What happens in the video
In a hotel lobby, a woman in a navy suit stands beside a silver suitcase, speaking to a porter in a green waistcoat. She places a small black bag on his brass luggage trolley and gestures as they talk. A woman in a burgundy jacket approaches and looks down towards something in her hands. The clip ends with all three beside the trolley.
Continuation:
Clare had crossed the lobby twice with the silver case bumping against her ankle. When she saw an empty luggage trolley, she felt such relief that she put her black bag on it before the porter had finished speaking.
“Just the little one,” she said. “Up to the ballroom. I’ll take the case.”
“Which ballroom?”
“The one with the piano. My sister’s waiting for these.”
Inside the bag were forty place cards. Clare had written each one by hand the night before, including three replacements for relatives who had decided at the last minute that they couldn’t sit together. She knew exactly where everyone belonged. What she didn’t know, she realised as the porter waited, was the name of the room.
“There’s a piano in both,” he said.
She took out her phone. Six missed calls from her sister and barely enough battery to read them. The porter put a steadying hand on the trolley while she unzipped the black bag for the invitation. The first card she pulled out read *Uncle Len*. It told her remarkably little about where to go.
The woman in burgundy had come over from reception. She checked the afternoon’s functions and found the wedding under the groom’s surname.
“Garden Room. They’re setting up now.”
The porter offered to take her there himself. Clare picked up Uncle Len and followed.
Upstairs, her sister was barefoot among the half-dressed tables, trying to tighten a buckle on a tiny silver shoe. A flower girl sat on the piano stool calmly eating crisps.
“Clare! Where have you been?”
“Arguing with the only man in the building who knew how many pianos there are.”
Her sister laughed. For the first time that afternoon, Clare heard how tired she was. She took the shoe, sent her sister to get dressed and asked the porter whether he had time to show her the table numbers.
Together they laid out the cards. When they reached table six, he held up the one for Uncle Len. “Old friend of mine by now.”
“Give him the chair with the best view,” Clare said.
During dinner, Uncle Len told anyone who would listen that his niece had remembered which ear he could hear out of. In truth, Clare had forgotten. The porter had angled the chair so Len could see the speeches without twisting around, and the neighbouring guest happened to be on his good side.
The following morning Clare found the porter in the lobby. She handed him a place card she’d written on a leftover blank. It had his name on the front. Inside she’d written, *Thank you for getting everybody to the right place. Especially me.*
