Love, Lipstick and Lies (31 page)

I told Kieran and his mum about the crippling postnatal depression I suffered from after I had Junior. And I told them about how I had felt that Pete’s family hadn’t given me the space to bond with my son, and that I was convinced that had been one of the triggers of my depression. Even now, I can clearly remember the surge
of anger I felt whenever his mum and dad went near Junior while he was a baby, and then Princess. And I’ll never forget how, just a few days after I’d had her, when I was lying in bed, still recovering from the caesarian, I overheard Pete on the phone to his brother saying that his dad was his first priority and, as if that wasn’t hurtful enough: ‘I don’t really care what
that
thinks.’

I remember it felt as if I’d been hit. My then husband was calling me
that.
His dad was unwell at the time, and Pete was planning to bring his parents to our house, even though he knew I didn’t want any visitors because I was so anxious about getting post-natal depression again. In fact, Pete and our two families had been expressly told by the doctors to give me all the space I needed and not crowd me. But with that phone call my husband had made me feel worthless; I could never forget that comment. It was downhill all the way in our marriage from there, and we split up a year and a half later. Even writing about it here, six years later, brings all those feelings of anger back.

But, deep breath, I am sure that things will be different with Kieran’s family. Already I feel close and comfortable with them, in a way I never did with past partners’ families. I’ve told his mum that I want her to come up to the hospital so she can see the baby as soon as I come out of surgery. But even as I said it, I still felt a bit funny and couldn’t help thinking about when I was taken back to my room, wondering if everyone would be there, wanting to hold the baby? Already I could feel
stress and anxiety bubbling up inside me.
I
wanted to be the one holding the baby! No one else but me. So I tried to calm myself down, and say to myself, Kate, just relax! Of course his family want to see the baby, it’s natural, but they’re not going to take it away from you. I guess post-natal depression leaves its mark for ever …

I’ve already mentioned that I had to start taking anti-depressants again in September 2012. As soon as I found out I was pregnant, I talked to my doctor and started coming off them – you have to do it gradually otherwise it can make you feel very unwell. There was still the stress of the court case ahead, especially when we found out that my ex-husband Alex Reid was also getting involved – though that is a whole different story.

But overall everything about the pregnancy felt very positive even though it had happened so early in my relationship with Kieran. He had hardly ever known me not to be pregnant! And he hasn’t really seen me out socialising. I’m always a home girl at heart, but even more so at the moment. On Saturday nights, when he’s got a show on, I’m tucked up at home on the sofa watching TV! I’ve not been in the mood to go out. I wouldn’t know what to wear and don’t want the pressure of the media speculating about when the baby’s due. They can guess all they like, but they won’t be told.

I say to Kieran, ‘Do you think I’m boring because all I want to do is stay at home?’

Fortunately it doesn’t bother him at all, and when he’s not working he’s perfectly happy to be at home with
me, socialising with our friends and family. I know that when I was single I went nuts, wanted to go out clubbing and drinking, didn’t want to stay at home on my own every night. I met Kieran while I was in my going out phase, but as soon as we were in a relationship I stopped wanting to go out. I was happy to stay in. I know myself, and I’m calmer and happier when I’m in a relationship. Luckily that home girl is the one Kieran loves.

Ironically, I had been quiet work-wise at the beginning of 2013, but then from June 2013, when I was six months pregnant, it was suddenly work, work, work, as I had my latest novel,
He’s The One
, out; then my new perfume Kissable in July; I had a range of shoes to promote in July in LA and Australia, and my wedding range in August and September. This book came out in October, just over a month after I was due to have the baby! Talk about a packed schedule! But all the time I felt completely supported by Kieran, who planned to take a month off work so he could come on the book tour with the baby and me.

The only downside (and it’s really only a small one) is that my lovely new pert, high up, stuck on boobs were ruined by the pregnancy! They dropped dramatically. I might just as well never have had them done at all. And they were so good! I only had them done because I had no idea that I was going to meet someone, fall in love, get married and have a baby, three months after the surgery. But that’s life. All I really cared about was that my baby was healthy. I hoped that my body would snap back into
shape as it had done after my last three children, but I think that might be too optimistic nowadays. I’m pretty sure that this time I will need to hit the gym, and work out to get back into shape – good genes can only do so much. I’m looking forward to having the energy to do it.

