Always the Bridesmaid. Lindsey Kelk

party?’ Lauren asked. ‘No one. My step-mom put it together.’

      I stared blankly. ‘In two days? She did all this in two days?’

      She nodded.

      ‘God, maybe Colton-Bryers should hire her,’ I muttered. ‘At least you’ve got good help for the wedding then.’

      ‘But you’re going to help me with the wedding too, right?’ she said, sipping her champagne. ‘I don’t want to be an asshole since they’re throwing me this party and everything, but I don’t want my stepmother planning my wedding. Besides, you’re an actual wedding planner. And it would be way more fun if the three of us planned it together.’

      Yes, I thought, saying nothing. It would be way more fun. Planning a wedding with bridezilla, a divorcée and a spinster. Sob. It seemed pointless trying to remind her I was an events organizer and not just a wedding planner so I didn’t. I just sulked about it silently, alone.

      ‘So where are you at?’ Sarah followed Lauren over to a plush white sofa set up in one corner of the marquee and sat down. ‘Is the whole thing planned and booked and paid for already?’

      ‘Oh I wish,’ she said, giving another new arrival a wave. ‘I don’t know how you do this every day, Maddie. Every time I think I’ve decided on something, there are another ten things to work out.’

      ‘That’s why it’s a job,’ I said. ‘It’s more work than you realize.’

      ‘Thank God I have you to help me,’ she beamed across the table. ‘My own personal wedding planner.’

      ‘Yeah, of course.’ I returned her smile, barely. One more time, not a wedding planner. ‘Have you decided on a date yet?’

      ‘I wanted to talk to you guys about that,’ Lauren said, looking slightly shifty and curling the ends of her blonde ponytail around her index finger. ‘So, it’s like this. Michael’s grandma is over there.’

      She pointed at an elderly lady in a wheelchair who was wearing the most spectacular hat I had ever seen.

      ‘She’s really sick,’ Lauren whispered.

      ‘She looks all right to me,’ Sarah replied. ‘What’s that she’s drinking?’

      ‘Whisky,’ Lauren said. ‘I kept having to top her up so I just gave her the bottle.’

      ‘And now she’s drinking out of it with a straw?’ I asked.

      ‘Whatever, she’s sick,’ Lauren said. ‘So we’re definitely going to have to get something figured out sooner rather than later if we want her there.’

      ‘I think you’re going to have to do it this afternoon if you want her there,’ Sarah said with a frown, unable to take her eyes off the woman. Really, it was the most amazing hat.

      ‘How soon is soon?’ I asked. ‘New Year’s maybe? Next spring?’

      ‘Like, August?’ Lauren pulled up her shoulders in a faux wince.

      ‘That’s not that soon,’ I said, calculating on my fingers. ‘That’s fifteen months, totally standard.’

      Lauren smiled with all of her teeth and an apology in her eyes. ‘Like, this August?’

      ‘This August?’ I asked. ‘As in three months from now?’

      ‘The first, actually,’ she confirmed, looking to me for support, but I had nothing. ‘It’ll be OK, right? Maddie?’

      I stared blankly across the table. Two and a half months.

      ‘My dad said he’d pay for the actual wedding, and my mom is going it pay for my dress,’ she said, flipping her eyes between the two of us. ‘And I’m not doing some crazed pre-wedding diet that’s going to take six months, so that’s not a thing.’

      ‘People don’t plan their weddings so far in advance just so they can lose a few pounds,’ I said, deliberately not catching Sarah’s eye. We all remembered her pre-wedding diet. They were dark days. Dark, Slim-Fast-filled days. ‘It takes time to make the dress. The ones you try on are samples. Most designers make every dress from scratch when you order it.’

      ‘But you’ll be able to help me, right?’ she said with pleading eyes. ‘I just want it to be perfect.’

      ‘Of course I will,’ I replied automatically. ‘But if you want to organize a wedding in three months, you’re going to have to make compromises.’

      Why did I suddenly feel like I was at work? Oh, that’s right, because my best friend had just hired me to pull together her wedding in three months and she was planning on paying mates’ rates, i.e. nothing.

      ‘It’s going to be fine. It’ll be awesome,’ she said. And she was smiling again, clearly having stopped listening to me halfway through. ‘I just know you’re going to help me have the perfect wedding. I‘ve done some research to help you. Do you think we could get the carriage they used at the royal wedding? They can’t be using it now, right?’

      Before I could say anything, she reached underneath the sofa, pulled a giant powder-blue ring binder out of her tote bag and dropped it onto the table in front of me with a thud.

      ‘This is where I’m at so far,’ she said, brushing her hair over her shoulder, all business. ‘Do you want to go through it now or do you want to take it with you and get back to me later?’

      ‘I think I might take it with me,’ I said slowly, leafing through the pages. Vintage Rolls-Royces for the bridal party, Routemaster bus to take the guests to the reception, Monique Lhuillier, Vera Wang, Jenny Packham, fireworks displays, swans, doves, swing bands, pick-and-mix counter for the reception, chocolate fountain, champagne fountain, sherbet fountains … it was my all worst nightmares wrapped up in a best-friend bow. I wanted to help Lauren, but I couldn’t help feeling a bit sick. ‘You know, I might not be able to get all this for August.’

      ‘Of course you will,’ she said confidently. ‘You’re amazing.’

      ‘I mean, yes, I am,’ I agreed. ‘But putting this together this quickly is going to be a full-time job, and at last count I already have one of those.’

      ‘Can I get you anything at all?’ A waitress appeared at my elbow, pad at the ready.

      ‘Three champagnes please,’ Sarah said quickly. ‘Do you two need anything?’

      Against all the odds, the party was fun. I made a deal with Lauren to keep Sarah away from her dad, and Sarah made a deal with me to keep a glass of champagne in her hand at all times. Thank goodness I’m used to managing conflict on a daily basis.

      ‘He is fit, though,’ Sarah said, leering at the aforementioned father from our new perch outside the marquee. ‘For an older man, I mean.’

      ‘He’s Lauren’s dad,’ I said as I looked over at the sixty-something-year-old man clutching the arse of his thirty-something-year-old second wife and gipped. ‘I just don’t get it.’

      ‘He’s a silver fox,’ she said, actually swooning as he flicked a hand over his far-too-luxuriant-for-my-liking grey locks. ‘Imagine all the things he could teach you.’

      ‘Like the current value of a shilling and what things were like “when he was a lad”?’

      ‘Piss off.’ Sarah slid her finger inside the top button of her silk blouse and pulled it away from her neck. ‘I bet he knows his way around a bed.’

      I stuffed a piece of puff pastry into my mouth. ‘I think I’m going to be sick.’

      ‘Ladies, I’ve been thinking.’ Before Sarah made me actually vomit, Lauren dropped into the third chair around our little iron table and all sexual theorizing about our best friend’s father ended abruptly. ‘I’m so sorry about you and Steve. I feel as though messing around with all my wedding stuff is going to be difficult, given everything