The Little Wedding Shop by the Sea

Cate sends Immie a firm frown, then turns back to me. ‘This dress was in the wedding magazine I bought the morning Liam proposed.’ She folds her arms decidedly. ‘I’ve known all along those are the ones I’m having.’

What’s she talking about? She got engaged months ago. ‘So why are we even looking at others?’ I ask. What’s worse, I’m going through my own agonies here. My blotchy orange hair is going to look so cheap and trashy beside this upmarket dress.

Cate gives another grin. ‘It was to show Liam that we’d explored every option before we settled on this one.’

Immie’s aghast. ‘Times eight, and I’ve run out of fingers. I hope you’ve got something spectacular up your sleeve for when Liam finally does his calculations and finds out how much this is costing, Cate.’ Immie’s given up on her glass and she’s drowning her bridesmaid sorrows straight from the bottle.

‘I’m the accountant in the family. If Liam ever does the sums, he’s in for the dirtiest night of his life.’ Cate laughs. ‘Although this is nothing compared to the other thing I splurged on this week.’

Immie and I both squint at her. When did careful Cate turn into a cash splasher?

‘The marquee company got in touch with a special offer on the most gorgeous open sided tents. I couldn’t resist so I ordered two.’

‘What, instead of the main marquee?’ I’m not sure ‘open’ is a good idea, as for two …

From Cate’s airy waft of her hand, she might have been talking about tenner-a-go pop up tents, not three grand a time event venues. ‘No, I’ve ordered these as well, I thought they’d make a nice extra.’

I’m still picking my jaw up off the floor, but Immie’s covered it. ‘Liam’s going to be up to his boxers in filthy sex when this shit hits the fan.’ Eloquent as ever, she takes another swig.

Jess looks at her watch. ‘Time to try on then?’

She’s got a bride coming in for a final fitting at six, so she’ll have to go downstairs for that. Given Immie’s stroppy scowl from behind the prosecco bottle it may be no bad thing.

‘You go to your bride,’ I say to Jess. ‘Sera and I can carry on here.’

I knew I should have given Immie twice as much fizz before we started. With Immie the line between making her compliant and keeping her standing is indiscernible. She goes from saying no to falling over, with barely a second to catch her saying yes.

As Jess slips away, Immie’s starting to rant.

‘Do I look like I’m ready to be transformed into a trifle?’

To be fair, she’s a committed jeans and sweatshirt girl, so I’m not sure how this is going to go. The last time she wore a skirt out of school was probably when she was a carnival rosebud, thirty years ago. I don’t have to dig too deep to come up with the kind of bribe she’ll go for.

‘You try on the dress, Immie, and we’ll send Sera for another bottle of fizz.’

Sera grins at me and heads for the stairs.

Immie rolls her eyes, and sighs, but she gets up. As soon as she’s on her feet I shoulder her into the fitting room, shove the dress in with her, and whisk the curtain closed.

Cate and I take deep breaths as we retire to a safe distance.

Cate frowns and turns to me. ‘I’ve been thinking, you can’t struggle with a man as difficult as Rafe from now until September.’ She runs her fingers through her hair. ‘There must be something we can do to soften him up.’

I shrug. ‘He doesn’t respond to cake.’

Cate sniffs. ‘He probably needs a good roll in the hay, we’ll have to find him a woman.’

After Immie’s rundown on the history of his nonexistent love life, I grin. ‘Good luck with that one.’

‘There is one person he doesn’t object to.’ Cate’s lips are flickering. ‘Immie has him eating out of her hand. That has to mean something.’

I’m not sure I agree with Cate here. ‘It means she scares the bejesus out of him.’

‘But he spends a lot of time with Morgan,’ Cate observes.

She’s right about that. Morgan’s always dragging what I assume to be bits of broken tractor round the farmyard after Rafe.

‘Rafe wouldn’t take an interest in Morgan if he wasn’t interested in Immie, would he?’ Cate leans in, and she’s whispering. ‘In the interest of smoothing the way for my wedding …’ She says those two last words very close and very loudly. ‘I think you might need to sprinkle some cupid dust on Rafe and Immie, okay?’

I reel. Cate’s not usually this forceful. ‘Hold it there Bridezilla, how exactly am I supposed to do that?’

‘Organise a Daisy Hill Farm night out, and we’ll work on it together.’

‘Night out?’ I query, as I sink onto a stripy director’s chair. ‘What did you have in mind?’

‘Cocktails here in town might be good?’ Cate gives a satisfied nod, as if it’s already in the bag. ‘You’ll thank me for this. It’ll make the run up to the wedding easier for all of us.’

Cate’s wiggling her eyebrows excitedly. ‘We could start at Jaggers.’

‘You go to Jaggers too? So does Jess.’ If I hadn’t already sunk into a chair, I would do now.

‘We often call in there on Fridays, they do great mojitos, you should try them.’ She shakes her head at me. ‘You need to get out more, Poppy. Starting this week. I’ve been too easy on you, giving you the excuse of babysitting for me. I shouldn’t be taking advantage. You need a life too.’

And here’s me thinking that Cate and Liam barely get further than the village pub. Has the whole world gone mad while I’ve been hiding under my duvet?

‘Everything going okay here?’ Jess breezes through the doorway that leads to the shoe department, a pair of rhinestone stilettos balanced on each hand.

‘Immie’s currently trying the Miranda, in blush,’ I tell her. Every dress in the shop is allocated a different girls name, and that’s how we refer to them.

‘Well done, we don’t often get bridesmaids as reluctant as Immie,’ Jess raises her eyebrows. ‘There’s good news from downstairs too, Poppy.’

‘Celebrity gossip?’ Given the fall out after last week’s Josie Redman Twitter storm and Sera’s huge spike in popularity, I’m not sure I can cope with more.

‘No, no much closer to home … I think I’ve found your lost couple.’ Jess flashes a triumphant beam. ‘My six o’clock bride just mentioned she’s getting married at Daisy Hill Farm the week before Easter. I’ll give you her number later.’ Jess gazes doubtfully at the shoes in her hands. ‘I’m not sure these will mix with mud though. If you’re going to be putting on lots of weddings in fields we’ll need to order in some sparkly wellies.’

Before I have time to tell Jess that any weddings in fields will be strictly short term she’s sped off back to her bride, and Immie is pushing her way out of the fitting room, face like a stormy sea.

‘Great news, we’ve found our missing Easter bride.’ I say it brightly to take her mind off what she’s wearing.

Immie’s talking through gritted teeth. ‘Well my news is, I’d rather wear the curtains than this dress.’ She’s wading through waves of chiffon.

As Cate and I stand back to assess, I’m ready for the worst.

We both hold our breath.

‘It is a bit long,’ I say, ‘but actually you’ve got curves for the first time since … forever.’ It’s surprising to think Immie’s been hiding that hour glass figure under her baggy T-shirts. ‘You have to admit, you’re looking pretty sassy.’ Despite her cropped hair, the pretty dress suits her.

Immie’s holding her hand in front of her chest, screwing up her face. ‘You know I hate fitting rooms,’ she protests. ‘I refuse to look, it’s too humiliating.’