The mid-nineties were about being carefree, drinking and music. At least they were for me, as a student in Nottingham from 1994-97. Twenty years ago this year I saw Shed Seven play the Nottingham University Fresher's Week party at Rock City and that kicked off my three years living and breathing Britpop.
After emerging through the early 90s, British music had detached itself from the grunge of US rock and created a popular subculture which was centred around hooky guitars riffs and very British lyrics. The likes of Suede, The La's and The Inspiral Carpets paved the way for bands like Oasis, Blur, Pulp, Elastica and Supergrass to soundtrack this period when England also played host to the Euro '96 football championship.
On my BBC Radio 6 Music show this week - as part of Britpop at the BBC, marking 20 years since its heyday - I have been asking listeners to share their memories of that time and specifically, when they realised they were part of the 90s movement which became known as Britpop. One listener in particular had the most incredible reason for vivid memories of that time - his wedding day. A day immortalised on the iconic cover of Pulp's album, A Different Class.
Dom O'Connor married Sharron in August 1995 and had no idea that their wedding picture would appear on the sleeve of an album which has sold well over a million copies.
So how did it happen?
Dom told me on the show, "When we got married we were putting the wedding together ourselves, we pulled a lot of favours from people we knew. My little brother Ben went to art college in Edinburgh and he made friends with a guy who subsequently became a photographer and had done a lot of work with the Britpop bands. We asked him a couple of months before whether he would be prepared to do some photos for us, and he couldn't actually do it because he said he was busy working on some Pulp stuff. But he phoned us about a week before and said Pulp were thinking about using some photos with real people, including a wedding photo, and if we'd do some joke shots with him with some life-size cutouts of the band, but he'd do some proper wedding shots for us as well. And that's basically what happened. They rocked up with the life-size cut outs of the band and took the photos, the rest is history."
A while passed and the likes of Dodgy, Cast and Ocean Colour Scene continued to dominate the charts when Dom's mother spotted a poster in HMV... of her son and daughter-in-law's wedding day!
From the glorious days of Britpop, to my mind, three album sleeves stand out - the greyhounds at Walthamstow dog track on the cover of Blur's Parklife; then there's DJ Sean Rowley and photographer Brian Cannon passing each other on Berwick Street in Soho on the cover of Oasis' (What's the Story) