Then came the vows. Which at least didn’t include the creepy honour and obey bit, although I was disappointed to discover that apparently I do had been replaced with I will and even more disappointed to realise the ceremony ended not with You may now kiss the bride like in the movies but with yet more audience participation. The bishop asked the entire population of Sloane Square and a bunch of weirdos who worked for a poo-bug charity if we would support Alexander and Clara in their marriage, now and in the years to come, and we all dutifully chanted that we did. Or rather, that we would.

Honestly, I felt kind of gross. It wasn’t the God stuff. It was the way everyone else took it for granted that this was…universal somehow. That we were all united in this single idea of what marriage was and should be.

And then just when I thought it was over, there was yet more Bible. And not the lightweight love-is-cool and Jesus-is-groovy Bible stuff. Proper Saint-Paul-to-the-Ephesians Bible stuff. Proper we-are-Christ’s-body-and-women-should-be-subject-to-their-husbands Bible stuff. And nobody seemed to notice or care or realise how totally incompatible it was with the scene in front of them. Because not only was Miffy perfectly capable of looking after her own life and career but Alex was the last person that anybody should be subject to on account of how he was—even by his own accounting—a massive duffer.

At last they let us out and we joined the rest of the guests in milling politely in front of the cathedral, while Mr. and Mrs. Twaddle-Fortescue-Lettice posed for endless photographs. And finally, mercifully, we were permitted to return to our vehicles.

I had never been happier to get in a minibus in my entire life.

Thunking my head against Oliver, I tried not to lapse into immediate unconsciousness. “Thank fuck we’re done with that.”

“Really?” He glanced down at me. “I thought it was rather nice.”

That hadn’t been the answer I was expecting. “Nice? It was wall-to-wall Jesus and heteronormativity.”

“Well, yes,” he conceded. “But that’s what most weddings are like. It’s traditional.”

I wasn’t sure It’s traditional was quite the catch-all excuse Oliver seemed to think it was. “Don’t you find those traditions a bit, you know, alienating?”

“Why would I?” He gave a shrug that I found genuinely a bit off-putting. “I’m not religious, but neither are most people who get married in churches.”

“No”—I was probably too tired to be having this conversation because my voice got sharper than I wanted—“but you are gay.”

“I don’t see what that’s got to do with anything.” He did. I was sure he did. He just wouldn’t admit it because he was slipping into defensive, overly rhetorical Oliver mode.