Tuesday, June 28, 2011

the game of chance





'he must love you a lot'.... i'm caught off guard by the punter standing to the side of my table, admiring my wedding ring which twinkles in the casino lighting. 'what's your name sweetheart?'... 'im bunny anna'.

after two months of intense bunny training, im now a qualified croupier and playboy bunny! me and 50 other lovely london bunnies can be found on the roulette and black jack tables of the world famous playboy club, just re-opended in mayfair, london.

i kept very hush-hush throughout the training, partially due to a clause on social-networking about playboy, but mainly because i was too busy to blog. i squeezed the full time bunny training around my nanny job and my weekend job at the club and was working 70 hour weeks with double shifts back to back on fridays and saturdays, all while planning a wedding! it was a marvelous feat if i do say so myself!

the 10 week training was fabulous. the main point was to learn roulette, which seems like a very easy game of chance where the croupier just spins the ball and hands out chips, but in actual fact it's extremely complex, with strict rules on procedures and it requires mathematical skills verging on genius. as bunny croupiers, we were to learn to do it all with 'style, flair and grace'. eyes up, shoulders back, playboy pinky fingers extended, smile!, voissin by fifty, 5, 8, 10 and 11 and the neighbours by 5, 'no more bets thank you!!'

while we learnt we laughed, we cried, and we forged amazing friendships. after all, we were 50 girls, london's finest and loveliest, all in the same position, all searching for some excitement, some glitz and glamour, to be a part of the history making as london playboy club re-opens after 50 years...

each week, different managers and high profiles would come to watch us practise, so we were to be perfectly groomed every day. high heels, glossy hair, manicured nails, dressed in our best. it sounds exhausting but we loved it! an excuse to dress up and look fabulous each day! the PR team would also come in to choose different girls for various publicity jobs; playboy perfume tv ad bunnies, Union Jack bunnies who would meet and greet with Heff at the grand opening, Grand Prix bunnies, Monaco private yacht bunnies, bunnies sent to Marbella, Catwalk bunnies and Media bunnies.

i was overjoyed to be chosen as a media bunny, who are to do all tv, magazine and newspaper interviews.. we were sent to a professional studio to do journalism training with big name journalists, who prepared us for tricky questions, how to avoid having our words twisted, and how to get our message across while remaining positive and upbeat. they did mock interviews of each of us, on film and made us watch them back as they picked good and bad points. i was put on the spot a few times and felt like i handled it quite well.. i must have because i was asked to do a BBC interview but unfortunately it collided with my thailand trip. 

on the 'friends and family night', before the grand opening, we were each allowed to bring two guests to a cocktail party at the playboy club, to which all the bunnies from the 1960's were also invited. i brought jerry and my girlfriend igne and we had a fabulous night, sipping champagne and talking to the old bunnies who told us they had the time of their lives as bunnies in the 60's. they were making more money than their fathers and they hung out with the rolling stones, the beatles, clint eastwood, frank sinatra and all the other celebs who were regular patrons back then. we did a little photo shoot in our bunny costumes and then had dinner in the playboy restaurant.

how the club and clientele would be was a huge mystery to us and extremely exciting, as was the prospect of big tips... rumours circulated about how much other croupiers in mayfair casinos were making and we began making plans for how we'd spend our fortunes...

after a fabulous wedding holiday, i'm struggling to get back into the grind. i guess every new job takes a bit to get used to..... the clientele are not exactly what we expected and neither are the tips but its still early days.. the best thing about the job is seeing all the bunnies each day... we get ready together in our 'bunny hutch', squeezing into our tailor made bunny suits, complaining about stolen ears and missing tails, bitching about annoying customers and graveyard shifts while curling our hair and donning our makeup. though we're desensitized to it now, it would be quite a surreal scene to an outsider... 

up on the gaming floor, its all about luck. superstition is thick in the air, dollar signs flash in everyones eyes as they test their luck, wait for their numbers to come up, curse and order 'change dealer' when the bunny deals them nothing, tips and 'darling' when the bunny spins their number. luck is everything.

'which number do you think i should i bet on?' the guy at my table asks me. 'i think you should listen to your heart'. i reply with a wink. he sizes up my bunny costume. 'your husband must be a very lucky man'.

