What is the day actually for?

Getting married. The rest of it is optional.Everybody who matters being in one room, once.A proper occasion. You want it to feel like something.A holiday with everybody you like already in it.

How many people?

Enough to fill a room properly. A hundred and fifty or so.As many as fit in a garden, so about sixty.Two. Possibly a stranger, to sign the thing.Everybody, over three days, so it need not be one speech.

What would you spend the money on?

Almost none of it. The flights are the expensive part.The food and the drink, and nothing else whatsoever.The room. Get the room right and the rest follows.Nothing at all. That is somewhat the point.

Your family's involvement:

Enormous. Several of them think it is partly their day.Minimal, by design, and at a distance.They are hosting, which is lovely, and a negotiation.They will come, be baffled, and enjoy themselves anyway.

What would you hate?

Being looked at for six hours.Being indoors on the best day of the year, in a function room.Anything that looks half-finished or thrown together.A seating plan. Any seating plan at all.

Pick the moment you would want:

Somebody's uncle giving a speech nobody expected to be good.Long tables, candles, and nobody gone at midnight.The first dance, done properly, in a beautiful room.The two of you, somewhere, and nobody knowing yet.

How do you feel about tradition?

Fine, for other people. You will be doing the short version.It is the whole point. You do the things because they get done.You like the old form. It exists because it works.You will keep two of them and quietly ignore the rest.

Pick a getting-ready morning:

A house full of people, and somebody hanging bunting badly.Coffee somewhere hot, with the four people who came.Just the two of you, and nobody else knows what today is.A tent, a kettle, and a friend who is already slightly drunk.

What matters most about the photographs?

That there are about nine, and everybody is in one of them.That it looks like somewhere. The place should be in them.That people are laughing and nobody has been posed.That they are for you, and not for anybody else at all.

What would people say about your wedding afterwards?

"Everybody was there. Absolutely everybody.""It went on for hours and nobody wanted to leave.""It was the most beautiful thing I have been to.""I have never been to anything like it."

Be honest about the planning:

You would like this to take about four weeks.There is a spreadsheet, and there are obligations.You are making most of it yourselves. Fun until March.You want somebody professional to handle all of it.

What are you really saying with the day?

That this is serious, and that we did it properly.That we are at home with each other, and you are welcome in it.That this is ours, and was never going to be a performance.That being with these people is the actual celebration.