strut around like a headless chicken muttering 'is this your dog sir? Can you keep it under control please sir? Are you part of the wedding party sir?' Having denied he was part of the wedding party, I was somewhat surprised then to see him sitting at one of the tables later on enjoying the wedding breakfast, strangely accompanied by two youngsters donning bat-winged jumpers and stone-washed jeans.

Bob and I hovered behind the curtains huffing and puffing about the dog fight. All seemed to have calmed down now and the wedding breakfast had commenced. "Oh no! Oh no! The flowers!" Leaping onto the small, homemade stage, I grabbed a pedestal and desperately whispered through gritted teeth that these should have been on display about an hour ago either side of the top table! Bob instructed me to walk confidently to one side of the top table, and he would do the other. We had to make it look like we had planned all along for the flowers to appear right now and not a moment earlier. Picking the display up by its base, I lunged forward to catch it as it toppled over. A kind of slow, horror-like motion gripped me as I crouched to pick up the display. Bob was now sweating and I felt sick as we frantically stuffed the flowers back into the end of the stand. 'Ok. How's that?' I was thanking some God up there that this had happened behind the curtains. 'Yeeaah' he drawled, 'it's fine. No-one will notice' as I continued to fiddle with and shake the plastic stems. Just as we were about to march out with the thing, a waitress sauntered past and commented "there's no basket on that one". Stopping to study the pair of arrangements in front of me, I saw she was right. One had a basket on top containing the flowers, one didn't; the one I had dropped! "There it is" she pointed. "It's down there". The stand was upside down.

No-one seemed to notice the lop-sided slant of the left hand display, and all began to fade into the background as service began and the main course was served. Silver-served. I had never silver-served in my life and somehow, job title of 'Wedding Coordinator' had not conjured up images of waitressing when I had accepted the job. I grabbed what I thought was a carrying cloth to take the hot plates out, and approached a sultry, sexy-looking Indian lady at her table with a hot Turkey dinner in both hands. Turkey. In August? Bending down, I attempted to put the plate down in front of her and straightened to find I was attached via my cloth to a sequin on her dress. "I'm so sorry, I'm attached to you" I grimaced. Fake smiling she saw what I meant and attempted to unravel the thread, which had wrapped itself around her delicate sequin. I couldn't move as I was clutching a hot plate of Christmas aroma in both hands. Some seconds later we came apart and I retreated, bowing slightly as I departed, trying not to acknowledge the sparkle that hung a lot lower than the others that outlined her delicate cleavage. I remembered somewhere from my past retail management career that you should never accept responsibility. Or was that car crashes? Feeling slightly guilty I glanced over my shoulder and saw her trying to push it back into its place.

It was time to go home at last. As I approached Jock and Sharon to wish them a good night and a pleasant evening, I heard him shout loudly of his new bride, to his best man, 'that she'd bi gettin' wun tunnight!' Jock grinned and turned to me, expressing dismay that the bridal march had nearly given him a heart attack coming on 10 minutes early (Bob had kept that one quiet) and I slunk home with an invisible tail between my legs. Pouring a huge glass of cold Chablis and kicking off heels that seemed to pulsate chinese burns into my very soul, I relaxed to watch Carrie and the girls suffer their weekly embarrassments through laughter and tears. Wondering where the glamour had been that day, I giggled to myself, amused that Jock hadn't made enough Argos vouchers for that plasma TV he so wanted. A few Mr Big-indulgent episodes later, I hobbled off to the fridge for another glass of wine, wishing that I was indeed going to be having sex on the settee....