I know I want to have more kids with Kieran so I definitely won’t rush into having another boob job after this baby is born. I’ll wait until hopefully we’ve had another child together. Then that will be it! I’ll go back to Belgium again for another boob job and this time no one will be ruining them!

Many people spend ages planning their wedding, two years, a year … many people but not me. I had barely two months to plan a blessing ceremony and reception for nearly two hundred guests. But I had a vision. Junior, Princess and I have always loved the film of
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
and I thought it would be brilliant to have a Willy Wonka-themed party in a world of sweets, though I thought it was unlikely we’d be able to book Oompa-Loompas at such short notice … I wanted it to be a spectacle and I wanted it to be fun!

Kieran was completely up for the theme as well. I’m not criticising anyone else’s wedding but they can all seem very similar and blur into one with their subtle light colours, tasteful toning table decorations, you know the kind of thing. I feel that once you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them
all. Because this was my third marriage, I think I was especially keen to make it different and special. I wanted it to be a fitting celebration of our relationship and to show how committed Kieran and I were to each other.

Initially we wanted to have the blessing at a nearby stately home, but unfortunately they would only allow us to have ninety guests and that simply wasn’t enough. Then I looked into having a marquee in the grounds of my house, but the quote the company gave us seemed excessive and my mum thought a marquee was a bad idea.

‘You need to get married away from the house! Knowing you, if you have it here, halfway through the ceremony you’ll nip back into the house and change into your PJs and then go back when you feel more comfortable.’

She was right, of course. I probably would end up doing exactly that.

I didn’t want to stress about this blessing at all, but suddenly time seemed to be on fast-forward and we still hadn’t settled on a venue, though we had the date: Saturday 30 March. Then my manager introduced me to a friend of his called Ian, who had just bought a stately home outside Ipswich and wanted to make it into a wedding venue. That sounded promising … However, when we went to see it, although the driveway and the exterior of the house were impressive, the inside needed a lot of work. And there wasn’t one room that was large enough to seat all our guests for dinner, they would have to be spread over three rooms and that didn’t
seem ideal. Ian was convinced that he would be able to accommodate everyone and put on the theme that I wanted, but I was starting to have doubts. It seemed a lot to do, in a short space of time, and I felt uneasy about leaving it all to him.

Meanwhile I was busy thinking about my dress. I asked Kieran what kind of dress he would like me to wear, and he suggested something lacey, in a style that I hadn’t worn to my other weddings … Men! What do they know! There was no way I was going to wear a little dress, I’d already worn one of those for our beach wedding, it had to be the big white number, nothing else would do. I found a dress which I thought would be perfect, and as the style was called Katie it seemed like a very good sign. It was a beautiful cream colour, with lace. But naturally I needed it to be blinged up and requested that they sew on more crystals.

We went ahead and sent out the invitations with only two weeks to go, giving the venue as the stately home. But then one of my guests leaked the details to the press … Here we go again, I thought. I really didn’t want to have our big day ruined because of the paps. I didn’t know what else to do since time was so tight. And then we had a meeting with Ian, near his home in Weston-super-Mare, and it turned out that he owned Rookery Manor, a hotel and spa which specialised in putting on weddings. He showed us round the venue and instantly I thought it would be brilliant for our wedding. Everything was there already; it would make life so much easier. Also, if
we held it there, the press wouldn’t know. When I asked Ian, he said it would be possible, except he already had a wedding booked for 30 March; ours would have to be 29 March. I knew that might mean some people couldn’t make it, which was a pity, but I also knew that this venue was the right one for us.

Ian also owned two wedding boutiques and before the visit I’d taken a look at the website and seen an absolutely gorgeous dress. It was a striking creation with an ostrich-feather bodice. I had already chosen my dress, and no doubt it had been blinged up to my liking by now, but there was no harm in looking at another one, was there? During our hotel visit we went into the bridal boutique and I asked if they had the ostrich-feather dress there. In fact it was at the other store and they had to send off for it. We waited an hour or so but it was so worth it because when I saw the dress I loved it. And when I tried it on, I knew this was the one for me. But I wasn’t keen on the ruched skirt so I said, ‘I’d love it with a plain silk skirt, with tulle dotted with’ (yes, you’ve guessed it) ‘crystals. Would it be possible to change it?’

