It was Saturday – the busiest Saturday of my life. The McLoughlin wedding was taking place downtown and I, the wedding planner, was stuck in traffic at least twelve blocks away. The bridezilla would never let me live this down, I just knew it. I glanced at my phone for the umpteenth time in that one taxi trip, and sighed.

“Is there anything you can do?” I asked the taxi driver.

“Sorry ma’am,” he replied. “This is the only way and there’s an accident a few blocks up.”

Finally I give up, pass a few twenties to the driver and get out, practically running down the city blocks in my Manolo Blahniks. This isn’t my usual get-up, let me assure you, but as one of the most well-known wedding planners on the upper-east side, your appearance is paramount. I make it past the accident, hail another cab, and get to the venue with minutes to spare before my personal call-time. Checking myself in the mirror, I swipe down a few stray auburn hairs and retouch my pale pink lipstick before swanning into the bride’s hotel room and getting my day started. Imogen Saoirse Graham, wedding planner to the stars – auburn-haired, blue-eyed, fair-skinned, nerves of steel. I can do this.

Late that night, when the ceremony and reception had gone off without a hitch, and I’d left strict instructions with the venue staff, I got in a cab back home, stopping a few blocks short for my favourite post-wedding dinner. I grab my usual order of lemon chicken and special fried rice, and sneak it into the next door movie theatre and it’s midnight showing of whatever stupid rom-com is on at the moment. I take the seat in the middle of the back row, and pull out a pair of chopsticks, getting ready to ferret through my delicious food. I’m so used to be the only one here, even the usher who works the graveyard shift knows me by name, so I’m surprised when somebody else walks in. To my annoyance, he walks right up the back, and takes the seat just one seat over from my own.

“You look like you’ve had a rough day,” came his voice.

“Just long,” I replied, taking a mouthful of food.

“Me too. It’s really not fair to have to work on a Saturday, is it?”

“Unfortunately that’s my job,” I say with a wry smile. “I work pretty much every weekend, twelve hour days usually.”

“Do you work at Mercy?” he asked, mentioning the hospital just down the block.

“No,” I laugh. “I’ve never been big on blood. I’m actually a wedding planner.”

“Like that Jennifer Lopez movie?” the man asks, raising an eyebrow.

“You look like I should be ashamed of that, but really you should be ashamed for knowing that reference off the top of your head,” I tease. “Not to mention the fact that you’re here for a midnight viewing of this shitty rom-com”.

“No shame – I just need some crappy viewing to quiet my mind before I can sleep. This movie’s the only one on.”

“That’s why I’m here too.”

He points to the seat next to me and asks, “Do you mind?”

I shake my head, and he shuffles over, pulling out a slice of pizza and a can of coke from his messenger bag.

“Here I was thinking I was the only one who snuck hot food into movies,” I said.

“Usually I’m a burrito guy, but tonight screamed for pizza.”

“Greasy chinese,” I said, lifting up my chopsticks.

He touches his pizza to my cutlet of lemon chicken, and smiles. “Cheers”.

The movie ends just before two, and we sit in silence for a minute or two. Our pinky fingers are touching, and while I’m acutely aware of it right at this second, I’m not sure when it happened.

“Next week?” he asks. “Same time, same place?”

“Hopefully a different crappy rom-com?”

“I’ll see you then.”

When the next week rolls around, I’ve resigned myself to the fact that he couldn’t be here. The cute, age-appropriate guy who smuggles pizza into empty movie theatres wouldn’t come back. And yet, when I walk into the cinema, he’s already there.

“Burrito,” he says, holding it up.

“Sushi,” I reply, pulling out a plastic container.

“Well that’s just cheating,” he laughs, “That’s not hot food at all!”

We spend more of the movie making sarcastic comments than actually watching it, and at the end, he turns to face me with a smile.

“How about next week, I bring food for both of us?”

“Sounds good to me.”

After the next movie, when he brings fried chicken and coleslaw, we finally exchange names. And then I ask him whether he wants to come back to my apartment for a drink, emboldened by the crappy rom-com and the beautiful wedding I’d pulled off earlier that day.

We walk the three blocks to my apartment, and I discretely ask Eli at the desk to come check on me in ten minutes while Darcy (yep, that’s his name) waits for the elevator.

We ride up four floors, and I pull out a bottle of wine and kick off my shoes as Darcy shuffles through the playlists on my ipod. I barely hear Eli when he brings my mail up ten minutes later, but I smile at him reassuringly, and tell him good night. Darcy and I finish one bottle, and then two bottles of wine, and as desperately as I would love for him to stay the night, I kiss him and push him gently out the door with my number tucked into a piece of paper in his pocket.

