Subtleties
It seems somehow immoral to me that people are prepared to spend thousands of pounds on lavish weddings. I often hear them referred to as fairytale’, but they seem more the stuff of nightmares. The most romantic wedding I ever went to was a very small affair in a nearby village church, with only close family, friends and pets in attendance. The bride’s silk suit had been run up by a local dressmaker, she carried a small posy of winter roses from her garden tied with ribbon, and came out of the church to a peal of bells and a shower of dried petal confetti. The reception was held in the bride’s home, where friends and family had provided the buffet.
But then, of course, who am I to talk, when the newest dichotomy in lifestyle is that I’m assisting my friend to set up her new and terribly upmarket wedding reception business.
‘Cakes and Ale’
Noah hadn’t been down to Neatslake since I had the unfortunate encounter with Anji—and there had been no more fowl presents. Was this cause and effect—they were back together again and so he was too preoccupied to play chicken any more?
The Old Barn Receptions advert appeared in Glorious Weddings in the middle of January and soon Libby and I were stuffing brochures into envelopes and mailing them off. I suppose there will be even more publicity when that article about my cake business comes out, complete with pictures of the Pisa wedding cake. The Sticklepond and District Gazette did an article about the new venture too, so there were lots of local enquiries and it was all looking very promising for the launch in late March.
The first firm booking came towards the end of January, and Libby thought it should be a fairly easy reception to cut our teeth on, since the bride’s mother was firmly in charge and not interested in any of the extras in the brochure, including my cake. Apart from the venue and the catering, she was organising everything herself. In fact, it all seemed to have been organised for months, except that the hotel where they had planned to hold the reception had just gone into receivership. Finding Libby’s advert in Glorious Weddings had been the answer to a prayer when they were at their wits’ end.
That booking was followed by a steadily increasing number of others, and then one day Libby phoned me in a panic to say she’d been asked if she could do a themed reception.
‘Themed? What kind of theme?’ I asked.
‘Elizabethan.’
‘Well, that shouldn’t be too difficult, should it? The inside of the barn does look vaguely Elizabethan already. It just needs a few extra touches.’
‘That’s what I thought, but I’d still like you to be at the discussion tomorrow. They said they wanted you to make the cake anyway. You will come, won’t you?’
‘Yes, of course. I can’t wait to see what they think the Elizabethans had as a wedding cake!’
Already we had discovered that the reception was usually organised by the bride and her mother, but sometimes the happy couple would make the arrangements instead. That day, the would-be Elizabethans had come alone, though it was clear from the start that, behind the scenes, Daddy and his expanding wallet would be bankrolling anything his little princess set her heart on, however absurd.
‘Did you have any particular reason for wanting an Elizabethan-style wedding?’ I asked as Libby unlocked the door to the Old Barn and led the way in. I thought they might belong to a re-enactment society, or be historians or something similar.
‘No, we just thought it would be different and fun, didn’t we, Kevin?’ said the prospective bride, who was a small, skeletal creature, mounted on the highest stilettos I’d ever seen. I hoped she didn’t fall off, because there wasn’t an ounce of fat on her anywhere to cushion the blow. ‘All my friends seem to be having themed weddings, but no one’s thought of anything quite like this!’
Her fiancé, who had the sort of head that would have looked better with hair on it, nodded obediently. ‘When Laura said that’s what she wanted, I Googled “Elizabethan wedding” on the internet and they’re big in the USA, so we got lots of ideas.’
And I looked up Elizabethan banquets,’ I put in, ‘so we should have some interesting ideas between us.’
‘We’re having invitations that look like parchment, with big wax seals,’ Laura said, ‘and telling everyone that they can come in costume if they want to.’
‘What date is the wedding, did you say?’ asked Libby, switching on all the lights and ushering them in.
‘The first Monday in April. It’s the only day the church at Middlemoss could fit us in at short notice,’ the bride said, ‘but once Kevin proposed I wanted to get married right away. I can never bear waiting for anything, can I, Kev? I’m just too impatient!’
