This article was written for Annabel & Grace, which is now part of Rest Less.
” Grannie Goldie, BPG you’re here! Wow you look great.”
Oh how I love those darling Aussie boys… so good for the ego…quite the stars of their generation, and now captains of industry, the movers and shakers of the Australian economy, the innovators, and all still looking so good, those firm biceps and flat packs… and they are so nice to me. Well ’tis true most of them have bunked up at my flat in London at one time or another during their gap years… ahem… I will rephrase that….they have slept on my floor at some time or another. One of them, a particularly naughty one, even smuggled a drop dead gorgeous girl in, and then didn’t know her name when he tried to introduce her to me the next morning! However all is forgiven and we are now all in Bali, to share the joy and excitement of a wonderful wedding. This is the stuff that Hello magazine is made of!
Eat your heart out Angelina and Brad, elbow any thoughts of a wedding in the UK have a look at Atas Ombak Villas.
We were bidden to Atas Ombak Villa at 3pm on the Saturday, so BPG spent most of the morning by the pool at The Breezes, the hotel I was staying at (a middle bracket hotel), with 2 lovely pools, one with a sunken bar in the middle of it. It is the kind of pool that when you get too hot you just flop in, hair still intact, and do three feeble breaststrokes and you are at the bar. There is also a child friendly pool, with imported clean sand, and the sweetest staff who would play with your kids for hours. In BPG terms it is definitely five stars.
Back to the wedding…. at 3pm, and the guests walked through a glade of Frangipani trees to get to Atas Ombak, then through a narrow bougainvillea clad gate way, flanked by uniformed sentries, and into the garden itself. The venue was one which most people would only dream of. Palm trees gently swaying in the breeze, defining the edge of the garden as it went down to beach sparkling sea topped by frothy white surf, silken sand and not a single person on the beach as far as the eye could see.
WEDDING SET UP
A huge garden, a glorious swimming pool, white chairs set up Hollywood style, for the wedding ceremony, with a Dias backing onto the sea for the bridal couple, Then there were the people! They were all beautiful, about a hundred and sixty people and not one ugly one! The guests had been flying into Bali over the last two days, some of them in their OWN jets!
The Aussie girls don’t wear hats for weddings, they don’t wear much else either it seems… but my goodness did they look good, long slender tanned legs, flat tummies, do those girls ever eat? Manes of sun kissed blonde hair, with just a hint of root (that’s how you know its natural) and designer dresses. I felt sorry for the guys, especially the groomsmen, all 6 foot plus, ex rugby players. They were in light suits, but however light it wasn’t light enough, muslin would have been better but might not have taken the strain of those thighs…. the male staff looked cool… dressed in sarongs and shirts; there is something about being able to get a breeze between your thighs that makes you feel cool. It’s on occasions like this that I am so glad to be female.
We were ushered to our seats and given fans. All brides look beautiful, but since this bride had indeed been a beauty queen, she was quite superlative .Her dress was ivory silk slashed to a deep V at the back embroidered with Swarovski crystals. Her very dark hair was gathered in a swirl at the nape of her neck and she had a coquettish little bit of ivory frou-frou with net just over her eyes! Seductive or what? The wedding ceremony was enchanting, not a mention of God, just loving vows to each other and mixing sand, symbolic of the families coming together Then it was party, party, party……..huge amounts of champagne were consumed… wonderful funny speeches, a clever video of the bride and groom as children, made by a top advertising company, of course! Then dancing…..
BPG retired discreetly at 2am but just as I was leaving I saw a tiger cub on a chain, doing a poo…. I must be hallucinating I thought.
As I said in my last blog, this is not my usual sort of trip… this was luxury…a whole week of jet setting. I could not possibly tell you the gossip, or I would never be asked again, but let me tell you there were some mighty fine guests. I hob knobbed with peers of the realm, movie stars, jail birds, casino bosses, mistresses, wives mums and even other grannies…we were all there for one thing…. we love the bride and groom, and it was fantastic, and I wish the bride and groom the greatest happiness for the rest of their lives.
As you probably know The CountryWives are appearing at Henley Literary Festival on Friday, 28th September at The Quince Tree, I will be there of course but probably wearing a burkha (those Arab women are not stupid) why you may ask?
Well…. On my last night my dear first husband, I’ve had three, asked me for dinner, bless him, he looks like Giorgio Armani these days! Why did I let him go? Anyway back to the subject. I’ve long had a theory that mosquitoes won’t bite if you drink the right kind of alcohol. It is all to do with the sweetness of the skin. They definitely don’t like vodka. On the last night Georgio and I hit the margaritas and talked about our wedding 43 years ago………. big mistake, the drinks not our conversation. FYI Mosquitoes do like margaritas. The next morning I woke up with polka dot mosquito skin… hence the Burka next Friday at Henley…maybe the barman didn’t put enough salt in?
Bye for now. P.S. Burma next