The Long Table

Two hundred and forty guests meant the usual round tables would have turned the terrace into a maze, so we ran one table the full ninety-meter length of the balustrade instead. Brass chargers went down first, one per guest, then a single runner of unbleached linen the whole way, so from either end the table read as one unbroken line against the river.

The felucca traffic on the Nile doesn’t stop for a wedding, so we timed the toasts for the gap between the seven and eight o’clock boats. When the last speech ended, the lights of a passing felucca crossed behind the head table exactly as the band picked the tempo back up.