The Guest Who Brought Her Own Cake Because Ours Was "Not To Her Taste"

She is my husband's aunt. She was invited because you invite aunts.

She arrived at the venue at eleven in the morning — the ceremony was at two — with a three-tier cake in the boot of a Nissan and a folding table in case ours was "the wrong height".

She told the venue coordinator, a young woman called Beth whom I have since sent a very large bottle of something, that she was "doing the cake".

Beth said, "The cake is done."

She said, "Not properly."

Beth — and this is why Beth is a professional and I am a woman who screams into pillows — said, "Let me help you find somewhere for that," and put it in the staff kitchen, and then came and found me during hair and makeup and told me quietly, so that I could decide, and gave me the choice.

I said: leave it in the kitchen. Do not tell anybody.

Our cake was cut. It was two tiers, lemon, made by my sister-in-law, who is not a baker and who practised four times and who cried when it worked.