What a fabulous wedding we went to yesterday. My dearest oldest mate ‘gave away’ his daughter (no idea why, she’s gorgeous, he could have sold her for a fortune) in matrimonial betrothal to her lawfully wedded person of groom-like status in a ceremony dating back hundreds of years (the secular bit) and thousands of years (the Jewish bit). And it was in Middle Temple Hall in… The Temple. For those who don’t know it, that’s the mediaeval area where barristers keep their rooms. It’s virtually car-free, but what cars they do have are really really expensive ones, as barristers drive. The Temple sits between the River and Fleet Street and is simply beautiful. And in its centre sits Middle Temple Hall. Built in 1572 (it was) by Sir Leopold Artichoke (it wasn’t), the early neo-Tudor interior cleverly disguises the fact that it could have been built using loads of laminated MDF from Ikea and would look pretty much the same, and much cheaper. But it wasn’t. MDF wasn’t invented until Edward the 4th so they had to use real wood. With no consideration to deforestation or carbon footprint.

But despite being a very-un-Greta building, I decided to leave my eco-warrior suit outside and enter the wedding venue in my underwear. Metaphorically speaking.

The actual ceremony took place in the gardens which, again, are magnificent and gorgeous, but unlike most ‘gardens’, these are right in the heart of the City of London, which really resonates for me. And for all gathered. Particularly as the bride was raised in France and the groom is half-Israeli. Quite a big half too, because he’s really tall. The photo is of the ‘chupah’, or canopy, under which all Jewish weddings take place. It has to be open and it has to be temporary, nothing which can’t be carried away if a marauding band of Mesopotamians come riding in with swords waving, or a bunch of Cossacks having a Sunday afternoon pogrom. The imperative of the ‘temporary’ nature of the wedding structure in no way represents the contemporary custom of marriages being rather ‘temporary’. Jonny Depp and Amber Heard didn’t marry under a chupah.

And then inside into the Hall itself for dinner. I refuse to call it a wedding ‘breakfast’ unless it contains bacon, eggs, sausages and pancakes with maple syrup. Which it didn’t. But despite the apparent gravitas of the venue, the almost forbidding magnificence of one of the homes of the British legal system, you’re allowed to eat there, drink there and even dance. Perhaps even because of the seeming austerity of the surroundings it makes you want to have fun.

Fab wedding,

Happy first day of married life.

A xxxx