‘No,’ he agreed, looking long-suffering.
‘Then we couldn’t find the right place for the reception until Fee—my best friend—spotted your advert in a wedding magazine.’ She stood in the middle of the room and slowly spun around on her heels.
Libby winced a bit—probably thinking about her new wooden flooring.
‘And it’s just how I imagined it! It only needs a few details to be really Elizabethan, doesn’t it? Maybe straw on the floor? Candlesticks? Lutes playing, that sort of thing?’
‘I think oak floorboards are fine for the upper classes of the period, who would be the only ones able to afford a lavish wedding feast, anyway,’ I said quickly. ‘Straw would look a bit downmarket and the long skirts would drag in it.’
‘Perhaps you’re right,’ she conceded. ‘Candlesticks?’
‘I’ll look into it,’ said Libby. ‘And actually, if your budget will run to it, there is an Elizabethan re-enactment society in Sticklepond who could be hired to add a bit of extra authenticity. They could serve the food, move among the guests and even do an exhibition dance from the period. They’ve got a collection of music from the time that you could play in the background, and might even know some suitable musicians.’
‘Great!’ Laura said.
‘But I think we ought to have a DJ,’ Kevin objected. ‘You can take things too far.’
‘No, that’s at the evening party, when we’ve all changed back into ordinary clothes again, dumbo,’ she said. ‘Don’t you ever listen? I’ve already booked that. They have function rooms at the old Butterflake Biscuit factory at Middlemoss. Do you know it?’ she asked us.
‘I do,’ I said. ‘It’s very nice and only a few miles away.’
‘Of course, it would be easier to have both events in the same place, but you said you didn’t do evening events?’
‘No, I’m afraid not,’ Libby said firmly. ‘We need the time to get ready for the next day’s wedding.’
Laura flicked open a tiny mobile and relayed everything we had discussed without letting the person at the other end get a word in until right at the end. Then she snapped it shut. ‘Daddy says I can have whatever will make me happy,’ she said with a satisfied smile.
Libby had been making copious notes and now she got out the brochure and turned to the back. ‘There are a few more extras you might like to consider, like floral decorations for the tables.’
‘Bunches of herbs were popular,’ I said, suddenly remembering my research. ‘Rosemary featured a lot too, especially gilded.’
‘Did it?’ Laura said doubtfully.
‘We have an expert flower arranger—you can safely leave it to her to produce something pretty,’ Libby assured her.
They also ordered one of the Graces’ tablecloths, to be embroidered, at my suggestion, with love knots and other Elizabethan symbols of love and fidelity.
Then the bride-to-be said to me, ‘And of course we want you to make the wedding cake!’
‘Actually, at that time they didn’t have a wedding cake as we know it. In fact, I think it was around then they broke a thin loaf over the bride’s head instead. But they did have what they called “subtleties”, which were three-dimensional constructions in sugar, often with biblical meaning. What about something like that?’
‘No,’ said Laura decidedly, ‘I want
one shaped like a giant pomander studded with roses, just like my bouquet.’
‘But, darling, don’t you think that would look a bit odd?’ began Kevin.
Laura’s small foot began to tap on the floor and there was a glint in her eye and a rising note to her voice as she snapped: ‘I want it. I can see it. It will look beautiful!’
Kevin hastily agreed.
‘Mostly white rosebuds,’ she added.
‘I can make you exactly what you want,’ I said, and what was more, I would be able to utilise the football cake mould again. How convenient!
Libby promised to have the plans and menus with them soon, for approval, and they went away happy. Or the bride was happy, anyway. The groom looked as if he had suddenly been seized by the love knots, so I expected the reality of spending a lifetime with Laura had begun to sink in.
But then, how many marriages lasted a lifetime these days? The more I saw, the more cynical I felt about it all!
Libby got Jasper Pharamond on board as Historical Food Consultant for a small fee, to see which banqueting foods of the time could be updated for modern tastes. Then he got together with the proprietors of Movable Feasts, and they devised a menu consisting of a crab and salmon ring with pomegranate seeds, glazed roasted chickens and rastons, which were a sort of stuffed bread-wrapped morsel. There would be platters of salads too, and the desserts would be rose petal ice cream and open apple tart with cream.
