2720. Wedding attire

There’s nothing worse than not knowing how one is expected to act at a very important occasion. Scarlet and Toby had been invited to a very exclusive wedding. A famous model was marrying a famous model. Scarlet and Toby were invited simply because Toby was their permanent gardener and they lived on the estate.

But what to wear? Was it to be bow tie and tails? Was Toby required to wear a waistcoat? Did Scarlet have to wear a hat? The wedding was at a very prestigious church in the city. Do ladies still wear hats to church? It wasn’t as if Scarlet and Toby mixed in such circles.

In the end they decided not to go. They wrote a lovely note saying that “Scarlet had to visit a dying great-aunt in another town.” But they watched the wedding on television. At least they watched bits of it. The bride wore black and the groom wore white. A reversal of gender wedding traditions!

And indeed everything was very formal. Anyone who was anyone (and that was everyone there) was dressed to the nines. Oh the hats! Toby and Scarlet were glad they hadn’t attended. They had gathered a few bits and pieces of attire in case they were to go. Toby donned his black tie, top hat, and cummerbund, and went out to mow the lawn. Scarlet cut the dead heads off the chrysanthemums – wearing a fascinator. Never was not going to a wedding so much fun!

2664. To win the day

Pam was the mother of the groom. She had found the bride’s mother loud and offensive. She had tried to be polite in the weeks leading up to the wedding but she might as well have been talking to a brick wall.

“The bridesmaids will be wearing pale blue. Try to wear something to match colour-wise. And try to be a little fashionable. The shoes you wore to Denise’s wedding were abominable. This is my daughter’s wedding; try not to spoil it.”

Pam smiled politely, but the bride’s mother’s remarks had cut her to the quick. It was after all her son’s wedding too. Of course she wanted to look her best. Pam planned her outfit meticulously. She didn’t want to upstage the bride and she wasn’t exactly made of money.

The wedding day came. The bride’s mother arrived looking like she was a transgender heading for a strip show at a children’s library. Pam arrived in a simple dark green skirt with a pale cream blouse and with gold-painted wooden Swedish clogs and a straw sunhat. It was different and stuck out a mile, and yet she looked stunning. It was exactly right.

A few talked about the bride. No one talked about the bride’s mother. Everyone was gobsmacked by the simplicity and sheer beauty of the groom’s mother. When an inebriated bride’s mother accidentally spilled red wine all over her daughter’s wedding dress, the bride’s mother declared: “Don’t fret. Ask Pam if she’s got a spare set of gardening clothes.” No one laughed. Pam never viewed the wedding as a competition, but the bride’s mother knew that Pam had won the day.

2648. A very pretty wedding

A very pretty wedding was celebrated at the Presbyterian Church on Wednesday when William Harold, third son of Mr. and Mrs. G.V. Gilbert was married to Olive Maud, the youngest daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Tommy Stevenson.

The bride, who entered the church attended by her father, was daintily attired in a frock of ivory georgette with pearl trimmings over shell pink crepe de chine with a beautiful lace veil forming a train.

Following the ceremony, the reception was held at the Carlton dining rooms, where the bride’s mother, Mrs. Stevenson, was stunningly gowned in navy blue georgette over sateen and carried a bouquet to tone. In comparison, the groom’s mother, Mrs. Gilbert, looked quite dumpy in her ruby coloured crepe de chine with bronze trimmings, and hat and shoes that didn’t really match. You’d think she had just come in from weeding the garden. Why people without taste don’t get proper advice in style is beyond me. Honestly, it doesn’t auger well for the bride and groom when their respective mothers’ sense of fashion is so widely incongruent.

The newlyweds left by train for the south where the honeymoon will be spent. But honest to goodness, given the fashion disparity, I can’t see the marriage lasting longer than four months.

2367. Hats off

I seem to be the only one here wearing a hat. Maybe hats are a thing of the past. I thought every woman wore a hat to a wedding. How times have changed!

I can hardly take it off and leave it sitting on the pew. Besides, my hair is done to fit the hat. Hair and hat – they go together. I must stick out like a sore thumb.

You’d think the woman at Women’s Wear Ware would’ve told me about not wearing a hat. I suppose she wanted a sale. My suit is lovely. As the woman said in the shop, “This is really you. It suits you like you were born to wear it.” To which I responded with, “And what about a matching hat?” And now I’m the only one wearing a hat.

