The Party Planner

Donna spent her life organising perfect celebrations for others, but sadly never had a "do" of her own...

- Laura Kemp

Donna Jolly made a final check, nodding as she counted off dancing clouds of silver helium balloons, shiny streamers, and freestanding buckets of prosecco on ice.

As if it was her own celebration, her heart swelled at selfie props-on-sticks of cardboard tiaras, red lips and comedy glasses and sparkling confetti table sprinkles that matched the words on the banner declaring Just Divorced!

Up here in Merthyr Tydfil’s Prince of Wales pub function room, it wasn’t one of the stand-out events held by her one-woman party planning business, Life’s A Party. This do was more bread and butter compared to the bursting out-of-a-cake 50ths, the bespoke children’s birthdays for parents with more money than brain cells, the determined-not-to-be-down mourners who wanted the fun put into a funeral, or the demands of old ladies marking Fluffy the cat’s 18th.

It paled into insignificance as a newly single bash too. Donna had recently delivered paintballing in the woods for an angry ex-bride and her bridesmaids in Goodbye Mr Wrong boiler suits who’d wanted to splatter her white wedding dress Rambo-style.

Every booking mattered, though. Not just for the guests of honour, like Carys tonight who had finally ditched two-timing Tomos, but for Donna. She just loved parties – as did the ladies who were on their way by the sound of it.

Donna put on the playlist – starting, obviously, with Gloria Gaynor’s I Will Survive – just as they burst in, bright-eyed and gasping in all their sequined finery. Right on cue behind them was a riot of red curls – Bethan, Donna’s best friend and go-to baker, shouting, “Make way!” carrying a three-tier showstopper topped with a ball and broken chain.