Wedding Threads
Ralph Juergen Colmar
A story about a group of friends whose transient lives coincidentally weave in and out of Bristol.
Transcript
[Banjo riff]
This is a story about my friends and how our transient lives weave in and out of Bristol coincidentally. By the age of ten I’d had so many friends all over the place but no roots. I had traded in my first passport not because it had expired, but because it was full.
At 21 I met an aspiring photographer named Piers. He asked me “Are you a photographer?” I was actually a Business Studies undergraduate. We became friends and shared a house with his partner Claire.
[Banjo riff]
Ten years later I was living in London thinking about a career change, when Piers, Claire and I went to a festival in Reading where I met Becky.
[Banjo riff]
Six months later Becky and I moved to Bristol, lodging with them before we found a flat. Once settled, Piers came round saying Becky’s little sister Ellie had been knocked over in a road accident. We went with her brother, Eldred, to visit her.
Late one night and Ellie lay unconscious in hospital I told her how wonderful Bristol was and how we looked forward to having her come to stay. “You never know, you might come to settle in Bristol”, I said, “and maybe get married and have me take the wedding photos.”
[Banjo riff]
Another decade later Piers and Claire had split, Becky had gone to London and I was a photographer renting a room in Claire’s house. One day I went to another of her houses to cut the grass and met Paul who was moving out.
[Banjo riff]
Months later Becky and Eldred told me that Ellie was getting married and moving to Bristol with a man who had shared a house with Eldred. I got to the church and started taking pictures of the guests and the bride as they arrived, but it was as Paul was signing the register that I realised, Ellie had just married the man I met when I cut the grass at Claire’s house. By coincidence, Paul had moved to share a house with Eldred who introduced Paul to his sister Ellie.
[Sound of church bells]
I was amazed. You never know how or when an off-hand suggestion will come true.
[Banjo riff]
