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Two weddings and a bridezilla

Date: 2007-01-11

THE INVITES are posted. The venue is booked. Elton is doing the flowers. Well, possibly. This is Elizabeth Hurley's wedding we're talking about, after all. Yesterday, details leaked out concerning the forthcoming nuptials on 9 March between Hurley and her fiancé, Indian textiles heir Arun Nayar. And what a hootenanny it promises to be. There will be two ceremonies, one in Gloucestershire and one in India. Required outfits include turbans and saris, and dress codes range from "glamorous casual" to "glamorous and fabulous". The celebrations in India will last six days. David and Victoria Beckham, along with Elton John and David Furnish, are all on the guest list.

If that wasn't enough, each guest has received a detailed orientation pack in order to prepare them for the great event. It states that Hurley and Nayar have opened their own private wedding "shop" at the Hilton Towers Hotel in Mumbai, stocked with the aforementioned saris, kurtas, bindis and so on, to make sure each guest is correctly attired for every occasion. There is no room for error here. Guests can leave their favourite Prada or Balenciaga at home. The bride will be dictating every outfit choice with the easy authority of an enthusiastic army captain.

The pack goes on to detail the exhaustive itinerary of dinners, ceremonies, dances and horse rides (yes, really) every guest is expected to attend, both in Mumbai and in Rajasthan, and reminds them to bring their own insect repellent and travel iron. You could be forgiven for thinking it was one of those organised activity holidays where the only time you get to yourself is during a scheduled toilet break.

Not that much of this will come as a surprise to the guests. There have been rumours concerning this most glamorous of occasions for some time now. As far back as 18 months ago, one source was even quoted as saying, admittedly somewhat improbably, that Hurley was "very keen to involve elephants in some way and hopes to arrive on one - but it depends on logistics and whether it actually fits in with the ceremony". huge pile of elephant poo deposited half-way along the aisle could ruin the romance of the moment.

Animal excrement aside, though, Hurley is displaying all the traits of what is becoming an increasingly common phenomenon in the hair-raising world of weddings: the bridezilla. Coined by American writer Gail Dunson, also known as Noe Spaemme, who has written a book on the subject, Bridezilla: True Tales From Etiquette Hell, it is a dauntingly accurate way to describe the type of woman who gets so worked up about her wedding day that, by the time it rolls around, she believes herself to be the most important person on the planet. And it is a fate that is befalling more and more brides. From asking certain guests to lose weight before the big day to throwing screaming hissyfits about the colour of the church pews, it's a terrifying indictment of what a wedding can do to a woman - not to mention a relationship.

When examining La Hurley's bridezilla credentials, it is worth taking her age into consideration: she is now 41. Hurley scratched around with Hugh Grant for the best part of a decade, even taking the Divine Brown incident in her stride, yet never even received an engagement ring for her troubles. Then followed a disastrous relationship with millionaire producer Steve Bing, which resulted in her son, Damian, and a lengthy and messy paternity case. Hurley is a classic example of the modern woman who does everything else - career, long-term relationships, babies - first before submitting to that long trip down the aisle. No wonder she wants to make a big hoo-ha about it, and on her terms too. Still, there ought to be limits.

About 18 months ago I was a guest at a wedding in Rajasthan, in what I suspect is the same palace-turned-hotel Hurley will be taking over. It is a breathtakingly beautiful place, and the epitome of Indian luxury. I wore a green silk sari for the small, simple ceremony (handcrafted in Pollokshields, Glasgow, no less) and after a relaxed wedding lunch we were free to change and wander into the local village to shop for handicrafts.

That night, we ate a traditional meal of thali under the stars and danced to Panjabi MC. The next day everyone headed off on separately arranged holidays throughout the sub-continent, while the newlyweds left for their honeymoon. It was magical and understated and everything that I suspect Hurley's wedding won't be.

This is because, as a bridezilla, Hurley appears to want total control. Take the saris. It was great fun, a real adventure, shopping for a sari in Glasgow. I picked all the materials out myself, went for several fittings, and had it tailor-made to suit me perfectly. There will be no such joy for Hurley's guests. They will be expected to choose their outfits from the selection Hurley has already pre-approved in the hotel 'shop'. The message here is clear: I have outfit approval, so there is no way you can upstage me.

And of course Hurley knows all about upstaging a bride, having caused ructions nine years ago at the society wedding of Lili Maltese and Henry Dent Brocklehurst, when she pitched up in a dress slashed all the way to her hipbone, revealing a tiny leopard-print thong underneath. The tabloids loved it, naturally. The Brocklehursts were reportedly less thrilled.

