Or, In Which Rebecca Bangs on Unbecomingly About Matrimonial Items Which are Prohibited, vol i.

Item One: Meringues are for eating

Ground rules re. dress:

No, no, no and no. I want to look positively fist-bitingly radiant, don’t get me wrong, and there shouldn’t be any doubt as to who’s marrying whom, but you couldn’t scare me into something “bridal” with a big stick - this means seed pearls and filigree and anything bouffant and shiny is not on the menu *.

Item Two: SPEAKING OF MENUS

An absolute veto on anything “price per head”, because;

1. I don’t want to be glaring over the vol-au-vonts and thinking “I paid £34.70 for you to freebase that risotto, you bastard, and I don’t even like you that much”, and “Does [x] actually afford me £34.70 worth of personal fulfilment? Bring out my ongoing spreadsheet!”

2. Set menu pretentiousness is just so RUBBISH. Look, plebs, for breakfast this morning I had larks on toast and a kitten on a stick, I’m not going to swoon into my fondant potatoes because you and your catering City & Guilds made a little wigwam out of chives. Observe this particularly tepid top-end version from Holland Hall - table ribboning of my choice, mother? I’ll put a bow on the whippet.

Now, I love pretentiousness, I embrace pretentiousness - I would kiss it airily on both cheeks and lick it on the forehead but I’d rather express my appreciation through the medium of dance - and so in the culinary arena you can jolly well make an effort with some unicorn filet mignon or what have you, otherwise I’ll slumming it with an entire cheese, a vegetable garden and something hearty on a spit. Arigatou gozaimasu!

3. Under the tyranny of the set menu, “Special Dietary Requirements”, or even “Quietly appalled by the concept of the vegetable panache” is an impossibility, and I don’t care how many conciliatory noises you make about your witless cauliflower bake. I draw your attention to the time I went to a set-menu wedding as a vegan and got iceberg lettuce and olives in a soup bowl, as though they’d cast desperately around the kitchen for something green and stopped just short of serving the floral arrangement. I ate the placemat.

* (that said, I’ve some latent tendencies toward sequins and feathers that veer toward the “explosion at a drag queen convention” end of the taste spectrum, and I’m just fine with that - boas to eleven, you know. I just don’t want to pretend like I ever wanted to be a princess when I grew up. Thus: ZOMG).

THERE WILL BE MORE LATER.