What do you wear when you’re bride the at 51?
She’d already had the big white wedding. So when her new love unexpectedly proposed, Raffaella faced a dilemma . . .
Ever the romantic, and ever the optimist, I have always thought there is no wrong time to get married, and no wrong number of times to get married. But as a long-time ex-wife, matters matrimonial were all rather abstract.
I had been living with my boyfriend for eight years and the debate was irrelevant. embarrassing even. Surely a wedding when both parties are in their 50s is awkward and will mortify the grown-up children?
My oldest son is 27, I muse occasionally about what it will be like to be a grandmother. I was not expecting to embrace my inner bride ever again.
She was lost in the flotsam of my mind, thrown somewhere on a pile of stuff I deemed I was ‘too old to think about’.
Then, one winter day, we got engaged and, blow me down, I was on the bandwagon, a fully paid-up Bride To Be, faster than you could say ‘cake knife’.
With the wisdom of maturity, I am aware that 51 years old is the new 51 years old, and I will never be younger, sassier or cuter, no matter how much money and time I spend on altering myself.
Nonetheless, I like a good dress as much as the next girl, and astonishingly, given my spouse is a reluctant party animal, we wanted to celebrate this excitement with a proper event, and
even more surprisingly, our families did, too.
A wedding. It means one thing and one alone — a dress.
A door in the internet, previously invisible to me, sprang open and out poured corsetry, lace and net, fishtails, seed pearls and a flood of matching shoes, tiaras and bouquets.
I had never seen myself as a candidate for a Pinterest account — an online virtual mood board — of bridal images, but I am now the possessor of four wedding-related boards, covering fabulous dresses, rumpled sexy hair, and hoards of shoes, flowers and table settings. There are even pictures of cars as a nod to The Groom.
A quick browse tells a tale of femininity and fantasy, not to mention drop-dead gorgeous youth, that bears very little relation to me or my beloved. But I have learned that the suspension of all usual faculties is the norm once one becomes The Bride, and so it was in my case.
I found out about wedding dress companies from Zuhair Murad Bridal (beautiful art deco-inspired beading, sculpted shapes made in Israel) to Stone Fox in New York (boho, lace and slashed to the thigh, as cool as a cucumber and vintage inspired).
I scanned designers Vera Wang, Ian Stuart and Alice Temperley Bridal, and saw cobweb extravaganzas of whipped net and transparent lace, damask and duchesse satin at prices that struck me dumb — £4,000 seemed pretty standard. Many were more.
My fiance James, a 58-yearold Londoner of impeccable taste, would be appalled.
FOR one thing, we had both been married before, with big white weddings. For another, in his world (his company Greenside Cars deals in rare classic cars), any frills are usually suspect, gilding the lily, to be avoided.
Would a serious cream puff wedding dress work for me? Probably not — they were all modelled on gazelle-like 20-year-olds.
So what would be right? I had no role model. Except Miss Havisham.
The wedding industry worships at the altar of youth. A mature bride is aged about 35 with the teeniest wrinkle drawn like a teeny tattoo on her forehead and a sophisticated eye for a well-cut dress.
There is nothing out there for me, I thought. But all was not quite lost. I fell upon the excitement around Jerry Hall’s nuptials; she is the flagbearer for the charms of the vintage bride — and I can give her almost a decade.
She had shed her signature look of chic sheath dresses that whip around her glorious 6ft body when she married media tycoon Rupert Mur- doch. She sailed up the aisle in swags of gauzy pale blue by Vivienne Westwood. It was winter, but Jerry spurned a coat or a fur in favour of fantasy frills and flat shoes.
It was her prerogative as The Bride, but she didn’t look like her usual humorous, intelligent, sexy self. Hmm. I wanted to look like myself.
I gorged on images of wedding dresses, imagining myself in tiers of flounces, and tried on Suzanne Neville’s organza extravaganza for the Princess look with train, tiara and an embroidered veil.
The corsetry, the huge skirt, the swish of the fabric all screamed Cinderella at me. There was no reality, just layers of fairy cake.
It didn’t take me long to realise this route was not going to help me to look like myself, either. So I asked my children what not to wear.
The 25-year-old said, ‘Anything is fine except dressing as Fiona from Shrek’, the other, 27, warned, ‘Avoid Lady Gaga’s Meat suit’, while my 19-year-old daughter said, ‘A big pink gypsy dress like Katie Price’s wouldn’t be great’.
Meanwhile, I had been cured of the acute dose of Princess. Fully recovered, I decided I just needed a nice dress, any dress, but something special.
