Undercover Research

Here is a brief list of jobs I don't have first-hand experience in which I've nevertheless written about over the last two years as if I had any idea of what I was talking about: costume design and supervision, film acting, executive assistance, personal chauffeuring, accountancy, IT support/engineering, modelling, bodyguarding, design, catering, stunt work, film direction, human resource management, events planning, shipping, viticulture, farm management, and archive organization.

I mostly get by via research, or talking to people who do know what they're talking about, but sometimes I have to get a bit more hands on. I don't have to know enough to do the job, but I need to do enough that I can make it feel real - if not to the actual experts, at least to the average reader.

I do have some dubious journalism experience, though it's nothing like the glittering and idealized world I describe in the Olympus Inc. series. Totally unqualified, I once worked as a community newspaper editor/journalist in Melbourne. It was an economic recession, and I was happy to be working, even in what were obviously underpaid and extremely suspicious circumstances. If you're being paid via a weekly envelope of crisp twenties, best believe that your employer isn't taking his tax obligations particularly seriously.

I quit a few months later, because the whole thing was clearly falling apart, but I went to a lot of events and met some interesting people. I even got almost all the way through most of an interview with Liam Finn without embarrassing myself. Then I chirped "Bye, Neil!" and DIED INSIDE.

But I don't have experience with wedding writing, the kind done so well by the likes of Vogue's Alexandra Macon. And professional wedding writing is the job of my next protagonist, Laodice Troiades of Love, Laodice (sequel to the out now Ask Cassandra!)

Despite a few romantic setbacks, Laodice really believes in love. Recording a (hopefully) wonderful day for Olympus Publishing's prestigious wedding titles is her life's work and her truest passion.

Of course, the people who qualify for such stories tend to be people of interest in other ways - they're famous, or especially talented, or spectacularly wealthy, and their weddings tend to be Events with a capital E. I've been to a lot of weddings, but never one that might make the society pages. I don't have any first-hand experience with wedding journalism, and I'm not likely to get it.

So a couple of weeks ago, I went undercover at a wedding expo as a putative bride-to-be. I wanted to see what the wedding landscape looked like now, and what kind of elements Laodice would find familiar. And also, I thought it would be very funny.

I've never heard of anyone going to one of those things alone, so I roped in a friend ("should I take off my wedding ring?" she asked) and we blended into the huge and lady-centric crowd. We made a game out of spotting the occasional overwhelmed groom, sampled cake, got polaroids taken at a well-stocked instant photobooth and asked vendors questions about bouquet preservation and table settings.

"Are you getting married?" one vendor asked me.

"I'm thinking about eloping," I said, not quite untruthfully. The crowd was getting to me. My imaginary partner and I would like a small ceremony, I decided.

"These dresses are great for elopements! You can wear them again afterwards!"

They were very pretty dresses, in bias-cut satin, but I felt guilty for taking the vendor's time when there were people who might actually buy them, murmured something about my mother probably wanting to make the dress, and drifted away. Meanwhile, my companion was earnestly telling someone who hired out a candy floss machine that actually she was having a backyard wedding.

We gathered up the skeins of our tangled webs and decamped. It had been funny, in a "how much?" kind of way. I had complex, unsettled feelings about femininity and capitalism and the emotional labour invested in ephemeral events, but I mostly just really wanted everyone who wasn't undercover to have the wedding of their own dreams.

And that gave me a much stronger grip on Laodice. I'm having a lot of fun writing this woman, who very much believes in love, and I wish everyone at that wedding expo as happy an ending as I'm able to give her.

Also, get the raspberry and red velvet cake. It was really good.