Twelve Chapters of Proof

Three weeks before the wedding, Maya and Oliver's friends decide the present will be a book, and the couple does not get to write a word of it. A free illustrated wedding story for adults, told by the people who know them far too well.

Adults18-99 yearsFree

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Wedding story for adults

Twelve Chapters of Proof opens at midnight, three weeks before the wedding, around a kitchen table with cold coffee, one pen and the back of an envelope. Maya and Oliver's friends have decided that the present will be a book, and the couple does not get to write a single line of it. The brief they give themselves is simple: collect every story the two of them would swear had happened differently.

What follows is twelve chapters of affectionate, entirely merciless evidence. The first date at the wrong restaurant, where Oliver knocked over a glass of water and then spent forty minutes explaining a documentary nobody else had seen. The surprise party where fourteen friends crouched behind a sofa waiting for a woman who is reliably twenty minutes late. A flat-pack bookshelf, an instruction sheet with no words on it, three leftover screws and an argument conducted entirely in whispers so the neighbors would not hear. A tin opener that has never been seen again. And six accidental hours in a rainy station cafe that both of them, interviewed separately, called the best day of the trip.

It is written for adult readers and works best as a wedding gift from the people who know the couple far too well: a reading at the reception, a present handed over on the morning of the ceremony, or a gentler alternative to the best man's speech. Ideal for weddings, engagements and anniversaries.

A wedding present the couple did not get to write

Three weeks before the wedding, Maya and Oliver's friends sit down around a kitchen table with cold coffee, one pen and the back of an envelope. Their assignment is to gather the stories the couple would each swear had happened differently. Nobody agrees where to begin, and the envelope quickly acquires arrows, arguments and a mysterious sauce stain. They start with dinner.

The result is twelve short chapters told in the third person by the people who were actually in the room. Each one is a piece of evidence, and each is funnier than the last: the wrong restaurant, the spilled water, the party behind the sofa, the bookshelf, the reorganized kitchen, the missed train, the dog they did not adopt twice, and a proposal rehearsed in front of a mirror while a best friend held the ring and offered notes.

The evening Oliver still insists did not happen that way.

Why a book like this lands better than a speech

The friends set out to make fun of the couple and end up doing something else entirely. Because every chapter is a specific memory rather than a compliment, the affection arrives sideways, which is the only way most people can stand to receive it. Nothing in the book is flattering, and all of it is fond.

It teases without wounding. The jokes are about water glasses, screws and train timetables, never about the people themselves.
It is specific. A missing tin opener says more about a shared kitchen than any paragraph about love ever could.
It gives the friends a voice. The people who carried the boxes up four flights get to be in the story too.
It survives the day. A speech lasts four minutes; a bound book gets reread on anniversaries.

You know I notice shoes, right?

One Sunday, one wordless instruction sheet, three screws left over.

Now imagine it with their names in it

Every couple has a version of the wrong restaurant. The friend who is always twenty minutes late, the piece of furniture that nearly ended everything, the holiday that went wrong and became the good story. You already know the material, because you were there for most of it.

With cuentosIA you can turn those stories into an illustrated book that looks like this one, with their faces on the pages and their names in the chapters, ready for the reception table or the morning of the wedding.

How it works

Upload a photo of the couple, so the illustrations actually look like them.
Choose the tone and the style, and tell us the stories only their friends would dare to include.
In a few minutes it is ready to read online, download as a PDF, or order as a printed book.

A present that outlasts the wedding

Most wedding gifts are used, spent or quietly rehomed within a year. A book made from the couple's own disputed memories is the rare one that gets pulled off the shelf on purpose, usually to settle an argument that nobody wants to settle. It works just as well for an engagement, a first anniversary or a milestone birthday.

Six unplanned hours that both of them, asked separately, called the best day of the trip.

Is this story suitable for children?

It is written for adult readers. There is nothing unsuitable in it, but the humor and the pacing are aimed at the couple and their friends rather than at a bedtime audience.

Can several friends contribute stories to a personalized version?

Yes. Collect the anecdotes between you first, then include them when you describe the story. The more specific the details, the more the finished book sounds like it was written by people who were there.