The handbag was another story. I can see a few women here with handbags. They’re clutching them like their lives depended on it. No one is going to put their handbag on the pew seat behind them. There are sticky fingers everywhere, even in a church. Of course a large number of women don’t have a handbag. These days women’s clothes seem to have pockets. But I always thought on more formal occasions such as a wedding, that a hat and handbag were vital accessories. Apparently these days I’m wrong.

I do feel overdressed. When you look at some of the get-ups that some of the guests are wearing, you wonder. They could at least have made a small effort to dolly themselves up. That one over there looks like she’s wearing her petticoat on the outside. I wouldn’t put it past her boyfriend, if that’s her boyfriend she’s with, you never know these days, to wear his grundies on the outside of his jeans. They don’t call them grundies any more – I believe it’s Australian. I don’t have a clue what they’re called these days – ever since my divorce. These days I don’t have to go buying grundies for the lazy sod.

Goodness! The bride and groom are about to exit down the aisle. I seem to have missed the vows. That’s a shame. It’s not every day ones daughter gets married.

1629. Drop dead gorgeous

Savannah and her three sisters were dead keen on fashion. They presumed, of course, that that’s why they were invited to a Retro Festival. Those of us born a few years before Savannah and her three sisters don’t really regard relatively recent days as being Retro. But Retro the invitation over the phone said, and Retro it was going to be.

Savannah and her three sisters were way ahead of their time. They had come out of the closet very early in the nineteen eighties. All four of them. They had endured ridicule and distain. These days life was easier for the sisters and their partners. No longer were they abused and scorned, but accepted for who they were. When Savannah took the phone call inviting her and her sisters to the Retro Festival it seemed to Savannah, for she’d always had trouble with the issue, that they were at last part of the day-to-day ordinary fabric of society.

All this is part of the reason why they went to so much trouble, and expense, to do the best by the invitation that they possibly could.

Of course, a phone call is a phone call. Sometimes things can get muffled, and muffled they got. Needless to say, they didn’t stay particularly long at the Hetero Festival.

1607. The colours of drinks

Shona and Freddie were the life of any party. They were boyfriend and girlfriend, although they didn’t share the same address. They had this “thing”. It was always planned. Of course, it had to be planned otherwise it couldn’t have happened. Shona always wore what matched Freddie’s cocktail drink.

Shona would phone Freddie and ask what he was thinking of drinking at this particular party or on this particular outing. A Bloody Mary and Shona would wear red. And what a stunning red dress it was! Tomato was definitely Shona’s colour. A Casablanca and Shona would wear the colours of pineapple and coconut milk. She cut such a dashing figure! It wasn’t always alcoholic either. Sometimes, for example, it could be iced tea. Different colours suited Shona and browns and golds were muted, as if to say “We shall have a laidback evening in a classy restaurant.”

So it came as a bit of a shock when Freddie suggested they have a quiet evening at his place, just the two of them, and he was drinking nothing but water.

1594. I feel an interactive page coming on

Hi. My name is Sinead and the other day I felt like getting all interactive on my blog. Lots of people do. They get all interactive and everyone takes part and it is fun. So I thought why not me too? It also attracts new faces to the blog. So this is what I done.

Write a poem no longer than 14 lines and 54 words including the words haversack, hurdy-gurdy, enthralling, table, and Rumpelstiltskin. The posting was accompanied by a picture of an Australian short-beaked echidna for inspiration because they’re cute and lay only one egg every year. So they would be no good keeping instead of chickens!!!!

Well, no one responded, not even my friend Debbie, so I asked my friend Debbie if she had any thoughts as to why, and she said “Nah she didn’t”. She should know because she has an interactive page on her blog and lots of people post pictures of themselves on it. But I don’t want to do the same because it will look as if I never had an original thought in my life. Anyway I never posted a picture of myself on my friend Debbie’s blog because my parents probably read it.

I also asked my biology teacher about it, and all he said was “Not another, Shirley” and I said my name wasn’t Shirley. So he wasn’t worth asking. He’s like that, Mr Thompson, he puts everyone down. But I’m not going to let it beat me so I’m going to put up another challenge and let’s hope this time a lot of people find it attractive enough to enter and give it likes.

My friend Debbie just asked me if I wanted to go down to the town mall, so I said yes, so I’ll come back to this later maybe.

