LIZ JONES’S DIARY: In which I plan for a wedding
‘New balls, please.’ Or was it old balls?
I never made it to Wimbledon with an old flame. Probably just as well. He would have been surrounded by blondes with perfectly symmetrical faces wearing floral tea dresses.
These women all hate me. They never speak to me, just in case I’m making notes for a future column.
It would have been a re-enactment of Rooney vs Vardy, only in a slightly different sport. As Dolly Alderton wrote in The Sunday Times about off-putting facts you can bring along to a date: ‘You once wrote a memoir seven years ago and now no one will come near you because they’re paranoid you’re secretly writing down everything they say, to be transcribed directly into a book.’
I couldn’t go to the tennis as Nic’s car broke down, again, meaning it would have been hard for her to look after the horses (she doesn’t like to call the AA on a Sunday, given she’s a people pleaser), and also the Mail called me in a panic as Jane Birkin had just died.
I’m not spending the entire day, some of it on grass, in high heels
Would I write 1,000 words on the Birkin bag? I was toiling up the hill with a wheelbarrow rather unglamorously (I haven’t carried a handbag since moving to the country; I merely have pockets stuffed with poo bags and cocktail sausages), already forming sentences in my head along the lines of, ‘Was the legacy made from something dragged from a river and skinned alive really worth having?’*
By the time I got to my laptop ten minutes later, I was asked to ‘stand down’ as someone else had said yes to the obit first.
That’s how cutthroat my profession is, even after 43 years.
Anyway, I’ve been invited to a late summer wedding. On the list of instructions are the following:
- No wedding gifts
- No photos on your phone
- No stilettos without protectors, as ‘the floor of the venue is ancient’ (I feel like adding, ‘Like the bride’ but think better of it)
- No plus-one if we haven’t met him/her/them
- No children
My back is up. They’ve also sent a map of the venue. The car park looks an awfully long way from the reception.
Feeling tired already, I wonder if I can be bothered. At a wedding in the Peak District, I had left booking anywhere too late, so had room envy.
The place I was staying at had mini Imperial Leather soap bars. At another nuptial in Suffolk on the coast, on arrival my then boyfriend and I were confronted with a stairlift and he had the cheek to say, ‘Do you want to have a go?’ ‘It’s the Louboutins!’ I hissed, hopping to take them off.
Jones moans… What Liz loathes this week
- Men with two-tone arms. Just put fake tan on the white bits!
- Brad Pitt. On the evidence of Wimbledon, he will have spent most of the evening picking crisps out of his teeth
- Hailstones in July. Never mind people suffering in Rome, I need vitamin D!
But, wanting an airing, I’ve booked a ‘Divine’ room at Thyme in the Cotswolds nearby. It costs £800 for one night. All I need now is a car, and a plus-one the bride has met, which isn’t easy, as he/she/they are thin on the ground.
Oh, and an outfit. Almost forgot that.
You know you’re getting older when your first thought is, ‘I’m not spending the entire day, some of it on grass, in high heels.’ I bought some Gucci slides on Ebay, thinking they would be comfy, but I keep falling off them.
I have just bought an oversize double-breasted blazer online at Zara, which I could wear over a bodycon. All I need now is the body. And the con.
I figure even if I can’t afford a house, I can at least look nice. I once got 30 per cent discount at Net-a-Porter, 40 per cent at Prada, but I think I’ve since been excommunicated.
And then I see it: a stretch crepe midi dress by Gauge81 (me neither) in the Net-a-Porter sale. It’s black, like my mood.
But I can lighten it with my silver Manolos, bought at Barneys for the Oscars. Sod their floors. Sod the plus-one. I will save money on the extreme bikini waxing…
*When Alexander McQueen died, my former PA emailed to inform me I was the only journalist in the world to have penned a negative obit
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