The Little Wedding Shop by the Sea

In my flat at Brides by the Sea: White letters and net curtains

LOVE YOU, LOVE CHOCOLATE MORE …

I can’t help smiling at the message the client has ordered to put on top of the cake as I stamp the letters out of the thinly rolled icing. White words on a mocha background, and all going on top of a dark chocolate sponge. It’s just out of the oven, steaming on the wire cooling rack next to the tiny table where I’m working, and filling the kitchen with a heady mix of vanilla and cocoa. I lean forward to crank open the little porthole window to let in some air, and catch a glimpse of the sea, turquoise and glistening in the February sun. When I lived with Brett, his penthouse had seaward facing balconies and floor to ceiling ocean vistas, but this last six months I’ve come to love my jewel sized view from this borrowed crow’s nest flat. A tiny corner of an attic over a wedding shop might not be everyone’s first choice, but it’s home for me.

‘Poppy, Poppy, come down quick.’ If Jess’s shriek hadn’t come echoing up the stairwell, I could have filled you in on the gory details of how I came to be here. As it is I need to go, and fast, because it’s also part of the deal that I help in the shop whenever I’m called. Which is why I’m clattering down the stairs two at a time, instead of giving you back story.

Bridal shops are emotional places, but Jess the shop owner is usually the one holding the mayhem together and mopping up the tears, not the one screaming like a banshee. This must be big news. I wind my way downwards through the shop, past the dark blue of Groomswear, through the shell pink Bridesmaids Beach Hut. I hurry through the Shoe Room with its shelves of exquisite heels, zoom through Cakes, then Flowers, before I finally find Jess in the ground floor White Room, flapping her hands and all breathless next to the rail of wedding dresses.

‘And?’ I skid to a halt on the white painted boards, hurriedly wiping the icing sugar off my hands with my apron. You’d think I’d get blasé seeing acres of gorgeous lace and satin every day, but a cascade of tulle still makes my heart beat faster. But why the hell is Jess this excited?

‘You’ve heard of Josie Redman … THE Josie Redman?’

‘You mean the reality TV star featured in every issue of Closer, Heat, OK! and Hello?’ I ask. I can’t quite remember what she did to be famous, but I know the one. ‘Dark hair, swallow tattoo up her leg?’ Don’t worry, it’s a lot classier than it sounds. ‘The one who was too famous for Celebrity Big Brother?’

Jess nods madly and it might be worth pointing out here that Jess doesn’t do crazy. Anyone who could build up her shop, Brides by the Sea, from nothing has to be super serious. She began with wedding flowers in one room on the ground floor, and now she has the whole building, and a wedding emporium that attracts brides from the whole of Devon and Cornwall, and beyond. Believe me, it came from hours of hard labour, coupled with some equally hard headed business savvy.

‘It came up on the Celeb-News app on my phone, and it’s all over twitter so it’s definitely true.’ Jess gasps. ‘Sera’s up in the studio, talking to Josie’s PA now, sorting out details.’ As the words tumble out of her mouth, she’s flapping her hands harder than ever.

‘Details of what, tell me what’s happened Jess?’

For a moment I think Jess is going to have a mother-of-the-bride-breaks-down moment. I’m scouring the velvet sofas and gilded side tables for tissues, when first Sera’s distressed boots, and then her long legs, come into view on the stairs from the studio.

‘Here she is, she can tell you herself.’ Jess gives another breathless squeak.

Sera’s coming down the stairs as if she’s an extra from a zombie movie. As she slides off the bottom step and does a slow motion collapse into the nearest carved armchair I swear her face is several shades paler than her bleached blonde hair.

‘Sera?’

Given that she’s clutching the hem of her shorts, and opening and closing her mouth with no sound coming out, I turn back to Jess.

‘Josie Redman has chosen Seraphina East …’ Jess’s squeak slides to her usual baritone mid-sentence. ‘To design her wedding dress.’

