Ally and I were married in the lush, sun-dappled gardens of a Cape Town hotel. It was a perfect day, captured for posterity by my wonderful step-dad, Mike. Mike isn't a professional videographer, but we knew his footage would be raw, intimate, and deeply personal.
We just didn’t realize it would also be a character study of a complete stranger.
As we watched the video back, we noticed a recurring theme. The camera would start on us—the happy couple, exchanging vows and radiant with love—and then, as if caught in an irresistible magnetic field, the lens would slowly, inexorably drift toward the hotel pool.
There, sprawled on a deck chair in the background, was a very, very large man in a very, small bathing suit.
He didn't just appear once. He was the unintended protagonist of our wedding. Every time the ceremony reached a peak of emotional intensity, the camera would pan away from my tearful "I do" to find him adjusting his sunglasses or contemplating a club sandwich. He had a gravitational pull so strong that even Mike’s best intentions couldn't escape his orbit.
I went into that day thinking I was the center of Ally’s universe; I left realizing we were both just minor satellites orbiting a man in a Speedo by the deep end.
