A text comes in from my mother.

Not answering my calls? I hope you are a better mother than you are a daughter.

I don’t reply, despite the barrage of attack I would like to throw in her direction. It’s never worth it.

‘What is happening? Some kind of festival?’ I ask the driver. There’s tape and barricades and wardens in high-visibility vests as we enter a small village.

He looks in his rear-view mirror and raises his eyebrows as if I am joking. I find it irritating.

‘It’s for the wedding?’ he says.

‘Ohhhhh.’

‘Apparently there are five hundred guests,’ he tells me, proud of his knowledge. ‘That’s why all the roads are closed. And to stop the press getting too close.’

I had no idea it would be an event of this magnitude.

I have been told to call Rebecca as soon as I am out of the car, and that she will come to meet me at the entrance. As we pull up, I text her. I really don’t like talking on the phone.

Hello Rebecca, I’m arriving now.

K, dwn in 5

There is no need for that level of abbreviation. Rebecca is one of those women who goes on about being busy all of the time. So many emails end with something about her not having much time. It’s just a subtle way of telling people not to try to get any more out of her than she is offering. If she knew who she was conversing with, she wouldn’t bother.

I get out of the car and wait on the step. There are literally hundreds of people rushing around. Florists wheeling in huge arrangements, caterers with trays of glasses and food. Trucks pulling up, being unloaded with God knows what. I even see two people carefully carrying an enormously tall white box, which must be the cake. I don’t know what it is about me that wants to go and push the box over. But all of this wedding joy is triggering my own wedding trauma. I remember choosing all of those things. The cakes, the flowers. It all felt so out of character for me, but I went along with it all because I was in love. It was important to Liam to be traditional and he was important to me. I became a bride. I chose cake toppers. I selected food I thought my guests would enjoy. I played the part. And then he ruined it with a ‘joke’. My self-awareness is too feisty a beast to take humour on the chin.

And here I am at Lauren Pearce’s dream day. How does a model who uses fake mental health issues to sell products get to have this level of joy in her life and not me?