The joint is just as bad as I remembered, but, damn, I feel full of affection for it. I look around, drinking in the cheesy eighties outfits as we walk down the stairs. Bridget takes me straight to the bar, putting her arm around my shoulders as we wait for the bartender to line up our shots. She looks over towards the pillar.

‘That’s where you met,’ she says in my ear, letting me go and stepping back.

I feel a sudden wave of emotion. I remember looking over at Alex and him giving me this sweet, helpless little shrug. He didn’t want to be here, any more than me, yet somehow we ended up being the last to leave.

Familiar hands encircle my waist and I spin in his arms, unable to believe what I’m seeing. Alex smiles down at me as our friends whoop and cheer.

‘Did you know they were doing this?’ I’m amazed.

He shakes his head, his eyes sparkling with amusement. ‘It took quite a lot for them to drag me in here.’

‘Me too!’ We start laughing and don’t stop until our eyes are wet with tears, and then our friends are passing out shots and we’re knocking them back, the alcohol going straight to our heads.

‘Red, Red Wine’ by UB40 comes on. Alex and I look at each other, incredulous.

This was the song we sexy-danced to, all those years ago. He doesn’t say a word as he leads me across the lit-up dance floor and takes me in his arms.

A flash goes off and I look over to see Rachel winking at me, holding her camera aloft. She’s coming tomorrow, doing the photos as a favour. I keep saying it’s not a big deal, but no one is getting the message.

Maria has insisted on doing my make-up; Polly dragged me off to the shops, telling me I was mad to pass up the excuse to buy a pretty frock; and Ed organised an after-party in the upstairs room of a cosy pub in central London, just around the corner from the register office where we’re getting married. Bridget, who has awesome taste in music, has sorted out the playlist.

I slide my hands up and over Alex’s shoulders, smiling at him as his thumbs brush my hipbones. He bends down to kiss me, pulling me closer until we’re flush to each other’s bodies. He holds me tightly, and then we’re both barely moving, barely breathing, just here, in this moment, together.

Until a man dressed up as Michael J. Fox from Teen Wolf crashes into us. Alex grabs me to steady me and glares after the werewolf-wannabe, and then we both meet each other’s eyes and crack up laughing.

I stay in a hotel near the register office and share a room with Bridget, who, despite her reluctance to be without Charlie and April on her hen night, convinced me it’d be fun to have a sleepover – for old times’ sake.