Nadine and Dionne, How it All Started...

Nadine and I met three years ago at a friend’s Christmas party, she was one of those people who would walk into a room and you just could not help but notice, flawless skin, graceful mien and an aura that reeked an almost intimidating confidence. I was there with another friend and from afar, we watched as some wimpy guy who was totally smitten by her, drooled from afar. To woo a girl like Nadine, you had to be confident.
Some hours later, I heard her husky voice behind me, “you must be Dionne” she said, it didn’t sound like a question so I just smiled, and she went on, “I figured it had to be you, have been hearing all night how we could pass for twins” she said it, and gave me a sweeping look, a look that seemed to say, I was the ugly twin. I was very irritated, I knew I didn’t take as much care with details as she did, I was not into all the elegant details, I was lot simpler, I was beautiful…but Nadine, gorgeous! I decided there and then not to like her. Just when I was going to excuse myself and walk away, an acquaintance of mine walked up to me and she was all whining about her forth coming wedding and how it would be great if she could get a wedding planner she could trust with all the details, and before I could even respond, I heard “Dionne and I can handle it”, I turned to see Nadine stretch out her hands, introduce herself as my friend who is into events and weddings, and she painted a picture of a fairy tale wedding there and then, and voila! We had our first wedding to plan. 
It was crazy, on some level I was furious, what the heck was she talking about, I hated events, I barely attended much less plan, but worse still, I disliked Nadine and her pushy, cocky, arrogant self, on some other intriguing level, I was excited and fascinated, then I turned to glare at her, and she said “trust me, this will work like a charm” and it did, and I have never had a cause to look back. The business is actually owned by Nadine, I am more of a junior Partner, because the money and the ideas are actually hers, like she would say I am the sanity in the partnership, I keep her from strangling annoying clients, ours was a ying –yang type thingy.
She came from old money and me from no-money, by old money I mean those born into wealth and all the privileges, so she was never intimidated by the arrogant rich, because it was the world she grew up in, I must admit I got intimidated sometimes. The nouveux riche (new money) they were the best clients to deal with. Those who had made some serious money legally or illegally, but they always felt they had something to prove, so they would spend in this crazy fashion, trying to prove that they have arrived, but the still lacked the aristocratic confidence of the old money bags. We had mentally shared them in two categories, Lekki(new money) and Ikoyi, the real blue blood. We got away with our pretty faces, suave charisma and Nadine did not go to a Swiss finishing school for nothing, she makes weddings into fairytales! i studied French, and Nadine had lived in Paris for some years, so in the razz mattazz to make us even classier and more elitist, (which the nouveux riche fell for all the time, and for which we charged them like crazy!) We would throw in a few French phrases here and there, mention Bordeux a lot with the wine details, make mention of hors d’oevres , when planning the meals, talk haute couture and generally drop some French terms like joie de vivre,dejavu and savoir faire, …. There is something about French language that simply screams class without even trying.

Back to the boring snotty client that started this whole series, she kept going on and on about how she had attended a wedding in England, and the theme was all white and snowy…snowy! How the heck where we supposed to get away with that, white and crystals could make a place look heavenly and dreamy, but she kept going on and on about the snowy look, at some point I could tell Nadine was no longer there mentally, she was so bored it showed…me, I was the nice one, so I had to keep an interested look, while she yapped away, and I did the whole “she’s your boss, she holds your pay cheque” mantra, thinking of clients as bosses helped me tolerate them.
As soon as she left, just before my mystery pizza delivery, Nadine yelled, “Can you believe the old hag? Her daughter isn’t even here; she came ahead of her daughter, THE BRIDE! to come tell us what she wants! Who does that?” when hysterical or upset, her usually husky voice, gets high pitched and a bit shrilly, I smiled and said “you are the wedding miracle worker, do your thing girl”
“I can’t make a snowy look, she will just have to make do with lots of white and soft textured fabrics” I could almost hear the wheels in her brain working it out, she loved the challenge, she would make it so damn good, the lady would think she was in the north pole!
I knew how to work on her ego, I made her feel she could pull anything, and truth be told, she could pull almost anything, just while we tried to figure out all possible details, he walked in… and that’s a whole different story…