1.20pm

Knock knock.

Who's there?
The florist, that's who!

No, it is no joke. It is the start of a horror story.

Bel marito and I had simple flowers for the wedding. I had never wanted a bouquet so had visited a local, wonderfully talented florist and ordered 3 wrist corsages for my twin - maid of honour, sister - bridesmaid and I, some buttonholes for the men and 3 flowers for my grandmother, mother and mother in law to pin onto their dresses. When bel marito was simply my bel ragazzo he had surprised me one birthday with a stunning bunch of red roses. The florist, as is her style, had sprayed them delicately with glitter, placed sparkly pins in the centre of the roses and made them look amazing - it sounds tacky but they were the most beautiful arrangement I had ever seen.

We had gone in person to order the corsages as I had a photo of what I wanted. I took my twins shawl so we could find flowers to match and I gave a detailed description. The price was reasonable, I had faith in her and was looking forward to getting the flowers.

It was previously agreed that we would collect the flowers at 1.00pm but the florist was a friend of a friend and said they would be delivered. A delivery man walked into the hectic kitchen which looked like the bomb site of a kindergarten...toys, food scraps, nappies and people everywhere. By this stage there were 5 children under 6 years of age in the house, 4 of them being 20 months and under. The man placed the flowers on the table and like a greedy child I ripped off the lid and looked at my flowers. I am not a woman who is able to hide her emotions, nor can I always control my tongue 'sono disgustoso!' they are disgusting!!!! I cried.

I stared in horror at the site before me, picking up this jungle of a corsage that was apparently mine. There was greenery a mile long sticking out in every directions and some boring white orchids stuck in the middle. Under the flowers was enough wire mesh to house hundreds of chickens, actually it looked like some over the top races fascinator, not my simple, elegent wedding corsage. This thing was beyond disgusting. My sister and twin had deep red dresses and their wrist corsages were full of orange roses, outlined naturally in a shade of pink. You couldn't find flowers to clash worse with the dress if you tried.
I had ordered 3 flowers for the 3 women to wear, the same obviously, but there was 1 orchaid womans buttonhole and about 10 rose buttonholes, 2 so massive and heavy with this damned greenery and jipp which I assumed was for the other 2 women unless bel marito wanted to look like a clown. I don't know who the excess botton holes were for, but didn't care. I was beyond crying at this stage. I was angry. The delivery man left discreetly whilst my grandmother and future sister in law tried to calm me down, saying they would take apart the flowers and try to remake them. Everyone agreed they were horrifically ugly especially with this massive wire ball which stood about 3cm tall and was meant to touch our wrist before this carnidge of flowers began. I wish I had taken a photo...but there was no time as I was being pushed out of the door by my sister and twin and taken down the road to the hair dressers, leaving my corsage fate in the hands of my gran and future sister in law.