I have a large family. Not all of them are blood relations, or if there is blood involved, it’s fairly stretched out between us all. It’s not the only thing that’s stretched; we’re all over the globe nowadays, with ties to all sorts of places. I was born in South Africa in the early 80’s to a third generation Scottish Expatriate and an English man. I lived there for over a decade and then moved to Ireland before ending up in the UK.

The couple in this photograph is my second cousin, Michael, and his wife. He was born in South Africa and moved to New Zealand as a child. His wife, Frederique, or as she’s otherwise know, Fred, is French. Their wedding was the first time in a decade that our family branches met again.

It was held in the French village that Fred grew up in, in a beautiful ancient church with whitewashed walls and small stained glass windows. The bride was radiant and I took this photo while they were waiting for the official wedding photographer to finish changing his film. There’s just something about the way their bodies are caught in movement, Mike turning towards Fred with that smile on his face and Fred answering something from one of her numerous family members.

The celebrations after the wedding lasted for hours. There was a two hours ‘drinks-and-nibbles’ immediately after the photos, in a social hall twenty minutes outside the little village. We drove in a convoy, spread out around various family and friends’ cars, where the driver would speed down the road and turn around to talk to us in rapid French. I think I aged twenty years in the time it took for us to arrive and my rusty high school French was dusted off and given a work out. We still had to resort to drawings and hand gestures because the topic of where to purchase stamps from, never really arose.

After that drinking, we were rushed off again to a barn in the middle of nowhere. This was the reception. It seems only close friends and family go to the reception, the two hour drinking session we’d just been at was for general friends, work acquaintances and suchlike. I couldn’t say I’d noticed a drop in guests, mind.

There was more drinking, partly in my case to dull the pain caused by wearing heels all day. I live in Doc Martins, so this was a special kind of torture. I ate snails for the first time and decided that they were rather nice, especially when done in garlic. And finally, when I thought I couldn’t stand up anymore, the big dinner. There were tables of food and then tables of dessert. And of course, more alcohol. It was spectacular.

When the dinner finished, there was dancing and speeches, more alcohol and more dancing. The happy couple slipped out while everyone was distracted, leaving only one person in the place who knew where they’d gone. This person became a much treasured prize as part of a game and guess who that person was? Me. But there were certain complications, I had to be asked directly if I knew where they were and no one did, so they got a few hours of freedom before I had to release the information at 6:30 the following morning.

Most people started to leave around 4am but those of us who stayed got soup and the remains of the dessert before trundling off to find Mike and Fred and surprise them with a chamber pot filled with lemonade, chocolate spread and a banana. The explanation was a bit too complicated for my basic French, so I remain in the dark to this day.

I have fond memories of that trip to France. The wedding is the strongest memory, seeing family again, increasing my own. I’m not holding my breath when it comes to my own marriage, it’s unlikely to say the least but it’s still very amazing to see something like that and to be able to catch it in a photograph.

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