Jacinta spends 40 minutes shooting the wedding next door

"Jacinta Berrocal, photographer. Hello?"

"It's Eusebio Pardiñas, the maître d' at the Miramar. Where are you?"

"In the function room, Eusebio. I've been working for forty minutes. I've got the bouquet, I've got the kiss and I've got the mother-in-law crying into her own mother's handkerchief."

"Which mother-in-law?"

"The bride's. Short hair, sea-green dress, two earrings that weigh a ton."

"Jacinta, your bride's mother-in-law, the Arrieta one, is wearing dusty pink and she is in room A. You are in room B."

"No."

"Yes."

"And the people I have spent forty minutes telling to take one step to the left, please?"

"Those are the Lozanos. They are getting married today as well. They arrived first and I opened the door for them myself, and they didn't ask a single question when you told them to line up by height."

"Eusebio, tell me there is another photographer in room A."

"There is another photographer. Nicasio Arbeloa. He came in at five past seven and he is shooting a gorgeous set of your Arrietas."

"Nicasio is seventy-four."

"And two cataract operations. But look, the man moves fast."

"Does he know they are not his?"

"Nicasio thinks the couple changed clothes halfway through the meal. He says it is very fashionable now."

"Right. Plan. I go out through the service door, he goes out through the other one, we cross in the kitchen corridor and nobody finds ou—"

"The corridor is packed. Both wedding parties came out for the canapés at the same time."

"Both?"

"Both. And the two brides have run into each other in front of the ham table."

"Eusebio."

"Yes?"

"Did they shake hands?"

"They hugged. The Lozano bride told yours that the ham carver is the same one her sister had."

"Do me a favour. Don't let them move apart for thirty seconds."

"Why not?"

"Because I am coming down the stairs with the telephoto lens on and nobody in this province has that photograph."

"Jacinta, afterwards somebody has to explain to four families what happened here."

"Not much. The Lozanos got forty minutes they never paid for, and the Arrietas got a man with fifty years in the trade and a watchmaker's hands."

"And yours, who pays for that?"

"Both families, Eusebio. The ham photograph I charge for twice."