COSMOPOLITAN CONTRACT The country wedding
This is an agreement made by A Woman Going To A Country Wedding, (hereafter referred to as The Wedding Guest)
1 THE PROCESSION
Despite having spent a month assembling an outfit, The Wedding Guest will end up buying an emergency clutch bag from the Accessorize in the station. She will then spend the train journey side-eyeing a loud group of ‘lads’ who wolf-whistle at any woman who squeezes past. It is only when they also get off at the tiny rural station that she realises they are going to the same wedding.
2 FOR RICHER, FOR POORER
The Wedding Guest will check into whichever B&B was cheapest on the list. She will mentally compose her TripAdvisor review (are those mushrooms growing in the loo?) while the owner explains that as this is Little Arseington Under Nowhere, there is one taxi and it must be booked six months in advance. The Wedding Guest will try Uber in case it works here. It will not work here.
3 THE PRE-NUP
After arriving early and smug, The Wedding Guest will realise that there are three different churches called St Mary’s and this is the wrong one. When she finally makes it, she will have 20% phone battery and be forced to sit at the back with the crying babies.
4 THE MATRIMONIAL MINGLE
Despite having eaten two breakfasts in preparation for the day’s weird meal times, The Wedding Guest will be ravenous as soon as the ceremony ends and embark on a game of ‘hunt the canapé.’ She will bond with another guest who has smuggled some biscuits under her pashmina, and they will eat them furtively behind a flower arrangement.
5 CHARGE YOUR GLASSES
At dinner, The Wedding Guest will be on a table with a distant cousin who only wants to talk about Brexit. She’ll lose count of how many times her wine glass is refilled. Later, she will take a seriously flattering Polaroid selfie and feel resentful at having to stick it in the guestbook.
6 CARRIAGES AT MIDNIGHT
When the disco ends, The Wedding Guest will do a frantic sweep of the buffet, cramming three napkin-wrapped slices of cake in her bag “for the journey”. She will eat this while waiting for the magical taxi in the pissing rain, while all the other guests walk by on their way to their rooms in the five-star venue and ask why she isn’t staying here too?
7 HAPPY EVER AFTER
The Wedding Guest will wake at noon with her fake eyelashes still on, realise she’s missed the day-after-the-wedding brunch, and end up medicating her hangover with a station panini. No sooner will she have found a nice empty carriage than the lads will appear again.“Oh, hey!” she’ll say as they sit next to her.“What a great coincidence.”
(The Wedding Guest)
You are cordially to the middle invited of nowhere