Well, it was a nod in the direction of the right century.
I suggested they cook one of the peacocks, which would be traditional, especially if they dressed it up again in its feathers before serving, but Libby told me not to be silly.
Jasper also suggested some drinks of the time, but, anachronism or not, by the bride’s decree it was to be pink champagne in the loving cup.
By now, Libby was quite blasé about showing prospective customers around the Old Barn and only called me in if they were thinking of ordering one of my cakes, or if she needed some kind of backup.
It still amazed me how much people were prepared to spend on a wedding, especially on a dress they would wear only once, but it seemed to me that it was the ones prepared to lavish the most money who had the least chance of their marriage lasting past the first anniversary.
Libby also thought I’d turned into an old cynic. Well actually, she said I was an embittered old cow, but she was joking…I think. Anyway, she was almost as bad, because we’d started taking bets on which couples would make it past their first anniversaries—or even if their marriages would last longer than the last bite of wedding cake—though how we’d ever find out which of us had won, I wasn’t sure.
Libby said Noah rang last night to see how his gatehouse renovations were going, and she told him about the Elizabethan wedding, which she thought would make for interesting pictures, especially the bald-headed groom with the eagle tattoo on the back of his neck and a large tongue stud, dressed up in doublet and hose.
‘He said he’d been too busy to come down, but he looked forward to moving in soon.’ She paused. ‘So I told him your pile of firewood was dwindling by the day and he said he’d heard that you were seeing a lot of Rob Rafferty, so maybe he could take over the wood-chopping duties.’
‘What! Who told him that?’ I demanded.
‘That’s what I asked, and he said Anji’d told him she saw you and Rob in a wine bar together when she was down here recently, and you were obviously more than friends—and then Claire Flowers told her you had been seeing a lot of each other.’
‘But that is twisting the whole thing right round,’ I exclaimed. ‘She arrived with Rob, not me. I was already there with Claire. And Claire knows Rob is only a friend, nothing more. How devious!’
All’s fair in love and war, Josie, but don’t worry, I put him straight.’
‘I’m not worried. I don’t care what he thinks!’ I declared, but wondered if perhaps this was why the hen gifts seemed to have dried up.
‘And I told him that although you were friendly with Rob, you were certainly not on wood-chopping terms.’
‘Thanks—I think. You know, it never even occurred to me to ask Rob to chop wood.’ I giggled suddenly. ‘I expect he’d have to study for the part, first!’
I baked the round Pomander cake (the mould was in two halves so it was quite easy to make, really). There was a flat bit on the bottom, of course, so that it wouldn’t roll away.
Violet had already started to make icing rosebuds and foliage, because it would take quite a lot to cover the surface entirely. I was quite looking forward to putting it all together! I emailed Claire Flowers about it, and she said she hoped to film me putting the finishing touches to it in the programme, so I suppose I had better try to time the icing for when the film unit descends on me. That, or make another, just for the cameras.
It had been cold and damp lately and Harry had had a tendency to pore over the pictures of New Zealand that his daughter kept sending him, while crankily telling me what the temperature was over there. I think it was just because his rheumatism was playing him up, though, not because he was seriously thinking of uprooting himself and emigrating!
I had had to start chopping wood again too, because we’d almost run out. It was a task I could do without when I was so busy, but I expect the exercise was good for me, and anyway, Harry found a fire comforting when he felt all achy, and my stoves ran on the stuff, so it had to be done.
I had a phone enquiry about a cake from friends of the Goth couple I made one for last year. They were Goths too, and were trying to find a venue where they could have a themed civil wedding ceremony and reception, so I suggested Blessings and gave them Libby’s number. ‘She’s registered for civil ceremonies and the house is Elizabethan, it’s lovely.’
Libby phoned me later and said, ‘I never thought our first civil wedding ceremony would be a Goth one! They’re coming round to discuss what they want at ten tomorrow morning—and you have to be here. I don’t know a thing about Goths.’