But the curse of the bridezilla is not restricted to celebrities. In America (where else?) there is a TV show on the Women's Entertainment channel entitled Bridezillas, which boasts the snappy tagline "watch real brides go from sweet to certifiable!" While most of us could probably watch that happen at the John Lewis gift counter most Saturday afternoons ("what do you mean no-one bought the aluminium fish kettle!") if we were so inclined, Bridezillas take the voyeurism to a new level.

We see brides yelling at waiters because the cosmopolitans aren't supposed to be served for another five minutes. Brides confidently telling the camera that this will be the most important event of their life, while an incredulous fiancé asks them if they remember the birth of their child. Brides having breakdowns outside bridal shops because they can't find the perfect gown. It is horrifying, depressing and liable to put the un-wed of the world off marriage for life.

Often, weddings become an extension of the bride's personality, a sort of physical manifestation of their character. This can go very well, or very badly. My friend Kate, who is laid-back, lovely and English, had a typically laid-back, lovely and English wedding last year. There was a simple church service, a buffet at the local village hall, and a bride, simple yet elegant in plain ivory silk, knocking back cider with her friends into the wee small hours. It was one of those weddings where everyone went round saying "isn't this fantastic? It's just so Kate".

By sharp contrast, Ms soon-to-be- divorced Britney Spears dreamed up a wedding that had most of the world going around saying "I knew she was trashy, but not that trashy". The bride wore a tracksuit saying "Mrs Federline", while the groom's bore the legend "Pimp Daddy". Guests were given keyrings that featured a picture of the couple.

The wedding feast consisted of hamburgers and chicken wings. The only thing missing was a trailer, and that was probably parked out back.

And who could forget the Beckhams' nuptials? The thrones, the crowns, the VD coat of arms ... it was hideously perfect for them and was, one suspects, planned with military precision by one Ms Victoria Adams. And so it goes on. Little Britain comedian Matt Lucas celebrated his civil partnership with Kevin McGee at the end of last year with a lavish pantomime-themed reception. Jordan arrived at the church to marry her boyfriend, Peter Andre, in a glass coach and wearing a Cinderella-style dress. Tom Cruise, an honorary bridezilla, allegedly dug a hole for his new wife to stand in, so it looked as if they were the same height in the all-important wedding snaps.

The basic problem seems to be that too many brides get so caught up in their wedding plans they forget why they're getting married in the first place. And that if you really, truly love someone, it shouldn't matter whether you marry in a palace or a potting shed.

Perhaps, though, we should be grateful to Hurley. I, for one, can't wait to see Elton John in a sari.

...and then we have the 'civilian' nuptials

MOST brides hope their wedding day will be at least one of the happiest days of their life, but Elizabeth Hurley is even more optimistic. If her celebrations go to plan, she will have had six of the happiest days of her life, not to mention several delightful evenings and two whole wedding days. But such extreme nuptials are definitely the province of celebrities and bear little relevance to how most of us mere mortals (or "civilians", as Hurley reportedly likes to call the little people, with their one-day weddings) choose to say "I will".

Obviously, Liz and Arun were never going to consider the "registry office, then down the pub" option, but even the average traditional white wedding costs around £11,000 in Britain - which is probably Hurley's shoe budget.

Every bride wants her day to go well, but Hurley's desperation to control every detail of the extravaganza would leave even the most hardened Bridezilla standing. Take her insistence that the guests' outfits should be "glamorous and fabulous". In the real world, brides don't usually send out a style-bible with the invitations. I couldn't even control what the bridegroom wore. But it's accepted that wedding guests will try to make an effort and maybe even get a hat from Debenhams. Does she not have any aged or unattractive friends and relatives? Or is she simply not intending to invite anybody who doesn't have a charge account with Versace?

Hurley might ask a lot of her guests, but at least she's taken the pain out of the hen night. No girlfriend of hers will have to shiver on a street corner in a micro-mini, deeley-boppers and an "I did it on Liz's hen night" T-shirt. Her mates will get treated to a day of pampering and henna tattoos. Meanwhile, the men will indulge in a civilised game of cricket, which she probably hopes will eradicate the sort of testosterone-based competitiveness that often leads to that traditional wedding day event, the boys' fist-fight.

Like the rest of us, Hurley wants a wonderful day - or in her case, days - but she's living in fantasy-land if she thinks that sheer extravagance can eliminate the possibility of a screaming child at the ceremony, Great Uncle Jack getting legless, or a wayward bridesmaid. But maybe money can even make up for that. When it comes to presents, she will undoubtedly get slightly more than the current British average of £1,500's worth.





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