This weekend two people got married.

Actually, there was probably a lot more people than that getting married, it’s just that I only saw the two. And therefore they were the only two I really care about, certainly enough to mention.

Anyway, this weekend a beautiful friend of mine from school married her childhood sweetheart, and all round very nice chap, in a church and I had the pleasure of throwing paper at them, signing hymns I don’t know the words to, then drinking a lot of wine.

Weddings are fun.

Anyway, in the years between school and here, while they were busy being grown ups and building a stable life together, I’ve been busy jumping from place to place, ignoring useful adult things like owning vehicles and making investments and starting ISAs, instead burying the adult part of my head in the proverbial sand of education until a later date when I’ll be forced to dig it out again.

This is fine. It’s nice actually, on the rare occasions when I and my school friends do all return home, it means we all have a lot to talk about and is a good tool in preserving the strength of our relationships enough to know we will all be invited to each others weddings and other such life milestones.

But for the first time, this wedding presented me with a pressure. I love this girl. She deserves every bit of happiness with her loving chappy and long may it continue in the life they’ve now formed together, and I wanted to give them something that would represent this. Something that could represent my happiness for them and my graciousness in being chosen to share it with them on that day. Unfortunately presents of this magnitude often involve money and, as a student and avoider of life things, this is something I do not posses.

So I did the only thing I know how to do these days, and offered the only thing I have to offer and drew for them an aspect of their lives that I know they love. Their bloody dogs.

I worried for a while that something like this might be a bit self indulgent, after all a wedding should be all about them, not me and what I do. But it’s not that I think they SHOULD own my work, it’s literally that, right now in my life, it’s all I have to give them. And it was born from love for them and made with the best of intentions.

And they really do love those little mutts.

So let us, once again, raise our glasses to Jo and David, preserving friendships and the beauty of sharing the differences within our lives.

And of course, those two little dogs.