When An Accident Prone No One Marries A Celebrity There Will Be Chaos...

Chapter 5

In the world of celebrities and insanely rich people Cora Silverson is unanimously well known. According to quite a few condescending snobs you pretty much have to be a Z-list, penniless nobody who lives under a rock in order to not know who she is. Her reputation is massive and she commands a huge deal of respect amongst the young rich and famous. Never heard of her? Me neither; up until yesterday afternoon that is. Chelsea looked at me like I was a lunatic when I asked “Cora who?” Even Ollie shot me a look of mild surprise. Apparently she is the best wedding planner on the planet. I’m serious bride-to-bes have gotten into cat fights over booking her for their weddings. According to some people it’s not a wedding unless Cora Silverson has organised it. But luckily for us Ollie has the best agent on the planet and somehow Chelsea has managed to get Cora to help plan our wedding! I know now all this as I have recently done my research because I felt pretty stupid when Chelsea informed me we got Cora and all I could do was stare at her blankly in confusion.

So despite only having a very vague idea of who this Cora woman is I am now on my way with Ollie to meet her at Café Etolie. “Have you ever heard of her?” I ask Ollie almost skipping with excitement. “Yeah I’ve heard her mentioned quite a few times,” he replies. I am so clueless when it comes to celebrity lifestyles, which is disturbing seen as I am planning on marrying a celebrity. “How?” I question.

“I’ve been to a couple of her weddings,” he replies. Suddenly he comes to a halt. “Iz, why are you skipping?” he asks laughing.

“Because today is the day when I FINALLY start planning my wedding to my gorgeous groom-to-be,” I inform him happily while wrapping my arms around his waist. He wraps a protective arm around my shoulders and smiles to himself a very strange smile. “What was that?” I question.

“What?” he replies slightly taken aback.

“That weird little smile you just did,” I elaborate.

“Oh that. That was my Izzie is being completely insane again smile,” he explains jokingly.

“Oh so it was a smile of embarrassment then?” I reply with a mock sulky face.

“Noooo, it’s an ‘Izzie is being completely insane again but she’s so adorable and funny when she’s like this and that’s probably one of the many reasons why I love her to pieces’ smile,” he corrects me.

“I have my very own Izzie smile!”

“Yes you do,” he replies pulling me in tighter.

We arrive at the café and all of a sudden a woman with striking bubble gum pink hair suddenly leaps to her feet and declares, “My aren’t you the cutest couple there ever was,” clasping her hands together in joy. She’s a little… err eccentric shall we say. Aside from her impossible-to-ignore pink hair she has lipstick of the same colour. She is wearing a crazy concoction of colours and sequins while still appearing stylish and she’s grinning at us in awe. It’s strange she doesn’t look like the sort of person who is organised enough to plan an entire wedding. “I take it this is Cora,” I whisper to Ollie out of the side of my mouth just to make sure. Before Ollie can make a positive reply Cora is bounding over to us with a look of crazed excitement on her face. She heads straight for Ollie and throws her hands around his neck dragging him into a hug. I have to stop myself from laughing when Ollie pulls a face of sheer panic. Suddenly it’s my turn to squirm as Cora lets go of Ollie and wraps her hands around me. She quickly gives me back my personal space bubble before invading it again a few seconds later. She begins picking up strands of my hair and then leans her head back to study me properly. “Oh Ollie she’s gorgeous! Look at this hair. We could really make something of this hair,” she exclaims. My eyes immediately flick to Ollie who is now silently chuckling to himself. He quickly turns his chuckling into a warm smile as Cora twists her head around to catch Ollie’s opinion on her comments. “Oh yeah. Iz has got fantastic hair,” he agrees ever so slightly confused.

Cora leads us to the table sits us down and waits for us to order and receive our drinks. She looks completely shocked when I order a caramel shortbread with my cup of tea and so does the waitress. I’ve gotten used to this shock at ordering anything with more calorific content than a couple of celery sticks amongst the rich and famous. When I was first offered a desert menu on a date with Ollie at a restaurant I didn’t realise that no celebrity woman ever even glances at the desert menu so I took the menu from the waiter’s hands and began flicking through. I swear the whole entire place stopped to gawk at me in horror. I probably would have run out the place in sheer embarrassment had Ollie not suggested the cheesecake happily ignoring the stares of disproval from almost the entire restaurant. That’s the thing with Ollie even though every other person makes me feel unwelcome in the celebrity world one word, one smile, one joke from him and I don’t care.

The waitress sets my caramel shortbread down on the table with caution as if it might explode at any moment and I can see her visibly checking to see what affect my cake eating has taken on my figure. I look her straight in the eye and defiantly take a bite out of my shortbread and a long sip from my cup of tea. She walks away pretty quickly after that. “So why don’t you describe to me your dream wedding?” suggests Cora pulling out an obscure, hot pink, sequined notebook and a fluffy pen, (the sort of pen you thought was awesome when you were six.) Ollie and I stare at each other blankly. We were so excited about getting engaged neither of us have actually put any thought into actually coming up with plans and ideas. “Okaaay why don’t we start with venue? Any ideas for that?” she encourages us after a short silence.

“Oh I have an idea for that! Well I’ve had this idea for quite a while actually. When I was about ten my family and I visited this really pretty Georgian stately home and I can remember thinking to myself this would be the perfect place to get married. I can’t remember off the top of my head the name of the place but I’m sure if I asked my Mum she would remember,” I explain.

“So our wedding would be like one of those Jane Austen novels which you read constantly,” Ollie adds warmly. “You know me well,” I reply with a smile.

“And how many people are you planning on inviting?” she asks while scribbling some words down. “I don’t want a bunch of people there we don’t know. But at the same time I don’t want a tiny intimate wedding. I want something just sort of in-between,” Ollie describes as I nod along in agreement. “Okay and now for the media…,”
“NO!” Ollie and I say in unison making even ourselves jump.

“That’s the one thing we’ve decided on; no press involvement whatsoever,” Ollie insists.

“But the bride-to-be is a journalist. I was thinking you could focus your columns on the wedding for a couple of weeks before your wedding and then we could get a magazine to do a full story; photographs and everything,” she protests.

“No. Our wedding is not a way to further our careers. I’m marrying Ollie because I love him not so I can see my picture in a magazine,” I explain defiantly. She nods then writes something down that looks disturbingly like ‘Media – need to talk them round.’

 

We continue like this for a while but it's clear that Ollie and I haven't put any thought into this whatsoever and with each vague answer we give Cora looks more and more worried. In fact the question about media involvement was the only one we answered strongly. I guess we really need to do more planning... After a while Cora decides she has got a good idea of what sort of wedding we are going for. How she got a 'good idea' I'll never know. We aren’t exactly clear ourselves on what we wanted. She tells us that she will be in touch with a few ideas of her own then hurries off again. “She was a bit…,” I begin but I can’t even think of a word to finish off the sentence.

“I know,” Ollie simply replies understanding exactly what I mean. “But Chelsea insists she’s the best,” Ollie adds encouragingly on the end of the sentence. Well I suppose Chelsea’s never been wrong before…