My old friend Giles just stumbled across his Marriage Certificate while tidying up some old paperwork. We met when we were both working in advertising and I’m pretty sure that when he and Nicki got married back in 2003, he was a Group Account Director at the hip Leith Agency. The one thing I am 100% sure he wasn’t was a ‘Biscuit Designer’.

Here’s the story, as Giles tells it. ‘An old friend of mine from the agency WCRS got fed up with City types in bars asking her what she did for a living, and used to tell them she was a Biscuit Designer. 

It struck me that my occupation at the time had absolutely no bearing on the act of getting married, so that’s how I answered when the official asked. I wasn’t aware it would show up on the form…’

And there it is. Giles Moffat, Biscuit Designer.

We don’t tend to look at our Marriage Certificates once we’ve got them: they go into the filing cabinet, and it’s usually only our children who get to see them when the time comes to lay us to rest. So take Giles’s advice and when the Registrar asks you for your occupation, play it straight if you want to avoid causing them a lot of confusion!

Mind you, had Nicki and Giles been getting married today, the question,‘what do you do for a living?’ would still have been almost impossible to answer. 

Giles is currently a Gin brand owner, a clothing entrepreneur, and a CMO for occasional hire, so as he says, ‘The form is not fit for purpose!’