I took myself to Liberty’s, the Designer Floor, fully expecting a fanfare of excitement from the staff there similar to the moment that Julia Roberts goes clothes shopping in Pretty Woman. No one seemed interested, though the fresh-faced staff did smile kindly, and a little disbelievingly, when I said that I was getting married.
I tried a Grecian toga by Lanvin, a couple of prairie dresses and a giant lilac sheet. Not too good. The friend who had come shopping with me was prancing about in Peter Pilotti looking fabulous and saucy, I looked like Hyacinth Bucket or the Statue of Liberty.
I stuffed myself into a jewelencrusted number by Alice &
Olivia, and almost passed out trying to do it up. ‘That’s the largest size we have,’ said the shop assistant politely. Crushing.
Then I remembered two things. One: we were getting married in Italy. Two: Dolce & Gabbana.
Hurling Alice & Olivia to the ground, we stampeded to the humble little atelier that is home to the Italian design duo in Knightsbridge. excitement was snowballing. I had always wanted one of their dresses, never dared to think of it, never had the occasion — certainly never had the money — how much are they anyway?
God knows. What the hell, if not now, when? Blah blah blah. By the time we were in the door, we were so over stimulated that they could have sold me a bin bag as long as it had their label in it and I would have been thrilled.
Inside, schools of beautiful dresses beckoned, fabulous, frivolous and irresistible, any of them could become mine at the mere flick of a credit card. I was dazzled.
And then I saw The One. Jaw dropping. A wiggle dress, grey tulle with poppies and daisies embroidered up it.
Worn in the huge eye-catching photograph on the wall by a sultry model, whose big pants and bra showed through the shimmering layers in the coolest way imaginable. ‘That’s me. That’s my dress,’ I shouted. My friend looked troubled. ‘Is it?” she said nervously. she had seen the price tag.
I was in parallel universe where our whole wedding was suddenly peopled by the extras from a Dolce & Gabbana ad. It was all so me! Chic and sophisticated, but fun. svelte and sexy and very expensive. I wanted to be all of those things on my wedding day. I tried it on.
The reality check wasn’t as brutal as a cold shower, but it was sobering. To wear this beautiful dress I had choices: I could be naked under a thin film of net, thus the big pants look, or I could be sheathed in a tight casing of silver stretch satin underdress.
I tried both. The former was heading towards Lady Gaga’s meat look on me, while the latter made me feel like a World War I Zeppelin, the stretch satin so tight and restrictive I instantly began to explode with heat.
It looked good, I grant you, but it was a real number, the sort that would have the fashion-conscious folk among our friends moved to envy, and the rest just scared to touch me.
In order to move or dance I would need the poise of a Russian ballerina, and the heat would kill me. All that for almost £4,000. My beloved would hate that bit. ‘It’s not the right dress,’ I admitted. Contemplation, a retreat, and another trip to Knightsbridge. I had tried on backless and almost frontless numbers in Harvey Nichols and was becoming expert at sliding on and walking in the teetering heels lent by the shop assistants to make you look tall enough for these frocks. I had looked at and rejected the tailored trouser suit — less Bianca Jagger than Hall & Oates somehow, and had reached something of an impasse. I knew I didn’t want a real wedding dress, but nothing else seemed to quite work. Maybe I would just revert to my everyday favourite garment, a silk flowery dress. I found a brand called Mes Demoiselles in Paris and was busy falling in love with their floaty, bohemian look. The trouble was, everything just looked too everyday. I’m always in favour of dressing down, but my wedding day matters, and I have to look like I matter. If not now, when?
Yes, I wanted to look like myself, and yet a bit more. I was getting worried, the allotted dress finding time was running out, and so were my options. Then I remembered one more very important thing. My favourite party dress, the one in which I look like me, but way better, is from Italian designer Alberta Ferretti. A call ahead meant that they had brought a few dresses down to a lovely changing room for me to try on, chiffon, silk, layers and a few flouces. None of them was a wedding dress, all of them so wearable, beautiful. It was fun, the assistants were kind, my friend on the end of the phone texted back encouragement. And then I picked up a cream, crocheted lace sun dress. I put it on, it swished. I looked in the mirror and felt so happy I almost cried. I had abandoned the idea of anything at all wedding dress-like, but this was near and yet far from that ideal. Immediately I could see the red shoes with pom-poms, the scarlet rose buds and olive sprigs in my bouquet, the ease of wearing it to walk into a quiet town hall on a hot summer afternoon in Italy, and find my love waiting for me. This was the dress that made me feel like myself, and in this dress, Reader, I married him.
RAFFAELLA BARKER’s novel, From A Distance, is published by Bloomsbury at £8.99