The September Issue
16 September 2009
As September swiftly takes its strides and people begin trickling back from their summer holidays a somewhat fickle energy surrounds London. The weather swings between hot and muggy, T-shirt and gladiator temperatures to frosty jacket and scarf winds the next day. It is utterly unpredictable and I seem to always be getting my attire wrong. I wear thick tights and long sleeves on a steaming day and a flimsy little dress when it’s freezing. My fabulous friend the young designer Wes Gordon (a name to look out for on the fashion circuit – watch his beach bag collection for Bergdorf Goodman) said that seasonal dressing is “so over.” It’s all about layers.
The weather is not the only cause of confusion. London is difficult to navigate on various fronts. For one it’s always crowded. Getting anywhere involves either copious amounts of patience or a lot of elbowing, both equally exhausting although I must to say I rarely find myself exuding the first. What is it with people moving extra slow in cramped spaces?
Further, ones diary entries can be somewhat confusing. Barely three weeks back and I feel up to my neck with parties, weddings, dinners, openings, meetings, boxing classes. I even started taking acting classes – as if I needed another activity!
Over the weekend I was invited to a very old friend’s wedding, thankfully here in London. Weddings can be either lots of fun or very boring so I really try and be as selective as I can about which ones I attend. This wedding was a must because the groom and I go way back. When we were children both he and his sister would come to our summer house every year. Our summer house was always perfect mayhem with all these different kids piled together under the same roof. My mother’s solution to the whims and moods of puberty was organising a sport bootcamp. Tennis, riding, waterskiing – anything remotely active and in the realms of the possible was on the menu. Of course we loved it! Even the most resilient and rebellious twelve-year olds sat quietly at the dinner table after such an exhausting day. One year my siblings and I came back from a survival camp in Scotland where we had fallen in love with abseiling. Henceforth we began abseiling from the castle tower everyday. It was thrilling. The first ledge was perfectly terrifying as you floated in the air for several seconds before you finally reached the tower wall a few feet beneath. Whoever mastered the top ledge became one of the cool kids. I don’t know any other parents who would have not only permitted such activities but actually encouraged them. Most kids therefore loved coming to our annual summer camps.
So Freddie’s wedding was a must, him being one of the suspects in those early memories. His wedding happened to be held at Hampton Court, which as I learnt from the wedding booklet houses the most important Tudor ceiling in the whole country. It is truly a stunning sight. I snuck back into the church after the ceremony and stood marvelling at the ceiling in blissful tranquillity while upstairs hundreds of people were mingling in the beautiful wooden tiled rooms. The ceilings opulence and vivid colour, different from the Baroque and Gothic architecture I’m more familiar with, is very much worth a visit. Even more exciting I found the fact that no one had been wedded in the chapel since Henry VIII wedding to his last bride Catherine Parr. In fact the vows Freddie and Sophie exchanged were the same vows Henry VIII and young Catherine spoke so many years ago.
The wedding was followed by a party in Annabel Goldsmith’s garden. Usually wedding dinners can be lengthy and a little exhausting. However Freddie and Sophie’s host had a much brighter idea. The tent in her garden was decked out with comfy little sofas and tables where people just plopped down to chat while hordes of waitresses walked around with plates of food and delicious drinks. Mini burgers, ham and cheese toasties, salmon and porcini ravioli were paraded around the room in abundance. It was quite refreshing to be served such uncomplicated and easy food that everyone clearly enjoyed. Shortly later Brian Adams sang one of his old time romances, as I reminisced my early teenage years when we blasted his tunes whilst melancholically sitting on our beds. The bride and groom rocked romantically on the dance floor. After that the music luckily livened up a little with a great live band, the lead singer being Freddie’s best man. There was not much waiting around at this wedding. The tunes were punchy and by 10.30 everyone was perfectly sweaty and dishevelled. At most weddings my main effort would be trying not to fall of my chair from sheer boredom at that hour. The key to any good party is keeping the dinner short and cheerful.
The ultimate key to a good wedding however is being fond of the couple. You can then endure almost anything, from bad speeches to bizarre foods possibly even cheesy music and delightfully enjoy a celebration that has none of the above like Freddie and Sophie’s one.
September 16th, 2009 at 11:11 pm
Was Catherine Parr the one wife Henry genuinely and sincerely loved? If so, getting married in that chapel would have been very romantic. (It would be somewhat less romantic if she was one of the wives whose head was summarily detached from her body. I can never remember which of Henry’s spouses got to keep their heads and which ones didn’t.)
September 21st, 2009 at 10:19 am
good question that was the first question I asked myself too. Catherine Parr was however not his favourite wife that was Jane Seymour. Catherine did keep her head although possibly only because she outlived him. She was also quite a match having a string of lovers of her own next to Henry. I’m not entirely sure how romantic that makes the whole thing but at least they were married till death did them part, right?