The look on everyone’s faces was priceless. ‘But, Kate!’ my mum exclaimed. ‘You’re getting married in a week and a half and now you want to change the dress!’

I’m sure my reply wasn’t what they wanted to hear: ‘Yes!’ And when they had made the changes to the dress I absolutely loved it.

Of course I had to wear a tiara. And not just any old tiara, it had to be made to my specifications and that
meant it was going to be a whopper! I asked the designer to bring her biggest samples to my house and I tried three of them on at once.

‘Right, I want to go to this height, plus a little bit more!’ I declared as I looked in the mirror. The designer replied that she had never made one like that before … but there you go, that’s me.

Now we had the venue, I could see my ideas for the wedding working perfectly. There were two large reception suites, decorated with ivory drapes, chandeliers and LED starlit ceilings. Very me. One suite was going to be converted into a kind of chapel of love, with white flower arrangements and roses studded with crystals. I had booked a gospel choir as I love gospel singing. Funnily enough, the choir ended up on
Britain’s Got Talent
a few weeks later.

We were going to take our wedding vows under an ornate white canopy with pillars, cascades of crystals, and garlands of white flowers. These canopies, called
mandaps
, are often used in Asian weddings. This was my idea and I thought it would really add to the spectacle to take our vows like that, make it really magical, rather than simply standing in front of the guests. Oh, and we were having two gold thrones. Maybe that was going a bit Posh and Becks circa 1999 but, hey, what the hell!

The second reception room was going to be for the sitdown wedding breakfast and that was going to be where we let rip with the Willy Wonka theme. It was going to be a treat for the senses with bright-coloured drapes
on the walls and ceiling, more twinkling LED lights, giant lollipops, packets of love hearts and candy sticks decorating the walls. Instead of flower decorations, each table was going to have a tree made of sweets, mini-chocolate eggs, love hearts, that kind of thing. There was going to be fake grass, sweet stalls, popcorn stalls and a chocolate fountain. The only downside to having the wedding here was that because the venue was booked for other weddings before and after ours, the wedding planners hardly had any time to set up and all the many props that I wanted for the theme could only be delivered the night before. I had wanted to have a purple bridge with a chocolate river flowing underneath it, exactly like you see in the film, but there simply wasn’t the time to set it up. Maybe that was a good thing; imagine if someone had taken a tumble in it, after downing too many glasses of bubbly.

While we were eating, the chapel of love where we took our vows would be transformed into the entertainment area, with a dance floor, a DJ and stage. Here I decided to keep the look simple with candle-lit tables and arrangements of white flowers. I knew that by the evening our guests would have had a drink, or two; besides they would already have experienced the wow factor with the Willy Wonka-themed suite. But I wasn’t just having a disco, I wanted entertainment! I didn’t want anyone to be bored so I booked a Kylie impersonator and a Michael Jackson impersonator, we were going to have fireworks outside, and finally at
midnight we were having a nineties tribute band – and I was sure if people hadn’t yet hit the dance floor, they definitely would then.

As for food, I wanted everything to be simple, nothing fancy, so we went for bangers and mash for dinner, with a trio of real old-school puddings: a chocolate one, rice pudding, and sticky toffee. Later, there would be bacon butties to keep everyone going.

When it came to my bridesmaids there was nothing so simple. I was having thirteen. There were supposed to be fourteen but just before the wedding one of my friends let me down. I had so many bridesmaids because they are all good friends and I felt if I simply asked a few the others would be offended, and I hate to upset anyone. They were wearing long red silk off-the-shoulder dresses, which we had specially made, and delicate diamante tiaras, about a quarter of the size of mine. Oh, and in true Pricey style I arranged to have hairpieces made for all of them by Annabelle’s Hair, and they had their hair styled by my hairdresser Mikey. Princess and Ruby, the daughter of my friend Jane, were going to be flower girls, and Junior, Harvey and George, Jane’s son, were going to be page boys.