Stage 1: Denial (It’s a Log)

The photographs arrive from the photographer with a cheerful subject line. Fiona opens them expecting to feel something like joy. She does, briefly, and then she notices the thing in the water. ‘I told myself it was a log,’ she said. ‘A large log. A weirdly shaped large log that appears in the exact same position in forty-seven photographs across four hours of shooting, including ones taken from different angles, yes, but still: log.’ This stage lasted approximately three days and ended when her mother-in-law called to say she’d already posted one to Facebook and the comments were, quote, ‘getting weird.’

Stage 2: Anger (At Nessie, At the Loch, Briefly At Duncan)

Fiona is very clear that the anger was primarily directed at the cryptid and only ‘briefly and unfairly’ redirected toward Duncan, who had suggested the lochside venue. ‘He didn’t know,’ she said. ‘Obviously he didn’t know. Nobody tells you to check for apex aquatic cryptids when you’re booking a wedding venue. It’s not on TripAdvisor.’ She filed a formal complaint with the venue that she describes as ‘probably too long’ and that the venue has reportedly framed in their reception area under the heading DISTINGUISHED GUEST EXPERIENCES. She has not been back to confirm this. She has been told by three separate people.

Stage 3: Bargaining (Can We Photoshop It Out?)

The photographer, a professional named Alistair who has been shooting weddings in the Scottish Highlands for sixteen years and who told me on the phone that this was ‘not his first unusual background situation, but certainly his most documented,’ received eleven emails from Fiona over six days asking about digital removal. The issue, he explained to her and then to me, is that in many of the photographs the silhouette overlaps with guests. You cannot remove Nessie without also removing, in various images, Fiona’s cousin Malcolm, two table centerpieces, and what appears to be the entirety of the string quartet. ‘I considered it,’ Fiona said quietly. ‘I thought about which ones I could live without. That’s the bargaining stage. That’s when I knew I was in it.’

Stage 4: Depression (The Album Proof Arrives)

The album proof is forty pages. Nessie is in thirty-one of them. ‘Alistair did his best,’ Fiona said, and her voice went somewhere complicated for a moment. ‘He cropped where he could. There’s a whole section of close-ups that are just faces, just our faces, nothing but faces. I know why he did it. I appreciated it. And then there’s the double-page spread of us doing the first dance, and the loch is right there in the background window, and it’s right there, it’s just right there.’ She paused. ‘I cried in the bath about it. That’s the depression stage. You’ve cried in the bath.’

Stage 5: Acceptance (It’s Kind Of a Good Story, Actually)

Acceptance, Fiona reports, arrived approximately six weeks later when she told the whole story at a dinner party and watched ten people lean slowly forward in their chairs. ‘Duncan was the one who said it first,’ she told me. ‘He said, nobody’s wedding photo has Nessie in it. We have the only wedding photos with Nessie in them. That’s — that’s ours.’ She used the word ‘ours’ in a way that I wrote down and underlined twice in my notebook and then immediately felt like I’d intruded on something. The album arrived, in full, the following month. The double-page first dance spread is, she says, now her favourite photograph she owns. Nessie and all. Especially, she corrects herself, Nessie and all.

Stage 6: Evangelism (She Now Runs a Nessie Sighting Instagram)

This is the stage grief researchers don’t list but that I, personally, have observed in approximately seventy percent of cryptid-adjacent incident survivors, which is the stage where you become a mild and enthusiastic advocate. Fiona’s Instagram, @NessieWasAtMyWedding, launched five weeks ago and has 14,000 followers. She posts one image per week from the wedding, always a different angle, always with Nessie visible, always with the caption ‘still here.’ She has been contacted by three documentary crews, one Scottish tourism board, and a greeting card company. She told the greeting card company yes. The card will read: ‘May your love be as enduring as a large aquatic cryptid’s apparent enthusiasm for other people’s weddings.’ I have already ordered twelve. They’re for gifts. Some of them are for gifts.