Vows and wows

By Will Smith

It’s seven in the morning and I’ve just stepped out of the Dorchester hotel and into one of several waiting people-carriers, which weave off through the stodgy London traffic. I am getting a taste of life not as a jet-setting mogul or pap-dodging celebrity, but a wedding planner. In the convoy are ten other nuptial students, all under the week-long tutelage of Mark Niemierko, one of the capital’s most exclusive planners. Today we’re doing flowers and cakes, but Mark dispenses knowledge on all aspects of the task, from invitation stationery to post-reception fireworks. For some reason, I am the only man on the course.

We spend the morning with Rob Van Helden. He is Elton John’s florist, so not the sort you go to for a bunch of daffodils. He takes us on a dawn walk through New Covent Garden flower market, where it’s not just the choice of flowers that’s overwhelming; there are vases ranging in size from eggcups to escape pods. There are also “decorative options”: plinths, candle-holders, storm lanterns, painted sea-shells, polished conchs, corals, pebbles…One minute these seem extraneous, the next indispensable. I am experiencing the early symptoms of wedding brain-freeze.