LIZ JONES: You should never have a bridesmaid younger, thinner and more beautiful than you are

It’s like choosing to have your wedding during a total solar eclipse. Except in this case, you are rendered completely invisible, not by the movement of the heavens, but by the too-beautiful woman at your side whom you hastily appointed as your maid of honor.

It’s bad enough walking down the aisle and seeing all the heads turn a fraction after you pass them.

But at the altar itself there is suddenly an ominous chill in the air. A bad wind. Birds fly up, as if they sense a tsunami. You have just handed this temptress your bouquet and, feeling completely outclassed, you now hope that the pollen will leave a yellow stain on her pastel dress and that the thorns will draw blood.

Margot was made of ivory silk with a halter neck shoehorn to match her hair and just looked so good

How about letting this Helen of Troy, this exquisite princess, play a role on the most important day of your life?

The groom glances at you, then at her, his gaze lingering just a little too long. He wonders if it’s too late to change his mind… And can you blame him, if the woman you’ve chosen is the human embodiment of every man’s fantasy: bloody Barbie!

Over the weekend, Margot Robbie – yes, she with the impossibly elegant limbs not long ago seen in pretzel fashion around Leonardo DiCaprio in the Wolf of Wall Street, a woman who managed to make pink gingham look cool and it has the kind of teeth that could blind a man from twenty paces away – was a bridesmaid to her best friend from school.

What was her name again? Oops, like the groom (possibly) I forgot (I can only imagine that when he was asked to say the words “I’ll take you…” he had to fight really hard not to do Ross from Friends and the one he was really thinking about). Oh yeah, Brittany Claxton, that’s it! At one point she was seen wearing dark glasses, probably to avoid being blinded by her old friend.

It doesn’t matter Barbie vs. Oppenheimer at the box office, I would have gone nuclear!

The truth is, Margot just looked so good. She had made a halterneck ivory silk shoehorn to match her hair and moved like quicksilver. For the Las Vegas-themed celebrations the next day, she transformed into a – yep, you guessed it! – Barbie pink tutu. Did Brittany know ahead of time, or did her internal moaning last all day?

Supermodels Bella Hadid and Kendall Jenner were bridesmaids for fashion blogger Lauren Perez. Lauren did what any right-thinking woman would do and dressed them in £207 ready-made dresses: the supermodel equivalent of putting them in Primark

I’m now slightly concerned that she invited her old friend to her honeymoon. Apparently it’s a new trend to ask friends and family to come along. The prospect of Margot in a bikini would make it very tempting indeed to drown her.

So what’s the etiquette here? Should you ever choose a beautiful bridesmaid even if, like Margot, she is happily married? Should you ever choose someone younger, thinner, and much more successful than you? Or can you legitimately leave her out because it’s your day and yours alone?

I suppose picking a beauty for this leading role could be like sending a canary through a coal mine – if the groom pays her too much attention, you could save a huge amount of money on divorce lawyers further down the line. It is better to find out now whether he is easily influenced.

Ultimately, though, I think having your own version of Barbie as a bridesmaid is a roll of the dice on your future happiness. But you have to be smart when it comes to neutralizing its effect. I’m reminded of the wedding of fashion blogger Lauren Perez, who had supermodels Bella Hadid and Kendall Jenner as bridesmaids. Lauren did what any right-thinking woman would do and dressed them in £207 ready-made dresses: the supermodel equivalent of a Primark dress.

Cara Delevingne, invited to Princess Eugenie’s wedding in 2018, put the royal bride on full display by wearing a top hat and tails

Overly attractive female guests can also be a fly in the ganache, so it’s best to scrub them too: a serial offender is Kate Moss, who wore gray shorts when she attended stylist Katy England’s wedding in 2006, causing even the vicar lost his focus. . Cara Delevingne, invited to poor old Princess Eugenie’s wedding in 2018, put the royal bride on full display by wearing a top hat and tails.

I only had one bridesmaid when I got married in 2002. Anna is my cousin and doppelgänger, then a lanky teenager. I dressed in an Alberta Ferretti dress and Gina shoes (I wore a boring white tuxedo). I married a man fifteen years younger than me, so maybe I wanted him to know what I used to look like.

I also had a bridesmaid, my best friend and former PA Kerry, who rather disloyally spent the wedding evening playing pool with my future husband and went out with him the day of the wedding to share roll-ups. I could almost see his brain thinking, ‘This is more my kind of woman. One of the boys.’

But the thing is, my bridesmaid and I got along so well, made each other laugh so much, and wasted a large amount of champagne snorting it out of our noses, that she was so close to our honeymoon.

Liz Jones wore a white suit to her 2002 wedding, while her niece Anna was a vision in an Alberta Ferretti dress and Gina shoes

I felt like I needed someone to talk to instead of the gloomy, crumbling lump my husband was turning into. And it turns out my beautiful bridesmaid was the least of my problems. However, I made one big mistake when hiring a beautiful Brazilian wedding photographer named Leticia. She looked like Gisele Bundchen and every man at the wedding, including the groom, drooled over her. My new husband even left the top table to sit with her during the speeches.

I was so furious that I commandeered her room at Babington House for my cousin and banished her to a pub down the road.

But of course, the bridesmaid’s unique appeal isn’t just about their beauty.

The universal problem with bridesmaids, and not just Hollywood megastars, is that they are always much more relaxed than the bride on the Big Day, a trait that most men, who are allergic to pressure and detail, find infinitely attractive. Bridesmaids always seem to enjoy the day with gay abandon: no stress, no worries about costs.

While brides always display – or at least I did – an expression of barely concealed, hyper-vigilant hysteria.

Luckily, it’s not just bridesmaids we all have to pay attention to. Grooms: beware of the best man, especially if he is bigger, wittier and has a gold tooth.

I wonder if Kate Middleton spied Prince Harry, grinning from ear to ear, and thought for a fleeting second that she might have more fun with him?

As I walked down the stairs to the altar, mindful that I was wearing Bottega heels and had drank a magnum of champagne, my husband’s best man (you can just see him in my wedding photo, ding dong!) whispered conspiratorially as he held my grabbed my arm: ‘If it all goes wrong, you have my number.’

In the immortal words of Bonnie Tyler, the total darkening of the heart can really work both ways.