Alice Wylie: Am I right or a meringue?

W AITING in the dry cleaners last week I watched a couple come in with what looked like an enormous bag of candy floss. Just as I was wondering why anyone would get their sofa stuffing dry cleaned, they pulled from the bag an enormous cloud of diamante-bedazzled tulle.

It was a wedding dress, and it looked like one big unicorn fart. The assistant told the couple it would cost £200 to have the hideous confection cleaned and “boxed up”. I nearly spat my latte all over my freshly laundered Louis Vuitton capri pants, and the newly-weds too looked a little queasy at the sum.

“Wow, you could practically buy another wedding dress for £200,” I said to the couple while the assistant was in the back, in what I intended as sympathy for the fact that they were about to spend a small fortune on cleaning a garment that would never be worn again.

“Um, not this one,” said the bride in disgust, as if by suggesting the unicorn fart could be replaced for a mere £200 I was implying she must also live in a house made of crisp packets and eat dust for breakfast.

“Yeah, not even close,” scoffed the husband, with a look that suggested he felt sorry for me that I could ever be as naïve as to believe that such a work of art might be acquired for a lowly triple-figure sum.

I considered brandishing my Vuitton as evidence that I certainly know how to waste serious cash on clothing and that a unicorn fart is not the way to do it, but thought better of it. I knew how much the silly wedding dress would have cost, and that only made the whole thing all the more ridiculous to me, particularly since this pair were still paying for it post-honeymoon.

It’s considered the ultimate faux pas to upstage the bride at a wedding, but these days it’s not difficult. Wedding dresses are ugly. And they’re all the same. Full-skirted, strapless and off-white with a pleated and/or beaded bodice, they just look like they’d give you very sweaty breasts. They’re usually worn with a bad up-do, tiara, French manicure and aggressively heavy ‘day’ make-up. Frankly, it’s difficult to avoid upstaging that. Yet retailers know that on their One Special Day, plenty of women are prepared to spend a lot of money to look that cheap. It baffles me.

The village I grew up in had a shop that sold overpriced and repulsive mother-of-the-bride ensembles. Bringing up two young daughters, my own mother found it so depressing that she might one day have to actually purchase one of these monstrosities that she used to take longer routes to avoid having to pass its window.

Little did she know that, skipping alongside her, I felt exactly the same way about the adjacent wedding dress shop. While my friends were flitting around with pillowcases on their heads playing at being brides, I knew any day that was billed as the happiest of my life couldn’t possibly involve wearing a wedding dress. Frankly, I’d rather don sofa stuffing. n