a laugh as it’s an ABBA night and I’ve ordered a dodgy set of L plates and a T-shirt saying ‘I was quarantined on my hen party’. And some Team Bride sashes of course. Jess’s has Bride to Be on it and stickers for all the hens saying, ‘Jess’s Lockdown Hen Party’. As well as that I ordered some cute little sparkly pink hats and glasses, which are hilarious. I look like something out of a panto. Sending them out to all thirty of us took some doing but it should be fun.
My phone bings to announce the arrival of yet another message about the wedding.
Have you got any further with the bridesmaid’s dress? Thought it would have arrived by now?
I haven’t broken it to her yet that the one we ordered arrived yesterday, but it doesn’t fit. She is going to go completely nuts. I tried it on last night after my hideous non-date with Benny (am going to have to think of a suitable nickname for him – currently all that springs to mind is dirty Benny, which doesn’t really have much of a ring to it) and the zip didn’t do up more than halfway. I don’t quite know what’s going on in this area, because Erica had helped me do the measurements with the old tape measure from my trusty childhood sewing box and I double-checked the number she wrote down made sense. For some reason or other, my boobs seem to have grown. I think Erica must have made a mistake with the measuring, but she reckons it’s all the lockdown binge eating mixed with Jack’s cocktails (sadly, she could have a point). Either way, unless I put a large panel of matching fabric in the gap, this dress is a no-go. I am going to tell Jess, honestly, but I’m just waiting for the right occasion. For now, I text back:
Trying it on, will let you know how it goes.
Great, send me a pic.
Okay, will do.
This is a disaster. I can’t send her a photo; she’ll see it doesn’t fit at all. Unless I send a picture taken from the front and leave the back undone? No, it’s no good, I’ll have to tell her or risk it falling off halfway through the wedding ceremony. It reminds me of the time I wore a dress that was too small for me, for dinner out with Ryan. I had managed to squeeze into it and thought I’d got away with it. That is, until I sat down in the restaurant and heard a sickening ripping sound. The whole of the back of my dress had split. It meant at the end of the evening I had to reverse out of the restaurant backwards. Afterwards I had seen the funny side, but Ryan was horrified as we had been meeting with some of our fellow lawyers and in his words, the whole incident was most embarrassing.
No it’s no good, first I need to think of an alternative so she doesn’t panic too much. I mooch into my room and start rummaging in the cupboard for a long dress, which might just do. It’s funny how your wardrobe can be full of stuff but when it comes to it you still haven’t got anything to wear that’s vaguely suitable. Normally this is an excuse to go on a good old shopping spree in the cheapie shops but in lockdown this is hardly possible.
I don’t fancy mail ordering anything – the sizes vary so much and I don’t want to have to send more hideous packages back at the moment; it’s not exactly an easy process. I’m notoriously bad about returning packages at the best of times. I actually have a couple of old parcels in the bottom of my cupboard, which I have never returned and I won’t ever wear. One contains about three pairs of Spanx. I know, three pairs – I don’t know what I was thinking. I don’t think anyone had warned me how horribly tight they are and that my stomach would have to go somewhere, and ended up in places it shouldn’t in an extra layer, like a rubber ring. Most unflattering.
I give up; I have no contenders in the bridesmaid dress stakes. Most of my dresses are too short or too long or too just not right.
I am disturbed from my musings by the dulcet tones of a guitar. It’s good, actually. It seems to be coming from outside so I