;o)

Thursday, June 23, 2011

newlyweds





 


"There is no more lovely, friendly and charming relationship, communion or company than a good marriage".  ~Martin Luther

i found that written in our wedding guest book, by my godmother, neatly written amongst all the other warm wishes and declarations of love, scrawled by our half-pissed friends and family on the magical night of our wedding.....

yes, i am now a married woman. i know i abandoned you for a while there readers, but now i am back, and i am back a Missus.
'do you feel different?' all the bunnies ask me... i think about it... 'not really', except for when i have to refer to jerry as my husband. that makes me feel married..., old..., out of the game.....all of which i am.
and life feels different now. not because i'm a wife, but because for over a year we'd been planning our wedding. it was a creative outlet for me, in styling and designing the outfits and accessories, the decorations and table decor, the special activities that would make the night so unique and magical. it swallowed all my spare time but it was something to look forward to...

now i don't quite know what to do with myself, other than wallow in my bed, scrolling through the hundreds of wedding photos again and again, trying to relive that wonderful day, moment by moment, milk ever last bit of energy from it, that perfect day that i never wanted to end.

i know most brides will say that their wedding day was the best days of their lives, but let me tell you that mine in particular was a cracking bloody wedding. everyone there said so and i know they weren't just saying it. i could see it in their faces, their sweaty smiling faces as they danced around in bare feet, drunk and happy and having the time of their lives.

it was what dreams are made of; set on a beach in tropical paradise (koh samui, thailand) with the warm sea breeze, the canopy of coconut trees strung with pink fairy lights, white linen tables on the sand, a delicious thai buffet, live music by the fabulous sam & sam, and 80 of the people we love most in the world, all together for the first time, celebrating love in general, and mine and jerry's love in particular.

my bridesmaids looked heavenly in their pastel silk skirts, their vintage hair and pearls, their beautiful faces done up so they looked like 1940's hollywood starlets. we crowded into the thai fishing boat, our skirts filling it with a pool of colour, the sea around us a calm bliss in contrast to our nervous excitement, as we glimpsed the guests on the beach in the distance, all waiting for us to arrive. dad helped me out of the boat and onto shore, looking dapper in his suspenders and fedora. with one arm in his and the other holding my lace parasol, i walked along the beach knowing that this was the moment, the feeling that i would remember forever.

jerry and his handsome groomsmen were lined up at the tent in their tailored ivory suits and waistcoats and my heart just melted when i looked at jerry, so clean-cut and gorgeous and just as overwhelmed with happiness as i was. i heard mass weeping as i neared the tent and seeing my mum's tear-streaked face made me choke up for a second, but then i held it together...

we were married by my godmother in a beautiful ceremony on the sand, which was followed by a buddhist monk blessing and a love-tree plantation, both organised by the resort and which turned out to be very quirky and novel. the dinner was lovely, scattered with heartfelt and humorous speeches. mine and jerry's was last and we had to wing it. we'd had too much to organise to think about a speech. but we thanked everyone and at the end i announced my surprise for jerry. i'd learnt a beautiful song by angus and julia stone called 'the wedding song' and my brother came up on stage to accompany me singing it. it was about building a life together and making babies on the beach under the stardust. it was so perfect for the occasion that it seemed to have been written for us and i sang it to jerry as he cried, along with everyone else.

the night was perfect. the people from the resort had been at the temple praying for no rain and buddha must have heard them because it rained every day that week except for our wedding day. we had a beautiful overcast sky, perfect for photography and as the sun set over the water behind us, the sky turned purple. we had a polynesian dance show, fire twirlers and then we all lit 80 paper sky lanterns and sent them off in the sky together. later on kevin and steve put on a fireworks display on the beach, which was a surprise present to us. we had the bouquet toss and the garter throw and then on the stage sam and sam started an open-mic show where all the singers from the party (and there were loads!) got up to perform while everyone danced along. mum did her famous tina turner impression while we aussies taught the swedes to dance the nutbush. we twirled our skirts on that grass dance floor til 3am. then i dragged jerry from the beach to bed.

we couldn't have imagined a better wedding. it really was magical.
after an amazing two weeks in thailand, we said sad goodbyes to our families and friends and returned to london to begin a new chapter of life.... as newlyweds.
love to you all... its nice to be blogging again!
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