‘Neither do I, really, but they sounded nice so it will probably be fun, Libby. And Pia will think it’s wonderful; she’s half-Goth herself’.
‘Now that’s a worrying thought,’ Libby said.
The couple arrived early, because I saw them drive slowly past in an old black hearse with running boards while I was still washing up cake tins, and by the time I’d whipped my pinny off and run round to Blessings, they were already in the Great Chamber with Libby.
They made a striking couple: the man, who introduced himself as Marty, was tall and thin, wearing black trousers and waistcoat, and with a top hat over his long, blue-black hair; while Lola, his fiancée, had on a long dress of dark red velvet, the same colour as the lipstick that stood out like a gash against her white face.
Gina, fingering her crucifix, hovered protectively until firmly sent away by Libby to make coffee, and we got down to business.
Libby needn’t have worried, because they already knew exactly what they wanted, from the parchment invitations to the going-away vehicle (their own hearse). They’d brought a ring-binder full of notes and photographs, which they proposed leaving with us for reference.
‘It’ll be perfect in here, if the curtains are drawn and perhaps the room is just lit by candelabra?’ suggested Lola happily.
‘Funnily enough, we’ve just bought a pair of electric candelabra for an Elizabethan-themed wedding. They look just like candles, but are much safer. We could use those,’ Libby suggested.
‘Great,’ said Marty.
The floral decorations for both the Great Chamber and the Old Barn were to be dark flowers and ivy—basically, anything in black, blood red or deep purple would go down a treat—which I expect Dorrie would find an interesting challenge. The soundtrack music to Edward Scissorhands would play during the ceremony and the buffet meal.
‘Then we’ve got a DJ who’ll play a mixture of Goth and eighties pop, later,’ Marty said. ‘Another friend will be doing the photographs in black and white,
like a diary of the day.’
When we told them that they would probably have a second photographer taking pictures, in the form of Noah Sephton, they seemed highly delighted.
‘And did you say the wedding ceremony could be relayed live to the guests in the barn, the ones who won’t fit in the Great Chamber?’ asked Lola, and seemed pleased when Libby said that was no problem, so maybe she was right about installing that screen in the barn after all! And when we showed them the barn they loved it.
‘We’ll need only the wall lights on to give the right ambience,’ Marty said, taking in the cavernous interior.
‘Yes, and we can cover the tables with crimson cloths without the usual white ones on top,’ suggested Libby, who was getting into the swing of things. ‘What about the buffet? Will you need anything different there?’
‘No, I don’t think so,’ said Lola. ‘Food is food. And we will have a choice of red wine or dark grape juice in red goblets. We’ve already bought enough of those. They’re plastic picnic ones actually, but they look good.’
‘Fine,’ said Libby, scribbling that down.
They also ordered dark red rose petal confetti and they loved the idea of the heirloom tablecloths—if the Graces would embroider one with cats, bats, dragons and fairies and give it a nice, black edging. I assured them that the sisters liked a challenge.
So that just left the cake design to be decided. They wanted a stacked, two-tier hexagonal black and white one, decorated with a Celtic knot design around the sides and embellished with suitable motifs like bats and a dragon.
‘And we’d like Gothed-up bride and groom figures on top,’ said Marty.
‘With wings,’ added the bride.
‘The dragon?’ I questioned.
‘No, me,’ she said. ‘I’ll be wearing black feathery wings on the day.’
On Valentine’s Day hen mania (and perhaps Noah’s sanity) resumed, because I got a big, chicken-shaped card that opened out to reveal the message ‘Clucky in Love’.
In fact I got two cards, because Ben also sent me one. Like the other, it was unsigned, but I knew who’d sent it. For a start, it said inside ‘Forgive me?’ And then, it was handmade, like all the Valentines Ben had ever given me, with various kinds of seeds stuck onto card in the shape of a heart. It must have taken ages, but unfortunately he hadn’t dried out the melon seeds properly and they had gone mouldy, so I put it straight onto the compost heap.
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