Kate's Wedding by Chrissie Manby

getting married really shouldn’t be too difficult. She had never understood those brides who complained of ‘wedding stress’. Why should joining your life with that of the man you loved be stressful? she’d asked herself.
    Perhaps it was the chair accessories that did it . . .
    Kate had visited the Grand Bazaar in Marrakech, but nothing had prepared her for the atmosphere in that first room, which was dedicated to everything you needed to host a wedding breakfast. In the stark conference room with its beige wallpaper and equally beige prints, a hundred vendors faced maybe thirty brides. Kate felt like she had a mark on her forehead.
    ‘Have you thought about your cake?’ someone asked her.
    ‘Have you hired a cake stand?’ asked somebody else.
    ‘Have you considered how you’re going to be dressing your chairs?’
    ‘Dressing my chairs?’
    While her sister and mother aimed doggedly for a tower of cupcakes, looking neither to the left nor right as they moved, Kate had made a rookie mistake. Fascinated by the idea that chairs needed dressing, she had accidentally engaged with one of the vendors. Now she would have to listen to the spiel.
    ‘People commonly overlook one of the most important details of any wedding day,’ the vendor explained. ‘You’ve paid thousands for your dress, your bridesmaids’ dresses, the flowers, the cake, the three-course meal at the reception . . . You get to the hotel and you realise . . .’ The vendor clapped her hands to her mouth. ‘Oh my God! I’ve forgotten the chairs!’
    ‘Don’t most venues provide chairs?’ asked Kate naively.
    ‘Oh, yes, they provide chairs. Of course. But have you seen the kind of chairs they provide? Tatty, dirty, possibly not even matching. And even if you’re lucky and the chairs are not that bad, do you really want to risk getting red-velvet upholstery when you’ve gone to such an effort with your simple salmon-pink scheme? It’s a nightmare.’
    ‘I’ll take your word for it.’
    The vendor carried on. ‘I can make sure that chairs are no longer a worry.’ She directed Kate’s eye to the three chairs arrayed behind her. They were all draped in plain white cotton covers. The vendor flourished a handful of ribbons.
    ‘Have you chosen your colour scheme? Name your colour.’
    ‘I don’t know . . .’
    ‘Go on. Any colour.’
    ‘Purple,’ said Kate.
    The vendor pulled out an imperial-purple band. She looped the ribbon round one of the white-covered chairs and tied it in a wonky bow. ‘Ta da! Now isn’t that better than red velvet?’
    Kate nodded.
    ‘It’s the finishing touch that will make all the difference. And at just fifteen pounds for a chair, you can hardly afford not to do it.’
    Fifteen pounds didn’t seem like an awful lot of money for a chair, Kate agreed.
    ‘Not for the whole chair,’ the vendor explained. ‘Fifteen pounds for the hire of the chair cover and the ribbon. And an extra five pounds per chair if you don’t want to have to tie the ribbons yourself.’
    ‘So twenty pounds per chair is what you’re really saying?’
    ‘It depends on the ribbon. If you want a difficult colour or you also want some tulle . . .’
    Kate shook her head. ‘I don’t want to waste your time,’ she said.
    ‘You don’t want to think about chair-dressing?’
    ‘I really haven’t decided if we’re having chairs at all. Maybe we’ll do a Moroccan theme,’ she ad-libbed.
    ‘We can also provide floor cushions.’ The vendor was undeterred.
    Kate backed away trying to calculate that woman’s fee per hour. As a lawyer, Kate often found herself having to justify her hourly fee, but twenty quid to fling a cover over a chair and tie a piece of silk round it? That was just spectacular. It wasn’t even as though the woman had much talent when it came to making bows.
    ‘I just had the most ridiculous conversation about chair accessories,’ she whispered to Tess, who had joined a circle of brides round a