In each of the three rows, there were two chairs on either side of the aisle, twelve chairs in all. The marriage official was facing Emily and Andrew from across a vase of flowers in the centre of a desk at the front of the room. A row ahead of us to our right was Gary and his partner, Angela, who was a documentary film-maker, and who looked a bit younger than him, perhaps by a whole decade, but certainly not by two decades and five years.

Susannah was sitting in front of us with her son Felix, an affable young man about to start university. He had been inside reading when I met his mother and Gary smoking outside.

Apart from the minister, Emily and Andrew, there were just us six guests. Emily hadn’t invited anyone but me, not, she told me, because she had no friends, but because she didn’t think it would be particularly fun for them. There were no people she had to worry about offending by not inviting. Her mother was three years dead. Her father: he would make a scene. Her sister – well, maybe, but she lived in Canada now; she couldn’t bring her all the way over the Atlantic for this. So her sister didn’t even know that Emily was getting married.

The small number of people in the room was only obvious at the points when we were invited to offer applause. There were just enough of us to make clapping plausible but not enough of us to make the spread of noise that one needed to feel like applause was occurring. This was through no fault of mine or Felix’s; we both slapped our hands together as hard as we could while the official at the front fluttered hers together without her palms ever touching. Sophie glared at me. Susannah put her hand on her son’s shoulder. The documentary film-maker had a camera and took a couple of shots, without using a flash, as requested earlier by the minster.

Emily had insisted on no poetry, allowing Andrew the music as compromise. Poetry should never be made trite, she explained to me, by forcing it to express profound statements of love. She had kept her face straight and I didn’t know whether she was teasing me.

Did anyone know of any lawful impediment why Emily and Andrew could not be joined in martyr money?

I had hoped Richard or Chloe might burst in at this point. ‘I’m sorry,’ they would say, ‘but there is something that the bride and groom should admit to each other first.’

The minister left a polite pause. I wondered how many times in such a minister’s life they hear the question answered in the negative.

It was down to me alone. I could call out and read aloud the contents of each card in my pocket.