So anyway ...

Back to the recent nuptials.

As you can see, the groom was unconventionally attired, although not as underdressed as he'd threatened to be several months before, when cut-off jeans and jandals were mentioned. He wore this fine, pale-gray Zara item - known officially as the Wedding Cardie - a new white teeshirt, his best jeans and new white trainers.

To my great admiration, the bride was more than happy to let him go his own way, although she had other ideas for herself and wore white. But let me hasten to add that she looked nothing like a meringue, let alone one of the type's lime-green variations, several examples of which we spied in shop windows in Kunming and Hanoi, before flinching and scuttling past.

S had asked her friend and maid-of-honour Winsome to make her a dress. Winsome has a design shop in Kunming, and her tailoring is knock-out perfect. When I was there in January she fitted me for and made - in a few short days - a beautifully constructed little black jacket. Her design for S was a perfectly plain, strapless, fitted sheath in crisp stretchy cotton. With it, S wore pale satin high-heeled sandals, a short veil she'd bought online, her mother's pearls and a few white lilies.

And the celebrant? At the last minute - and almost certainly prompted by an attack of nerves - he dashed out and bought that black Chinese shirt. The consensus was that it considerably enhanced his authority.