Weddings induce a particular type of sartorial panic. Do you have to buy a new dress? Should you don a fascinator? Are peplums in or out? And what do your wear when your ex will be there. Lynn Enright considers her options.

‘And when are you thinking of having the wedding?’ I asked in my best upbeat voice. Cheery, cheery.

‘Oh probably not for ages, like 18 months,’ my friend said, smiling at her fiancé. 

‘Great. Wow. Can’t wait.'

Eighteen months. 18 months. Will I be okay in 18 months? Does 18 months give me enough time to recover from this messy pile-up of resentment and hurt and anger and betrayal and love? Does 18 months give me enough time to plan my outfit?

We were sitting in a pub round a little table, just the four of us, having impromptu engagement drinks. So there was those two, the happy couple who had gotten engaged the night before and had summoned their close university friends to tell them the news; and then there was me and my recently-ex-boyfriend, the miserable couple who had failed quite spectacularly at a relationship, breaking up in acrimony after six years together. 

It was Christmas, I was heartbroken and liable to cry at anything – films with happy endings, films with sad endings, the news, the usual – and I had 18 months until a weekend when I would be forced to spend two days with my ex and 150 others in some claustrophobic village celebrating love and togetherness.  

Thankfully, it turns out that 18 months actually seems to be the exact amount of time it takes me to recover from emotional trauma, and so with a couple of weeks to go until the wedding, I am a woman mended and healed, ready completely to toast love by shedding a ladylike tear, throwing confetti and drinking champagne till morning.

I still don’t have anything to wear though.

I know I’ve had a year and a half to plan but dressing for a wedding is tough. Suddenly, you are expected to abandon your everyday aesthetic and don florals or a peplum or tan tights. Suddenly, you are expected to affix a fascinator to your updo and tell some 65-year-old man, an uncle of the groom’s, perhaps, that you love your job, thanks for asking, and that no you’re not married but you are seeing somebody and that’s going very well, touch wood, ha ha, fingers crossed.

And I know I said I was over the ex and I am. I’m fine. I hear he’s fine too and I’m glad he’s fine. But if I have to bump into his new girlfriend in the loos and make small talk about the lovely meal and the touching ceremony, I would like to do so while looking bloody well fine. 

So, for me, that means no peplums. I will never feel good in a peplum. Ditto tan tights and fascinators. And then there are the things you’re just not allowed at a wedding, like excessive cleavage and black or white.

So what are you allowed and where should I start? Is it okay to wear trousers, for example? 
‘Yes!’ says Elin Evan, acting junior fashion editor at Never Underdressed. ‘Trousers are a great idea for a wedding. I'm thinking something wide leg, floaty, with a pair of killer heels. Amazing.’ 

So separates are okay then? ‘I'm not majorly into dresses,’ says TV presenter and the best-dressed woman I know, Angela Scanlon. ‘Play around with tops and skirts; I have done a full printed suit at a wedding and I'm planning on a printed silk pyjama suit for my next outing.’

I hear them, I take on board what they’re saying and yet I know that, for me, a dress will always win out over separates for a big occasion. There is something reassuringly ceremonial about walking over to the wardrobe in your underwear and pulling out one single garment that, when you slip it over your head, will transform you from a slightly anxious, slightly don’t-want-to-go wedding guest into somebody poised and confident.  

I know that it’s more modern, more fun perhaps, to wear separates and I agree wholeheartedly with Scanlon when she says, ‘I hate the idea of people ‘scrubbing up’ beyond recognition. You should look like yourself no matter what the occasion,’ but a dress that fits perfectly and sits just so will mean that I will look like myself, just the most composed and glossiest version of myself. A dress means I won’t suddenly start to fret over the variables of the outfit the morning of the wedding, a dress means I will feel protected from sleazy uncles and old exes and their new girlfriends.

I’ve narrowed it down to three. There is a frock by Emilia Wickstead, a designer often favoured by Britain’s most photographed wedding guest Kate Middleton. It’s made of very light silk and there is a full skirt that would make for a great silhouette on the dance floor. It’s ladylike but has a deep plunging neckline (I have no cleavage to be excessive about so there’s no need to worry about appropriateness) and a pattern in navy and yellow that saves it from downright girliness.

There is a lemon confection from Erdem that is silk too and has a similar full skirt. This time, the dress is delivered from over-the-top femininity by a grey shoulder panel, a flimsy scrap of fabric juxtaposed against a princessy prom dress that means the overall look is sweet with just the right amount of fashion edge.   

The third dress is by Stella McCartney and its floral jacquard front, so wedding appropriate, so summery and upbeat, is set against a minimalist white back; it’s a nifty contrast, one that allows you to be enthusiastic guest and sophisticated fashion type all at once. 

Of course, all of these dresses come with significant price tags but slipping on a dress that will allow me to genuinely say ‘Great. Wow. Can’t Wait’ about the wedding I was dreading 18 months ago seems worth the upcoming 18 months of penury it will take me to pay off my credit card.