The Bloke
THE countdown is nearly over – our wedding is this weekend.
About time too, to be quite honest.
This diet can only last so long before I get bored of M&S salads and once again start hankering for a sausage, bean and cheese melt from Greggs.
We've tried our best not to become completely obsessed with everything wedding-related, but it hasn't been easy.
The wedding industry – and that's exactly what it has become – has a nasty knack of sucking you into its strange parallel world where stuff like whether the ribbon on the napkins matches the bridesmaids' shoes actually matters.
That can be the only explanation for the fact that I placed an internet order last week with HobbyCraft – the 'arts and crafts superstore' – for 100 mini clothes pegs.
The plan was to use them to dangle the name cards from bits of ribbon attached to the ceiling at the reception venue, which seemed a good idea a fortnight ago.
Now, though, the Missus has decided she doesn't want to do that after all, so I've got 100 clothes pegs that will only ever come in useful if I'm unexpectedly put in charge of laundry duties for a colony of dolls.
Clothes pegs aside, the Missus has become, quite frankly, rather scary in her steely-eyed determination not to be drawn into the whole money-making marriage machine.
Her coping strategy, so far as I can tell, is to suddenly go all Blue Peter.
Apparently the logical process of buying all the stuff you need for your wedding from a shop that specialises in that sort of thing is the coward's way out.
Instead, the Missus is adamant she can knock up her own versions of things like orders of service, table numbers and the big board telling everyone where they should sit at a fraction of the price.
I'm half expecting to go home one night this week and discover her finishing off a scale model of Tracy Island, la Anthea Turner circa 1993, using only old tissue boxes and an industrial-sized roll of tin foil.
Either that or I'll find her sobbing into a few crumpled sheets of card, begging me to take her to Confetti.
Speaking of Confetti, that store is surely the mothership of wedding obsessives, luring them in like there's a tractor beam attached to the window displays.
I know from experience just how that can work. The other day, tummy rumbling from self-enforced starvation, I found myself wandering in.
It was that window display that did it, the one with the lovely bright colours and pretty name cards in the shape of butterflies that slot into the guests' wine glasses.
I was just trying to justify to myself spending the best part of 50 quid on them for our wedding when one of the lovely shop assistants appeared at my shoulder.
"Do you need help, sir?" she asked sweetly.
"Yes," I said, suddenly coming to my senses. "I really think I do."
And I ran off as fast as I could in the direction of the nearest Greggs.
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Weather for Leeds
Sunday 12 February 2012
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