The words take a few seconds to sink in. In my head I’m silently mouthing O-M-G in slow motion, because this is huge. HUGE with the caps lock on. That would be Seraphina East, a.k.a. Sera, the local girl who touted her dress designs round to Jess’s newly opened wedding shop in her cut off shorts when she was fresh out of college. She’s still wearing the ragged shorts, but the rest has moved on a long way. That was around the same time I gave up my proper job in London and came back to move in with Brett, and popped in to ask if Jess would be interested in show casing my wedding cakes. Since then Jess has encouraged, nurtured, and supported both Sera and me all the way. But whereas my cake baking was a sideline I squeezed in alongside Brett and his starry career, Sera threw everything and more into her dress designs.

Sera now has her studio on the top floor, just below my attic room, and the shop has been the exclusive stockist for her collections in the seven years since she came. And now all her hard work, not to mention Jess’s considerable financial backing, is paying off. Because they’re hitting the big time here with paparazzi darling, Josie Redman.

‘Oooooooo …’ I can hear I’m doing that embarrassing howl that comes out all on its own whenever I’m over excited. ‘That’s sooooo amazing Sera …’ And it’s going to be equally amazing for Jess and Brides by the Sea too. Brides from across the country will come flocking here now to get a wedding dress like their favourite celeb. It’s the stuff of dreams. ‘Well done … both of you …’ As I grapple Sera into a hug her cheek is wet with tears.

I’m about to track down a tissue for her when the phone in the next room begins to ring. Jess and I exchange glances.

‘There you go, I bet that’s the first booking coming in now,’ I say, not quite believing it. Josie Redman chooses Seraphina East, and an army of brides follow hot on the trail. ‘Who’d have thought it would be this fast?’

But it is. For the next two hours we field non-stop calls. By the time we turn the phone off every booking for the next six weeks has been taken, and it’s dark in the street outside.

‘We’re going to have to set up another dressing room … not every fitting will transfer into an order …’ Jess is thinking aloud as she lowers herself into the nearest armchair and kicks off her loafers.

Sera’s zombie state is beginning to wear off, because she turns to me. ‘How the hell am I going to do this?’ Her strangled shriek is ten per cent desperation, ninety percent pure panic.

‘We’ll be here to help,’ I promise, hoping for Sera’s sake that we will. Poor Sera is amazing at selling anyone else’s designs, but when it comes to her own she withers.

She lets out a desperate moan. ‘I freeze when I meet customers at the best of times, what am I going to say to a celebrity?’

‘Whatever the gossip columns say about Josie, I’m sure she’s not that much of a diva …’ I begin, realising my mistake too late.

‘What?’ Sera lets out a shriek of horror.

Damn. Sometimes she seems so sheltered from the real world, I wonder if she gets out at all, other than to the beach. ‘I’m sure Josie will turn out to be lovely,’ I say, hoping I’m right.

Jess carries on, apparently oblivious to Sera’s nervous breakdown. ‘So long as we can produce the volume of dresses, Sera, we’ll need a room dedicated to your collection.’

At least we have space. The building rambles over four floors. That’s the whole reason Jess was able to come to my rescue, and offer me my place here in the attic when Brett and I broke up.

Jess gives me a meaningful stare. ‘Be an angel please Poppy, and grab us all a drink.’

Bridal boutiques favour white fizz because it gives you a lift and doesn’t stain. ‘Prosecco?’ I suggest. There’s always a fridge full. As Jess says, bubbly brides are happy brides, and happy brides buy.

‘Hell no, we need something stronger,’ Jess waves me away. ‘Get us some stiff G&Ts, there’s Hendricks in the desk drawer. I’ll have mine supersized, like the cocktails at that place in town, Jaggers.’

Sera and I raise our eye brows at each other. ‘When did you go to Jaggers, Jess?’ I have to ask. It’s strictly for under twenty surfers, and Jess is double that and more. If my voice is high, it’s because I can’t believe this either.

‘Oliver and I often drop in on our terminally single Friday night bar crawls,’ Jess says, as nonchalantly as if she’d been a fag hag all her life. ‘It’s so much more fun going out once you give up trying to pull.’

