Consider your ideal wedding. You may picture religious pageantry, majestic domes and the auspicious light of the Divine beaming on a white dress. Maybe you see friends dancing on a pub’s veranda, cheering for you in front of a town hall, or anywhere really – the people you love are there, and it’s all that matters.

What you are probably not picturing is a meet-up with Chris and Mitch, two complete strangers waiting for you and your future spouse by a nondescript fountain in the middle of Copenhagen. Judging by my soon-to-be-wife’s bewildered laugh throughout the entire 20 minutes of our wedding, this is not what she was picturing either. Should I add that neither of us is Danish, or lives in Denmark?

My wife, who is attached to her privacy and thus will remain “my wife” for the purpose of this piece, is British-Polish, and made her life in the UK. I am French. Brexit means Brexit. To live happily ever after under the same London roof, we had to prove our commitment to the relevant authorities.

Our immigration adviser – an odd but knowledgable fellow – was unsubtle about it. On a Zoom call about a year ago, he mimed a rifle being reloaded. To end our long-distance relationship and build a life together, it was time for a shotgun wedding.

But while love doesn’t wait, administrations around Europe like to take their sweet time. Marrying in Britain required a “fiance visa”, which would have allowed me to stay in the UK while waiting to get married, but not to work, making it financially unviable. Doing it in my home country would have required dealing with French bureaucracy – you........

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