Portia MacIntosh - How Not to be a Bride

This wedding is exactly what you’d expect a wedding to be – and it’s exactly how I’d write it, if I were trying to include every wedding cliché I could think of.

All in all, I wouldn’t say it was a bad day, just not my taste. The speeches were relatively painless, if a little cringeworthy, and the food was OK – I pretty much just picked at my roast dinner. It was just way too much food given I’m wearing such a tight dress.

‘You really do look amazing,’ Leo tells me, holding my hand over the table. ‘Your hard work has paid off.’

‘Thank you,’ I reply. ‘Kind of makes all those times I had to spectate you eating pizza feel worth it.’

‘Ladies and gentlemen, if I could have your attention, please,’ the DJ booms over the PA. ‘The bride and groom are about to take to the floor for their first dance.’

I’m sitting at a table with my parents, my grandparents, Leo and Belle – Dan’s the best man, so he’s up at the top table. I think I’m doing a pretty good job of being chill, given my surroundings. As soon as my gran clapped eyes on me, she told me I was too thin, like I knew she would – my granddad told me I looked great, though, like I knew he would, the sweetheart.

My mum and Belle immediately turn their chairs to face the dance floor, excited for what’s about to come. It’s not that I lack confidence, but the thought of having everyone watching me as I ‘perform’ my first dance makes me cringe. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a first dance that didn’t make me want to punch myself in the face until it stopped. As Mike and Rosie take to the floor, I allow myself to feel a little hope, that this time might be different, that this dance might impress me. But then a chimney sweep walks out onto the stage. He’s wearing a wireless mic, attached to his ear, which he adjusts into a favourable position just before the music starts.

‘Is that…?’ I start, but I don’t need to finish my question. It’s ‘Chim Chim Cher-ee’ from Mary Poppins .

‘Oh, what a beautiful waltz,’ my gran coos as she watches.

I look at Leo and pull a face. He looks just as confused as I am.

Mike and Rosie slow dance until the song is finished.

‘Step in time,’ the chimney sweep calls out. ‘Everyone, join the bride and groom on the dance floor.’

As people get up and make their way to the dance floor the chimney sweep bursts into a version of ‘Step in Time’ that he expects everyone to dance to. Many people oblige.

‘Oh, I so want to join in but Dan is dancing with his mum,’ Belle moans.

‘Shall I?’ Leo asks me quietly.

‘Go for it,’ I tell him with a laugh.

‘Come on, Belle, I’ll dance with you,’ he says, taking her by the hand and leading her onto the dance floor before linking arms with her, ready to step in time with everyone else.

I turn to face my granddad, who is sitting at the other side of me.

‘Whaaaat is happening?’ I ask him.

My granddad laughs.

‘It’s tradition to have a chimney sweep at your wedding – it’s for good luck,’ my granddad explains. ‘The groom shakes his hand and the bride gives him a kiss, and then they’ll be together for ever, supposedly.’

‘That’s pretty stupid,’ I say.

‘You’re not wrong, kid,’ my granddad replies.

I have so much love, adoration and respect for my granddad, Jack – he’s just so kind and funny. He knows exactly what the women in our family are like; in fact, he jokily refers to my mum, my gran and my Auntie June as the three witches. My granddad is absolutely hilarious, constantly cracking jokes, winding up my gran and playing little pranks on people. I like to think I’ve inherited my granddad’s warmth and his wicked sense of humour, which is why I haven’t turned out like the other women in the family.

My granddad is 84 years old, and until recently he never really seemed it. His arthritis is getting quite bad now, which is making it harder for him to move around and do things like he used to. He still enjoys pottering around in his shed, though, and I still love to go and sit out there with him and help out with his tomato plants or whatever he has on the go. I think he uses his shed as an escape from my gran, but even though she nags him and thinks he’s a bit silly sometimes, I can still tell that they love each other. I absolutely adore the story of how my gran and granddad met, but I’m not allowed to talk about it because my gran gets cross – I’ve always said I’ll put it in a book one day, though. My gran was in her early twenties, working as a cashier in a bank. She was this glamorous, kind-of-snooty type, but she was model-gorgeous, so of course she was engaged. My granddad was a painter, working in the bank for a few weeks while the place had a makeover. He instantly took a shine to my gran, but she wouldn’t give him the time of day because she thought he was just some scruffy, dirty painter, whose hands were always covered in too much paint, and who was far too cheeky for his own good. But even though she was never anything but cold to him, my granddad saw something he liked and persisted in asking my gran out, until one day she gave in and said yes, just to shut him up, and in little more than a fortnight she left her fiancé for him. They actually got married for a really unromantic reason four months after they met – a tax rebate – but I guess they were just meant to be, because here they are, still married more than 50 years later.

‘You having this at your wedding, kid?’ he asks. ‘Or are you going for something a bit more modern like Frozen ?’

‘My granddad knows what Frozen is,’ I laugh.

‘Oh, little Angel makes me watch it with her 20 times a day, so I know all the words,’ he laughs.

Angel is my cousin Hannah’s little girl. I was actually there when everyone found out Hannah was pregnant because it was at Belle’s wedding, and when my auntie found a pregnancy test in the bin, she assumed it must have been mine – an assumption based on nothing but my hemline, I’d imagine. So you can just imagine my Auntie June’s face when it turned out to be her fifteen-year-old daughter who was up the duff. Hannah is 19 now, and she’s taken to being a mum really well, I think. Angel seems like a sweet kid, but, like I said, I don’t really spend too much time with my extended family, unless we’re at family events.

‘Speak of the literal devil,’ I say as the Edwards family arrive for the evening do.

My granddad chuckles.

‘Hello,’ June says, puffing air from her cheeks. ‘Sorry we’re late. Someone was acting up.’

She turns and shoots her son, Josh, a filthy look. My fourteen-year-old cousin has no fucks to give, though.

‘Have you been a naughty boy?’ my gran asks him, but Josh doesn’t hear her voice. I can see his wireless, in-ear headphones poking out of his ears from under his long-ish, messy hair, but no one else has realised he’s listening to music yet.

‘If you’re not Fifa, he’s not interested,’ my Uncle Steve jokes, taking the seat next to me. ‘Looking good, Mia.’

‘Thanks, Uncle Steve,’ I reply.

‘Do you have an eating disorder?’ my auntie enquires as she sits down.

‘Only when it comes to your cooking,’ I joke. June isn’t impressed.

‘I’m off to the bar,’ Josh says, wandering off, staring at his phone every step of the way.

My Auntie June doesn’t like me. I know, that sounds like something a whiney teenager would say, but she doesn’t. My Uncle Steve does like me, and so do my cousins, which I think makes my auntie dislike me all the more. She thinks I’m a bad influence, because her kids think I’m cool.

‘I actually don’t know what I’m going to do with him,’ June says as she wrestles her cardigan off.