I am the queen of getting shit done (it has even been suggested I set up a website called www.igetshitdone.com). So, naturally, when I helped my Editor with her wedding – I had her hair, makeup and beauty regime sorted months in advance.

However, when it came to me, I was literally dressless until the very last hour, because none of the dresses I had organised fitted me. Which would have been fine, if it wasn’t the night before the wedding. FUCK! It looked like I was going to Saturday’s wedding in my pyjama bottoms after all (a dream I had had the week before).

I raced to the train station so I could get home and start getting ready, only to discover that the train wasn’t running, so I had to get a replacement bus. This would have been fine, had it not stopped more times than a passenger with a round-the-world plane ticket. After changing trains and buses four times, I arrived home with two hours to transform myself from disheveled public transport patron to that of wedding guest. Okay, if anyone can pull this together, it is me (or so I calmly deluded told myself).

Did I mention that I still had some serious grey hairs to cover – and, why, yes, of course, me the Beauty Editor, with more product in her cupboards than toys in Santa’s sleigh on Christmas Eve, did not have any hair dye. I ran to the chemist, quicker than you can say, brunette or mahogany?

I also nipped into the lingerie shop to purchase an under garment, or should I say, raced in breathless, somehow managing to spit out the following sentence in between gasping and catching my breath, “help, I have a wedding in one and three quarter hours, and I need something that will help make my thighs look like they are a size zero, but if not, anything that covers up my lumps, bumps and cellulite will do just nicely thank you”.

Thinking this would appeal to the sisterhood in my hour of need, and she would come over all BFF in a chic lit novel (you know all jokey, understanding and warm like) I was momentary taken aback when I saw the flicker in her eye. Faint, yes, but yes it was most definitely there. Judgment. Judgment that I was so disorganised, and disdain almost, because such a crime would be utterly unthinkable to someone like her, let alone ever actually happen to her.

Okay, yes, yes, you may run this posh little lingerie shop here, but listen honey, I’m human, and more than that, I’m a woman. We all have days where we don’t feel good about ourselves, when we feel neurotic and times when we are unorganised, and I’m not going to apologise for it, nor feel bad about it.

So I looked her back in the eye, with a glare that said I don’t need your judgment, and I certainly don’t appreciate it, but I’m going to ignore your smug misdemeanor (just because you sell fancy labels, it doesn’t make you superior to me), because I just need your help. So, let’s just work together and get it sorted and then we’ll never have to see each other again.

I should have stopped there and then with the self depreciating humour to overcompensate for her lack of warmth, but it was the only buffer I had left, for the feeling of humiliation every time I had to run back out into the shop from the change room half dressed, and say in front of all her customers, “no, this one is too small too”.

I raced back home and with just over an hour left on the clock. The hair dye went in my hair (and all down the back of my dressing gown). The fake tan went on the legs and the hair dye was washed out (carefully making sure it didn’t splash the tan off that was setting on my legs). Next, the tan went on the arms and chest, I straightened my hair, put on my face and then my dress.

All this I did in 15 minute intervals, that my flatmate was timing on an alarm clock for me whilst also spoon feeding me a boiled egg in between my mascara and lipstick (I think he was slightly concerned that I was going to be descending upon a ball room filled with waiters carrying trays of wine and I had nothing in my stomach – he doth know me too well).

I broke many of my cardinal rules – including having my eyebrows waxed (or should I say threaded) by someone who had never done them before prior to special event and fake tanning on the day of the event. Luckily for me, I was in good hands at Ottoman 3 and my trusty Napoleon Summer Dream mousse took the edge off my lily white skin without mishap. I may have been still straightening my hair when the taxi arrived, and had to save the false eyelashes and Audrey Hepburn hair style until the reception (thanks to Sarah and her trusty can of hairspray and abundant supply of bobby pins), but make it to the church on time did I – hurrah! In fact, I made it with some time to spare.

Every single anxiety ridden moment of the preparations were worth it, when I took my seat in the church and felt the beauty of the moment I was about to witness. All weddings are special, but there was always going to be something about this wedding, and that something is when you unequivocally know (or feel) that the people getting married are soul mates, and two general all round beautiful people.

I will be posting an article dedicated to Sandi (my tres lovely Editor at Onya Magazine) and her wedding, once I have photographic evidence in my hot little hands.

Image Sources: 1, 2, 3