Michele Gorman - The Big Little Wedding in Carlton Square

And imagine Mum and Dad’s reaction if I tell them we’re building hanging gardens so we can suspend chandeliers. They’d send me straight to the GP to have my head examined. No, they wouldn’t need to. I’d make the appointment myself.

But Philippa looks perfectly serious. ‘If you want something more traditional, we could do crystal, yah, for the tables, and silver cutlery. Or gold? Does anyone do gold anymore? I can’t keep up with all the trends! And a gorgeous vintage pattern for the plates. We could even use my pattern if you like it, though you’d need to hire since I’ve only got place settings for forty-eight.’

Who has actual china for forty-eight people? The only time I’ve sat down to eat with that many people was at Uncle Colin’s fundraiser for the RNLI. We ate off the Tesco Value range.

Now’s probably not the time to tell my future mother-in-law that Mum and Dad suggested a casual do in Uncle Colin’s pub after the wedding. Actually, it’s probably not the time to tell Daniel, either. He looks pretty excited about his mother’s ideas. We’ll need to talk about this.

‘What do you think of fish?’ Philippa asks.

‘I like fish.’ Though I wasn’t thinking of a sit-down meal. Maybe some snacks. We could push the boat out and get them from M&S.

‘You could have enormous tanks of the most beautiful fish!’ Philippa says. ‘We could give them away in little bowls to the guests after the party. Wouldn’t that be fun!’

Yah, yah, everyone but me says.

‘Couldn’t we just return them to the pet shop after the wedding?’

Listen to me. Like I’m actually considering aquariums at our wedding.

‘Oh darling, you are hilarious. We’ll need favours for the guests anyhow. This way we can double up. Although maybe you’d rather do jewellery or key fobs? Aspinal have beautiful things.’

‘We’d like to keep the costs down,’ Daniel says. Finally, the voice of reason. ‘We’re only a young couple!’

Right. The last thing we want is to end up twenty grand in debt.

‘Of course, darlings. You just give me a budget and tell me whatever you want. I’ll find it for you.’

‘You’ll marry in St Stephen’s?’ asks Philippa’s other friend. Daniel’s father and godfather and the other men have stood silently while their wives fire off the questions. They’re probably mulling over football scores, or whatever rich people think about when they’re not counting their money.

‘Erm, actually we were thinking of a registry wedding. In a nice registry, though.’

‘Not church?’

‘My family’s not really religious,’ I say.

‘Right. St Stephen’s is only C of E,’ Philippa’s friend assures me. ‘It’s not religious either.’

That still wouldn’t go over well with Dad, but I’m not going to be the one to argue with Philippa’s friend.

Somehow I’ve got to get the discussion away from gold cutlery and chandeliers or next they’ll start demanding swans. With Aspinal jewellery.

‘Have you been to East London at all?’ I ask everyone.

Harold, Daniel’s godfather, comes to life suddenly. He cuts an imposing figure in the room with his tall, broad-shouldered physique and thick white hair that streams, mane-like, from his head. ‘Yah, when I worked in the City, before we moved to the wharf,’ he says. ‘We used to go to Brick Lane quite a lot for a curry.’

‘And probably to Shoreditch for a lap dance!’ I add. Whoops. Perhaps I shouldn’t have accused Lord Godfather of stuffing notes into G-strings.

But he roars with laughter. ‘Indeed, yes!’

His wife smiles indulgently. ‘Oh, Harold.’

This is truly another world. If Dad ever confessed that in front of Mum, she’d knock his teeth out.

Don’t get me wrong, I like Daniel’s family. They’ve been nothing but kind to me and I’m sure all their friends are nice too. It’s just that I’m not exactly up to their usual standard, am I? It’s so constantly apparent that they can’t help but notice it. So far they’ve been too polite to say anything, but it’s just a matter of time.

I’m dead on my feet when we get back to Daniel’s, and pleased to see that his flatmate, Jacob, isn’t home. Not that I ever feel like the third wheel even when he is. I know technically he should be the extra wheel, not me, but since he and Daniel have been mates since school, there was potential for some tension. Far from it. Jacob made me feel completely welcome despite my crashing his lad’s pad. In fact, at first he acted like I was the first girl Daniel had ever brought home. Needless to say I like him all the better for that.

It probably helps that even though it’s not a big flat it never feels cramped. Its layout is all nineteenth-century higgledy-piggledy, with the front door all the way down a winding set of stairs at the bottom of the building, the high-ceilinged eat-in kitchen at the opposite end to the cosy lounge and Daniel’s bedroom set under the eaves up in the converted loft.

It’s teatime, but I feel a little sick from all the canapes. I’ve had to get used to eating like this since meeting Daniel. His family and friends like to have what they call ‘nibbles’. Philippa laid on enough canapes to feed an army. So don’t blame me for eating like a cadet. Emma Liddell, reporting for eating, Sir!

‘God, I’m glad that’s over,’ Daniel says as he throws himself down beside me on the lumpy old settee and offers to rub my sore feet. My shoes might look Fendi-esque, but the blisters are pure Primark. ‘Now that you’ve been properly introduced, Harold said you’ll have to come along for supper with me next month.’ His thumb finds the spot in the middle of my foot that he knows I love to have massaged.

‘I had to be properly introduced first?’ Maybe I should have curtseyed.

Daniel laughs. It was that laugh that I first noticed when we met. He throws himself into it with his entire body. I dare anyone not to at least smile when they hear him. ‘He’s old-fashioned,’ he explains. ‘I hope you weren’t awfully uncomfortable today. Mummy does like a party, and I know those social engagements can be tedious. I’ve always hated them. But now it’s just us again.’ He leans over to kiss me. ‘So, formalities finished, we can focus on our wedding.’

‘Aw, have you been dreaming about being a bride ever since you were a little girl?’ I tease.

‘Who do you think you’re talking to, Emma Liddell? I’ve always thought of myself as an independent woman,’ he says. ‘No man is going to tell me what to do.’ He snaps his fingers, then laughs at his own joke. ‘In all honesty I never imagined myself being married.’ His eyes meet mine. ‘Until I met you.’

This should be cheesy, right? But Daniel says things like that a lot, and with such feeling that I have to bite down my urge to take the piss. That’s just my nerves anyway. I’m not used to being loved so obviously. Okay, I’m not used to being loved at all. I’ve had exactly six boyfriends in my life and two of those might not even agree with the title. Still, not such a bad track record for a twenty-four-year-old living at home who’s known ninety per cent of the men in her neighbourhood since she was in nappies.

I’ve never been in love with any of them like I am with Daniel. Sometimes that frightens me, but then I see him and know he’s in just as deep. ‘I’ve never wanted to marry anyone else either,’ I say. ‘There’s just one thing …’

His thumb stops its rubbing. ‘What is it, Em?’

‘Nothing bad! It’s just that your mum has a lot of ideas about the wedding.’

He starts working on my other foot. ‘She’s ever-so excited. It is the first wedding in the family.’

‘I know, and I want her to be involved. It’s just that everything sounds kind of expensive.’ Kind of expensive? I’ve already calculated what it would cost to give all our guests a cheap necklace from Accessorize. It’s about half my savings. ‘Like you said, your parents might be able to clear the UK national debt, but we don’t have a lot of money ourselves and we really shouldn’t be going in to debt for a party, right? Would you mind very much if we keep it really low-key?’