Free How To Marry Your Husband by Anne Brooke

her mother replies. “But my plan is to surprise you with my outfit, just as you’re surprising me with yours, so you’ll have to wait until your big day, I’m afraid.”
    “Fair enough. But if you get desperate, don’t forget I’m here and I can kick ass with tricky shop assistants if I have to now. At least that’s one thing wedding shopping has taught me.”
    “I’ll bear that in mind, darling,” her mother replies.

Chapter Eight: Bridesmaids
    Olivia isn’t sure how she feels about bridesmaids. They are the kind of wedding accessory every bride should have – at least this is what all the bridal magazines tell her – but so far in her preparations, she’s not given it any thought. She’s been a bridesmaid three times in her life and none of it has won her over.
    The first time, she’d been fifteen years old, when her brother’s fiancé – now his ex-wife, thank goodness – asked her if she’d like to be the chief bridesmaid. Olivia’s mother had been delighted and had almost at once gone into a kind of lacy frenzy of joy which she’d not recovered from until the wedding and all its paraphernalia had been long forgotten. Much like she’d done for Olivia herself then.
    Back then, Olivia had been pleased and surprised – her sister-in-law-to-be was girliness personified, almost to the point where Olivia would have been happy to take the wretched woman and smother her with her own lace dress. Still, the thought of being a bridesmaid was exciting, and she’d happily accepted. Not that there had been any chance of refusal – not with her mother going full pelt for making the event into the Wedding of the Year for the county.
    The reality had been very different. Gina – her new sister-in-law – had dressed Olivia in a bright pink satin flouncy dress which brought out her late teenage spots, clashed with her ginger hair and made her look like a Michelin Woman who’d had a bad day. Olivia never knew whether Gina had done this terrible act deliberately, suspecting how much Olivia secretly disliked her, or whether she was just so girly that she’d imagined bridesmaids should only ever be dressed in shiny pink meringues.
    Either way, Olivia’s wedding smile was glued to her face, and it was lucky Gina survived the wedding at all. Five years later, when the divorce came through for the unhappy couple, Olivia had to admit to relief. However, she’d been impressed how Gina had in fact run off with the counsellor who was trying to save her marriage – it showed an unexpected class and if Olivia had known back on the wedding day in question how her brother’s marriage was going to turn out, her false grin might well have been a little more natural. She’d never been a fan of either of her brothers, who were much older than she was and – of course – far less lovable.
    Anyway, when her middle brother got married, a couple of years later, Olivia had been a bridesmaid at that one too. Her new sister-in-law then hadn’t been too bad and the dresses she and her fellow bridesmaid had worn were quite pretty. At least Vikki had some idea of style and hadn’t insisted on her own vision of what they should wear, come what may.
    Still, no matter how elegant everyone looked in the wedding photos, it didn’t stop the marriage disintegrating eight years afterwards, when Vikki ran off with the scoutmaster. Really, it’s astonishing Olivia has agreed to marry Kieran at all – as a family they don’t have much luck with marriage. Or maybe it’s the bridesmaids issue that puts the kibosh on it?
    Olivia wants to marry the man she loves with her heart and soul, not to mention all her bodily parts. However, the thought of running around worrying about which bridesmaids she should choose and which of her friends won’t be upset if she doesn’t choose them is way beyond her. Not to mention the hassle of working out what everyone should wear and what her colour themes should be once the bridesmaids were in the bag