Local Friendship Turns Into a Lifetime
"It began with a borrowed umbrella and a disagreement about the best bookshop in Bloomsbury."
LONDON — What started as a chance meeting on a rain-soaked October afternoon has, eight years later, become the most anticipated union of the season. Amelia, a restorer of rare books, and Julian, an architect with an unreasonable fondness for Georgian cornices, first met sheltering beneath the same awning on Marchmont Street.
Friends report that the pair spent the following hour debating the merits of second-hand bookshops, and the following years doing very much the same. Sunday markets, long walks across Hampstead Heath and a now-legendary attempt at a soufflé followed.
The proposal, our correspondents confirm, took place last spring in the gardens of St. James, where Julian produced a ring hidden within a first edition of Amelia's favourite novel. She said yes before he had finished the question.
The couple now invite their dearest friends and family to join them as the friendship that began under an umbrella becomes a promise for a lifetime.
