Inside this week's ES Magazine: Featuring House of the Dragon's Emma D'Arcy

Hold on to your garters London, wedding season is officially upon us. Not that I’d know. While everyone else is busy fielding invites and juggling their diaries (see Dipal Acharya’s Soapbox in tomorrow’s issue), my summer is looking decidedly wedding-lite.

It’s okay, this isn’t a pity letter; I’ll save a fortune in travel and cream linen but the truth is I haven’t been to many weddings. I come from a small family and my friendship group, gay and straight, haven’t done a lot of skipping down the aisle.

The sad part of this is that I love a wedding and I’m a good guest: I’m well-mannered, I enjoy chatting to oldies and randoms and I’m an enthusiastic dancer (see our Northern Soul revival story). I could always start crashing more Big Days (my wife and I did this once on the Amalfi coast and had a blast) or go the whole hog and get myself ordained.

But looking back, not all my wedding experiences have been great: there was that one where the groom’s unhinged friend turned up with his head in bandages after a dog attack and, under the influence of heavy painkillers and Chardonnay, urinated on the bride’s brothers, who promptly dragged him outside for a chat. Or that time the bride’s uncle took to the dancefloor clutching a chair above his head and dropped dead in the middle of ‘He’s the Greatest Dancer’. On second thought, maybe I’m not missing out.

Besides, I’ll be busy catching up on the new season of House of the Dragon, featuring our cover star Emma D’Arcy. Fire-breathing dragons and incest are less stressful than weddings.