Wedding Vows and Wardrobe Malfunctions
I thought I was being clever by rolling out just one big suitcase for my husband, my son and myself when I packed for my daughter’s wedding in London last week. You see, I have a reputation of traveling with too much wherever I go. True, I tend to take fifty changes of underwear, tee-shirts galore, jeans in various colours and shapes, most of the medicine cabinet, and enough cosmetics to rival a good-sized Sephora. Admittedly, five kilos of makeup is a bit silly since I don’t wear much, but wouldn’t you agree that you never quite know which neutral shade of eyeshadow you fancy? Taupe? Nude Beach? Smokey Quartz? Cinnamon? The dilemma is real. Oh, and I take various pairs of shoes, too, because I have terrible feet. Big, wide, with ingrowing toenails, corns and all sorts of other podiatric delights. I don’t trust my right ankle much, so heels are not an option; instead I have an enviable collection of Birkenstocks, Adidas Stan Smiths’, and I’m working hard on growing my latest discovery, Teva hiking shoes and sandals. Trust me when I say they are a game changer. And I’m not even getting a kickback. Yet?
Anyway, I’m getting both carried away and side-tracked. Let’s just say I felt relatively smug about having managed to share a suitcase, given the circumstances.
Traveling on Swiss from Geneva, we landed at London Heathrow, all bright eyed and bushy tailed about the happy event scheduled for the following day at one o’clock. We swiped breezily through biometric customs and ambled over to the luggage belt assigned to our flight where we waited for our suitcase. We waited. And waited some more. After about twenty minutes I jokingly texted my daughter: “What if our suitcase doesn’t arrive?” To be honest, I was only half joking as my tummy was beginning to suggest that our suitcase wasn’t going to pop out of Heathrow’s luggage intestines, and that we might be about to experience a major wedding wardrobe malfunction.
Ten minutes later, a nice man at Lost Luggage confirmed to us what my tummy already knew; our suitcase had gone walkabout; but not to worry, there were two more Swiss flights coming in later, so it might well be on one of those, in which case it would be delivered to our hotel.
My tummy, always the party pooper, didn’t think so.
All we had was what my carry-on contained: my daily medication, my phone charger, my jean jacket, and a pair of spare sandals I’d sneakily thrown in at the last minute.
We arrived at the hotel late in the afternoon and rushed out to buy toothbrushes and toothpaste, makeup remover, deodorant and a basic moisturizer to spare me from Sahara syndrome. And then we rushed out again for a quick bite to eat with the groom’s lovely parents, before hopping on the Underground to go and see the fantastic ABBA Voyage concert (go and see if it you can!) where, in a moment of genius, I purchased an ABBA tee-shirt to wear in case I had to go panic shopping in Selfridges the following morning.
I did.
Friday morning, at nine fifty-eight a.m, I was waving at the man in charge of opening the glass sliding doors of Selfridges on Oxford Street like a crazed shopaholic. He took no notice, waiting until precisely ten to press the magic button, whereupon I ran in, raced up the escalators and made a beeline for a reliable Italian brand where I knew I’d find something nice in my limited timeframe.
“SOS!” I yelped at the shop assistant, pulling on my ABBA tee-shirt. “My daughter is getting married in three hours and I have nothing to wear but this.” She blinked at me, clearly flummoxed by such shopping inadequacy in the face of such a monumental occasion. I explained what had happened. “Mamma Mia!” she exclaimed (not really!) and immediately rallied, summoning other assistants who in turn contacted the hair salon upstairs, and a makeup artist on the ground floor; “Mayday, Mayday! Everyone on deck, this is not a drill! We repeat: this is not a drill!”
They were brilliant. At 12.20 I was back in my hotel room with a lovely dress, clean underwear, and sporting the best makeup I’ve worn in my entire life. The hair salon hadn’t worked out; there simply hadn’t been enough time, but by hair was alright, and I could always pull it back if necessary.
My husband and my son had taken themselves to M&S for their ceremonial needs, where they’d also received VIP service. The Bossert family’s image had been salvaged in extremis by liberal use of credit cards. Phew!
As for the missing suitcase, there were no new developments.
Naturally, our suitcase trauma immediately vanished into the recesses of our minds when our beautiful daughter appeared, the picture of romantic, simple elegance in a full-length, off-white, body skimming silk dress cut in a deep V in the front, featuring lots of tiny little buttons and short, floppy sleeves. Her thick, long blonde hair was styled in that perfect, casual yet intricate updo that only an excellent hairdresser can achieve and finished off with a beautiful tiara-like headband. Her bouquet was English countryside summer garden perfection.
Do you think my husband and I were emotional? Thank goodness for waterproof mascara and tissues.
The ceremony was relaxed and fun; the groom managed to say “my awfully wedded wife” instead of “my lawfully wedded wife”, whereupon our daughter nearly fell over and everyone got the giggles. Afterwards, we threw confetti, took photographs, and cat-walked through the streets of London in our finery to the delight of quite a few Chinese tourists who snapped photos of us, clearly awed by such incomparable beauty and elegance!
We had a late lunch in a nice Italian restaurant, after which we returned to the hotel to find our suitcase had arrived! Hurray! I got to change into a dress before heading back out again to watch “Grease”, the musical, which was ok, but not a patch on the film (why did they change the storyline and not have any “baddies” in it? Why was there no race? Danny struck me as a bit shy, and while Sandy had a great voice, she wasn’t on stage much, which was weird. Also, what were Kenickie and the rest of the gang randomly taunting the policeman about? It was all a bit wonky). The heavens opened as we emerged from the theatre, and we were all soaked by the time we got back to the hotel, where we dried off in the bar with a little help from gin and tonics.
The trip back to Switzerland the following day went as smoothly as the famous Santana song, and we look forward to further festivities in Cornwall next week where the “big” wedding will take place. This time our special outfits will be in our hand luggage. And nobody will be sharing a suitcase.
My romantic comedy, Just Like a Movie, is available on all Amazon sites.