Quarter Life Crisis?

Here is a piece wot I did wrote a few years ago. It was meant to try and demonstrate the frustrations of your average recent graduate, so while I definitely had conversations like this, we all know I'm not really a white dress kind of gal. I did have a tiered thingummy though. It just happened to be made of cheese, not cake.

Weddings: when a yes is just a no in a fancy hat

If you know me in real life, you'll know that I spent many years working in Boots. Cut me and I bleed Advantage Card points (the best value loyalty card on the High Street, FACT). And I took a massive amount of pride in providing good service with a smile, even when a man dropped his pants in the baby department and tried to put on a pair of Huggies.

Thus my hackles are raised when people complain about bad customer service, because a lot of the time, they're not distinguishing between being treated badly and simply an outcome they didn't want. An example of the latter would be me explaining why it's not my fault they couldn't buy a golden unicorn with their out-of-date gift voucher at 9pm on Christmas Eve. An example of the former would be me explaining while going 'DUURRRRRRRR' and leaning over the counter to tap their temples.

BUT it also means I know that providing a good consumer experience is really, truly simple - just listen and try. So, somewhat uncomfortably I am reporting that our shallow toe-dip into wedding planning waters has disappointed us both.

Now, please believe me when I say that I'm not writing this under the impression that the finer details of my nuptials are incredibly interesting to others. I'm a little bored myself. I just assumed that when we're potentially spending the most money we'll probably ever spend on one fleeting experience (student loan to alcohol ratio aside) we could expect good, even great service. 

Um. No. After explaining that we have homebrew and local foodstuffs we'd love to include, the first venue I contacted assured me that they were "very flexible with the food and drink" but "we only work with our catering team and homebrew can only be offered at certain times during the day". Right. The email went on to say "the entertainment in the evening is our marquee DJ only" . Truly, the king of flexibility.

Another manager spent a day talking to me and the boy about spending thousands of pounds hiring his venue - again, plus compulsory catering that came with - and managed to spell the boy's name wrong. Fair enough, nearly-husband does have one of them confusing foreign names like, but it was a response to an email in which I'd written it about five times. With my confidence in the attention to detail knocked, his colleague then forwarded a quote ignoring the budget we'd spoken about, but including a £420 charge for 'linen'. Linen! For £420 I want seventeen almost blind monks sewing the hair of angels into the bastard things. Why the effin jeff would I give this man all our money?

You may have noticed I have quietly dropped the groom from the proceedings, and that's because I'm slowly realising this mob of sugar-coated con artists do the same. Poor betrothed - he is elbowed to one side as these people whisper in my ear about organza bows on each chair for £5 a go. Do I have to explain that there are two of us getting wed, that it is not all about me? It is quite a lot about me obviously, but a little bit about the groom as well. So please, stop trying to look at me behind his back when we both said no to the ice sculpture.

You all want so badly to create my DREAM DAY, don't you? Unparalleled flexibility to make the day exactly the way I want it. Then why is it that the answer to nearly every question I've asked so far has been "No" or "Yes, but..." which is just a no wearing a fancy hat. In fact, the only question to which anyone has replied in the affirmative has been, "Are you going to bankrupt us to achieve the wedding of someone else's dreams?"

Oh, don't I want to be a princess? Don't I know I'll only do it once, and who doesn't need silver almonds and uplighters and draping and twenty credit cards to pay for it all? Well yes then, you creepy, creepy people. I will agree - this is a once in a lifetime day celebrating me and himself. And guess what? If either of us thought it was a good idea to spend £400 on tablecloths, I don't think we'd be tripping down that aisle.

The Rules of Cool: Royal Weddings & Jigsaws

After weeks of noisy build up, we're half-heartedly picking over the Royal Wedding carcass, and mostly throwing out a big 'Well done!' to them crowned lot for their gloriously regal bash wiv a human touch. Their human touch may have been a five minute palace-to-palace drive in a 41-year-old wine-powered Aston Martin, but whatevs. It's a brave new world full of happy endings. Rejoice!

And why not? Masses of people enjoyed watching it, they held parties (street or otherwise), flocked into the capital and had a jolly old time. One of my friends made his own 'Kate & Wills' t-shirt with an iron-on transfer, despite having never previously displayed any indication of being a fan of The Firm OR arts and crafts. Seems across the board, we love a theme. We cling to St Patrick's Day with green faces and Guinness-soaked shamrock hats. We get utterly fucked watching our national football team fail on the international stage, and don't care because we're wrapped in a Union Jack and being sick on ourselves like some kind of pre-yoga Geri Halliwell. Thus, the wedding was officially OK to be interested in. We.Love.Kitsch.com.

As someone intrinsically uncool, I'm never quite sure what the rules are. I go mushroom hunting with my dad. I saw two fully grown men wearing suits ride skateboards today. I enjoy an occasional jigsaw. Charlie Sheen appears to be committing suicide slowly and publicly. One, all, or none of these things may be cool. Is it okay to buy a Catherine & William plate as long as you do it in an ironic living-in-Shoreditch-wearing-fashion-spectacles way? I don't think I understand irony. Buying a plate with royal people on it ironically is still buying a plate with royal people on it, no? You still paid money, it's still in your house quietly mocking you. 

Sadly, my tentative enquiries seem to point to jigsaws not quite making the grade. Perhaps this bank holiday I should have been supping lattes with my meedja pals yah, but I have been sat in my flat, giving myself backache hunching over seventeen shades of blue sky and swearing just as colourfully. Incidentally, sky that is now slightly brown because I spilled my not-a-latte-coffee on it (yes, it is a constant source of wonder to me that I ended up with a job that by a lot of people's standards is Pretty.Frickin.Cool.)

Oh I do it sometimes right enough - I've bought a £15 cocktail while mincing round in a pair of Louboutins, making out like it's NOBIGDEAL. I get a tiny highschoolfuckyou kick when I swan into some party or other waving a wristband. The same instinct that almost (almost) made me tell off the boy for whipping out the camera in a beautiful restaurant recently, because that was giving the game away. Thank fuck I didn't, because he then whipped out a shiny ring and who gives a crap about the game then? 

But as I say: I don't know the rules.