Hi. This is me later. I’ve changed my mind, and now I’m creating a new blog on fashion. I’m only going to have pictures of me wearing my own stuff. Let’s hope it attracts lots of likes. Ms Turnwall, who teaches gymnastics at school and I bumped into her at the mall, and she is always very encouraging, and she said that the idea of my fashion page would not only be thought-provoking but it could also be sensational. So come on, everyone, and give my fashion pictures lots of likes after I post them, probably next week after I finish the written assignment Ms Turnwall gave us to do on Russians spying on our national gymnastics team at the Olympics.

I’m hoping to be a journalist when I leave school so all this is good practice.

1518: Bloggeration

Hi. My name is Zhara and I would like to share with you what I have learnt about blogging by blogging. First of all don’t get caught up with trying to get lots of likes – I get about 1100 likes and I am happy with that. I get friends on Facebook and stuff to give me likes as it’s a way of promoting my blog to those who are missing out. It is so exciting! I can’t believe how popular I am. My friend, Arizona, only got 27 likes!!!! What a loser!!!!

I also try to select the best makeup to recommend, even though I’m not a makeup blogger but a lot of women are interested in makeup so they are attracted to my blog because of the makeup. And the guys like coming to my blog to see the photos of the women wearing the makeup. And I also post about makeup for men for those who like looking at men like my cousin Alfred. So find some side things to put in your blog to attract a wider audience – like makeup and fashion and face cream and hair and stuff.

It’s also helpful if you suffer from some ailment and talk about it. I got a fungal infection once but I didn’t blog about that. It is better to go for sychological (that’s a word I can’t spell) ailments like skizno skitzo depression. People run away from viruses but they don’t mind (or rather like) people who are suffering and they like to offer their support. But what is the point of offering support to someone with a fungal infection? You might catch it!!!! So go for something in the head like grief or loss or something. Face cream for dry skin is alright because it’s not fungus.

Anyway, all this is my advice, and I hope to start a page soon about website promotion – but people will have to pay for that!!! My boyfriend is coming to my place tonight to show me what to do because he knows about stuff like that. I am really excited to be a successful blogger, and will now post this before I lose all the friends who read my first posting yesterday.

1430. Frumpy Gabriella

There were two words in the English language that Gabriella despised: “frock” and “frump”. “Frock” because, even though it wasn’t, it sounded like something her great grandmother would wear. “Frump” because it sounded as if the woman concerned was dumpy, like a sack of wheat.

To be honest, Gabriella wasn’t God’s gift to the planet when it came to looks. She was slightly portly even though she was only sixteen. And she never dressed particularly fashionably because she didn’t have that much money in her weekly allowance.

She used to be teased at school. “You’re a frump in a frock” the other kids would shout. “A frump in a frock.”

Gabriella went to quite a fashionable shop to look for something nice that she might be able to afford, like a scarf or something. She did! She found a beret that she thought made her look quite smart. After purchase she filled out a form that asked why you would buy such an item of clothing. Gabriella wrote, “Because kids call me a frump in a frock”. And it won! It won! Gabriella didn’t even know it was a competition! She won ten thousand dollars’ worth of fashionable items!

1333. Serendipity

Cushla had always thought that the word “Serendipity” was something meaningless from some old song, sort of like “Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, zip-a-dee-ay!” or even “Chim chiminey chim chim cher-ee!” How wrong she was, as she was about to find out.

Cushla had left school and had an ambition to be a model. She auditioned for every modelling job advertised, and was frantic to find herself an agent.

In the meantime, Cushla collected the trolleys from the chain store supermarket carpark. She worked for a pittance, but money was money.

One day, she knew she wouldn’t have time to get changed for an audition straight after work, so she wore a model’s gown and had her hair swept up like she was Cathy on the wild moors just stepping out of Wuthering Heights. What a picture she was wheeling the trolleys in the car park. She was wolf whistled and cheered on and commented about. Such elegance, grace, and creative abandonment all in one little supermarket carpark!

The billionaire owner of the supermarket chain just happened to be leaving the store when Cushla went by wheeling a great train of trolleys. He was blown away with her creativity. She was promoted there and then as the international co-ordinator for supermarket carparks. She travelled the world. She modelled and trained models in every company carpark throughout the globe. She was on a huge salary. She was very successful.

Cushla did this fabulous modelling job until she was wrinkled and old – about thirty-seven. But it didn’t matter. She was very rich. And anyway, she had already bought the supermarket chain.