The next day, I get a text message from him – a bunch of food emojis, a smiley face, and then two words “Again tonight?”. I suggest we skip the movie, he brings Mexican food, I buy more wine, and we get a little more touchy-feely before I once again push him out the door. Over the next couple of dates, I find out all the most important information about him. His full name is Darcy Reuben Fitzgerald, but all his friends call him Fitz. He works as a paediatric surgeon at Mercy hospital, a few blocks down. His favourite food is his mum’s roast lamb, his favourite colour is green, and he usually picks the action movies when he goes to the cinema, but confessed he followed me into the crappy rom-com because he just thought I looked too beautiful to be going in alone.

It’s a whirlwind, how quickly our lives intertwine, and soon enough he’s accompanying me to one of my weddings to watch me work, and I’ve visited him at Mercy for a quick lunch between surgeries. There’s an on call room just down the hall from the paeds ward, and let’s just say we’re fairly well acquainted with it by now.

By the time our one year anniversary rolls around, Darcy buys me a Tiffany hear padlock on a bracelet, and fittingly I give him a key – but not for my bracelet, for my apartment. It’s more of a metaphor though, because we’re both well aware we need more space than either my apartment or his can afford the both of us together. We move into a bigger space in Brooklyn, and spend the next six months figuring out those quirks that both endear us to each other, and drive us absolutely crazy at the same time.

On our eighteen month anniversary, Darcy texts me after my wedding for the weekend, and asks me to meet him for a screening of the Avengers opening at midnight. When I turn up, falafel kebabs tucked into my purse, the theatre is even more empty than usual. The usual ticket boy greets me by name, and send me down to theatre twelve. The movies start, but the ads before are strange – there’s one for our favourite restaurant, one for Mercy hospital, and one for an apartment building in Brooklyn just down the street from our own. When the movie starts, it’s Darcy reading the voice-over and I watch as bits of footage he’s pieced together from our relationship unravel into a short film. At the end, Darcy is down on one knee and produces a diamond ring.

Our wedding takes place just six months later, with thanks to all my contacts in the industry. The ceremony takes place in the state library, with cream, pale pink and purple flowers adorning every surface. My bridesmaids wear lavender gowns, and hold bouquets with white roses and fresh lavender sprigs. My ivory lace dress is an absolute dream, and when I walk down the aisle towards Darcy all I know is I’ve never felt such joy in my life. Our reception takes place in a restaurant just down the street, and we eat and drink and dance the night away.

After a week in Paris for our honeymoon, we come back to Brooklyn and are faced with the news that Darcy’s contract at Mercy has run out. He’s interested in pursuing a research position and puts out feelers – and is both excited and a little anxious when he gets offered a position in Dublin, Ireland. I’m nervous to leave my contacts in NYC behind, but am keen to explore the world and figure people get married everywhere, so we pack up our belongings and move to Dublin together.

We move into a brick townhouse with tonnes of natural light and four bedrooms. It’s a lot bigger than the apartment we left behind in Brooklyn, and I thought we had enough space then. I give Darcy three months to settle into his new position, and then I suggest that maybe we could start trying for a baby. His blue eyes brighten and crinkle in the corners and he lifts me up and swings me around. We fall pregnant quickly, and are thrilled to welcome a baby boy into our lives and our big empty house. Franklin Oliver is the spitting image of his daddy, with dark curls and blue eyes.

The most easy-going baby in the world, I beg Darcy for another before Franklin’s second birthday. Clearly I was tempting fate, and the universe blesses me with a handful. Twin boys – identical in looks and personality – both auburn-haired and blue-eyed, both trouble-makers from their first breaths. Stellan Tobiah and Caspar Lorcan are each others best friend, and adore their big brother to no end.

I tell Darcy we’re done, and when the twins turn four I finally get back to work and start with just a few weddings a year. Well one of the weddings makes me drunk on happiness and love, and I come home with the grand idea that maybe just one more baby would be okay. Darcy desperately wants another girl, but I am overwhelmed and overjoyed when I give birth to our fourth son early in morning. Ronan Atticus has silver blonde hair, and green eyes, and melts our heart the second we see him. He fits into our lives, and our home perfectly.

As time passes, Darcy continues his research and my business flourishes. Franklin grows up and against all odds and expectations, makes the treck to New York City, where he falls in love with a girl he met in the library where his father and I exchanged vows. His job as an architect leaves him perfectly happy in a big city, and his girlfriend and he are very happy together. Stellan and Caspar set up a youtube channel the year they turn 14, pranking each other and generally doing ridiculous things. They gain subscribers slowly at first, and then all at once they hit a million the day before their sixteenth birthday. It becomes their full time job once they leave school, and they tour the world, vlogging their misadventures for the growing audience to enjoy. Our easy-going Ronan takes a while to find his place – he tries his hand at a few jobs before he finds his perfect fit – he opens up a tiny bakery just down the road from our house, and finds a lot of joy in pastry and dough, and pleasing his customers with his creations. Life passes us by with happiness around each corner, and I blissfully glide along, content with my journey.