The Reluctant Bride

A hilarious account of the year Lucy Mangan got married (having always said she wouldn't)|She's not pregnant, in debt or in need of a passport, so what makes a marriage sceptic finally decide to tie the knot? Their eyes met across a crowded room. Three years and a weak moment in New York later, Lucy accepts her boyfriend's proposal of marriage. Life becomes a ceaseless whirl of the kind of activities she has spent her entire adult life avoiding. Shopping. Waxing. Visiting churches. Daily conversations with her mother, who has unveiled an 82-point plan for the wedding. Twice-daily conversations with her sister who has a better, 164-point plan in a colour-coded folder. Her fiance, who has spent twenty minutes compiling his guest list and checking his suit still fits before returning to his newspaper, assures her that it will all come right in the end. But he's not the one who has to find a caterer who doesn't charge GBP5 a vol-au-vent, a dressmaker who doesn't make you cry or a way to bring Great Auntie Jessie down from Dundee for the sixpence she is willing to spend. It's going to be an uphill job.|Lucy was educated in Catford and Cambridge. She was briefly a very bad solicitor before leaving for a much nicer job in a bookshop. Six years ago she got work experience at the Guardian and hung around until they gave her a job. She is now a columnist and features writer there and writes for magazines, including Grazia, Marie Claire and Cosmopolitan, whenever they ask her.