It’s been a few years since the summers of weddings. That era in life when, from April to October, the diary is filled with weekends away and confetti in the bottom of handbags, of scouring the January sales for dresses that might fit the atmosphere of a converted barn in Yorkshire or a palazzo in Tuscany. When I was in it I indulgently moaned about it - four in eight days! The expense and the exhaustion! - and now I am on the other side I wonder when the next wedding might be, if it might be years or even decades before another. If I’ll be clutching the invite sent by one of the toddlers we have watched grow from babies, in a whole universe away from now.
On Saturday I watched one of my oldest friends get married. I steamed her veil and her dresses; I made her look me in the eye and told her that there was enough time for her to get ready; I held her bouquet and I watched her happiness make her even more beautiful than I’ve ever known her. Later, when everyone was warm with champagne and the heatwave was waning, I said a few words about how we met, about my favourite things about her, all the strange quirks of a person that you might be lucky enough to learn if you’ve known them in all the shades of what it is to grow up together. And my son heckled me all the way through.