There's not much I can do ...

... about my wedding next year apart from pick out bunting.

I’ve seen some with cupcakes on which I think will fit into the general theme of cake and more cake and maybe some pizza slices and fruit on skewers, something which my mother thinks will appease my “posh friends from London”.

I think free drink would do it, but you can’t argue with a woman who’s already bought two marquees and two canteens of cutlery ready for the second half of my nuptials.

I’m getting married next May, as in May 2010, not next month.

There’s lots to do in the run up, like make the invites, choose the songs, pick the venue and win the argument about the male guests not wearing suits and ties and buttonholes.

But all this pales into insignificance when you have to consider The Dress.

Anyway, before we go there, let’s put the whole thing into some kind of perspective first.

It is going to be a quietly unconventional wedding, split over two days.

My Significant (thin) Other has walked down the aisle more times than Joan Collins; both either have a wedding cake fetish or are in cahoots to disprove the theory that diamonds are forever.

And me being me, I’m as fussed on traditional as I am on counting calories. So between us, we’ve come up with a plan which will hopefully please us and appease my family.

To that end, we’re having a small “do” on the one day, a late register office wedding where all the guests – including me, freeing both me and my shy father from doing the grand entrance thing – will pile onto a 1940s bus and be transported from Ebbw Vale to Abergavenny for the I dos.

Then about 20 of us will have a pub meal, where I can have lasagne if I want, my father gammon and fried egg and the fruit on skewers lot duck or goose or goujons of whatever.

By my reckoning I’ll be back in the house by 7pm, as I’m sure to have had enough by then.

The next afternoon, it’s marquees en masse at my mother’s.

It’s my favourite place, where I feel most comfortable, and on my wedding day(s) that’s exactly how I want to be.

I’d rather be there than in a posh hotel eating canapes where I have to pick out some of the filling any day of the week – and pay over the odds for pop and orange.

Sorting all this out feels like a leisurely walk in the park compared to the hell I’m having thinking about The Dress.

Type “plus size bride” or variations thereof into Google and you enter a minefield of internet sites promising “curvy” ladies the meringue of their dreams, usually called Venus or Desire or Darleen.

“Hey, if size 8s can wear it, you can too!” they proclaim next to pictures of big girls in dresses which would look ridiculous on anyone over a size 12.

I call this the Me Too syndrome, where women shaped like me want exactly what women not shaped like me can get away with. Big bustle on the back? No problem! Full-on fairy princess skirt? Order now!

Strapless/backless/senseless silk affair? Click away!

Red pre-Raphelite party frock complete with veil and matching sporran for the man of your dreams?

It can be with you, made to measure from China, within two weeks.

Simple cream tunic with big pompom roses on the hem and matching wide legged trousers? You’re having a laugh.

Or floor length velvet evening coat and A-line silk dress? Dream on.

Frustrating is not the word.

So in order to look a semblance of fabulous on my wedding day(s) and to avoid chaffing on the vintage bus, a friend is going to make me something.

And there won’t be a bustle, pleat, crystal bodice or detachable cap sleeve in sight.

There will, however, be an elasticated waist – well, you’ve got to make sure there’s enough room for all those fruits on skewers...