Sorry about the cliché, but Oliver is gay and in charge of Groomswear. And this is the first I’ve heard about his celibacy vow, or these racy Friday nights. I admit I’ve had my head under the duvet these last six months, but this is ridiculous. If this is her way of taking Sera’s mind off her immediate problems, it’s certainly working.

‘You could come too?’ Jess adds brightly. ‘Much better than hiding away, babysitting in the country, or whatever it is you do. Or working nonstop like Sera.’ Although Jess seems to be overlooking that Sera’s work ethic is turning to gold for both of them.

My Friday evenings at my best friend Cate’s house, helping her look after her dogs and four kids, have become a bit of a ritual for me. I know I’m not ready to start dating again after Brett, but I’m still reeling a bit at being included for a night out with self-confessed ‘terminally single’ people. As for Sera, I suspect she might be married to her job. I side step the invitation by dashing to the fridge for ice and mixers. By the time I get back Jess is already on to the next thing. As I hand her a clinking pint glass, she motions me to sit down.

‘So this is no bad news for you either, Poppy.’ Jess stares at me over the top of her Prada reading specs which are still balanced half way down her nose. Probably left there from when she was scribbling in the appointment book. She might hang out in trendy cocktail bars, and have the latest apps on her phone, but she hasn’t quite got her appointments on screen yet.

‘Sorry?’ There’s no point pretending. My sinking stomach knows exactly what she’s coming to. I just wish she wasn’t.

‘That dress of yours. The one we don’t talk about …’ She swirls the ice in her drink.

I know exactly the dress she means. Of course I do. It’s the dress I bought when Sera had a very exclusive private sample sale in The Studio a few months ago. I popped in for a teensy peep before it all began. And ended up buying the wedding dress of my dreams.

In my defence, I’ve been aching to be a bride my whole life. It goes right back to the time when my besties, Cate and Immie, used to dress me up in net curtains when we were kids, and I’d parade around the garden in my Barbie tiara. That was before we went to infants’ school. I wonder now if my lifelong wedding obsession had something to do with me not having a dad around. But whatever, I’d waited so long to be a bride, no-one could blame me for getting ahead of myself. Brett and I seemed so secure. I had no clue my life was going to come crashing down as it did. One minute I thought my wedding was definitely on the very near horizon, the next the groom was … Well, maybe best not to go there. Enough to say, Brett and I didn’t get married.

My main excuse is that on the day I fell in love with the dress, I really did believe it was about to be my turn. I’d waited so many years for Brett to propose. And that week, although he hadn’t exactly got down on one knee, for the first time ever, he had said we should be thinking about getting married. When I came across the perfect dress only hours later, it felt as though it was meant to be. As if all my planets were suddenly colliding in a spectacular piece of auspiciousness, or coincidence or whatever it’s called.

And although it cost a mind boggling amount, it was a sample dress, so it was amazing value for money. And because I sold my cakes though the shop Sera gave me a special deal. Obviously back then, I didn’t live here, because I was still living with Brett.

I scrunch up my face, silently praying that Jess isn’t about to whisk my wild impulse purchase out of the storage room. Wild as in wildly expensive, wild as in wildly misjudged, wild as in wildly over optimistic. Wild as in wildly wide of the mark in every way possible, given what came after. And a very well-kept secret, that only Jess, Sera and I know about.

‘What about my dress?’ I suddenly wish I’d sloshed more gin in my drink. It’s hard to compare the giddy rush of the day I bought it with the troughs that came after.

Jess and Sera understood at the time that it was very early days for me and my wedding plans. It wasn’t as if I’d even had time to share the news with anyone. We hadn’t even got as far as the engagement ring. Luckily we’re known for our discretion at Brides by the Sea. To give Jess credit, the day I bought the dress she said it would stay between the three of us. And Jess and Sera have both kept their word on that one. My best friends, Cate and Immie, don’t even know about it. And Jess kept the dress safe, hanging in the dress store, all this time. Fully insured too.