Not that I ever really made that decision, you understand.

“That was a two second kiss! Not good enough!”

You know it’s a strange situation when you find yourself having to count how many seconds you’re kissing someone for. It might just be me, but I’ve never really considered thinking “one one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand…” in my head mid-snog in the past, and I can’t really say that I’ve met anyone who has. Until Kate and I met our wedding photographers, that is.

Amongst the pearls of wisdom (some more dubious than others, especially the one that goes “Kate, you’re not to let go of your husband for at least an entire hour after the ceremony, otherwise people are going to have their suspicions about the marriage”) that they pass out, you see, is the Four Second Rule. That, they’ve decided, is the best length for a kiss at a wedding to be. Exactly how they arrived at this figure I have no idea, but four seconds is the length they’ve arrived at, so who are we to doubt them?

The only problem with this is, you can’t practice it. Trust me, we’ve tried. It goes one of two ways, all the time; either you get caught up in the kiss and don’t even vaguely think about timing yourselves, or you get caught up in the timing yourselves and the kiss isn’t that great. Obviously, this leads you to the idea that you just shouldn’t be timing kisses in the first place and should just concentrate on the kissin’ for the sake of kissin’, which is a lot more fun, and that’s generally where the two of us ended up on the few occasions that we remembered about the Four Second Rule.

Little did we know there was going to be a test.

Sunday, then, was our engagement photo shoot. And, as if I wasn’t feeling self-conscious enough what with having to pose for photos and being one half of the centre of attention and all, apparently our kisses weren’t up to scratch, either. Apparently, I – in my nervy state and complete desire for the cameras to just go away – was rushing the kisses somewhat, and this wasn’t either what the people want to see or what the photographers want to photograph. And, as the man behind the camera complained that my head was at the wrong angle, that I wasn’t sitting in the right position, and that I should hold my kisses for longer, I realised that I had probably made the right decision not to become a hairy, thin and ugly pornstar, after all.

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Copyright © Grim, 2002