'This is awful,' she wept to Phoebe. 'I haven't cried this much since Terms of Endearment!'

'I know,' Phoebe sniffed. 'They just look so happy!'

'What's wrong with you two?' demanded Josh. 'Weddings are supposed to be joyful occasions!'

'It's a woman thing,' Gib told him knowledgeably. 'Apparently snivelling like this means they're having a good time. They'll be all right when they get some champagne inside them!'

Aisling wasn't crying, Bella couldn't help noticing. No fear of her mascara running! Instead she clung to Josh's arm looking cool and pretty in a simple aquamarine shift with an annoyingly stylish hat. Bella had been so pleased with her own hat, but next to Aisling's she was suddenly convinced that it seemed over-the-top and ridiculous.

Everything about Aisling made her feel that way. Where Aisling was quietly confident, she was loud. Aisling was elegant, she was blowsy. Aisling knew how to put up a tent and abseil down a cliff, she was city girl incarnate.

Aisling was perfect for Josh, in fact, and she was just his friend.

Bella turned quickly away and pinned on a bright smile to watch the photographs being taken. Gib had organised it well, and after the inevitable family groups, they moved rapidly onto photos of friends with the bride and groom. There was one of them with Kate's original housemates, Caro and Phoebe and Bella, with Caro and Phoebe's husbands, of course.

And then there was Kate and Finn with their close friends and partners, which meant Phoebe and Gib, Josh and Aisling, and Bella.

Bella was very conscious of being on her own in both photos. It was a new experience for her. She had always been the one with a boyfriend, while Phoebe and Kate moaned about the lack of men, so it was ironic that she should be the odd one out now.

Not that Bella had any intention of giving Aisling the satisfaction of thinking that it bothered her. She kept a smile fixed to her face, and laughed and chatted animatedly as the last photographs were taken and the entire party walked back through the village to where a marquee had been erected in the garden of Kate's parents.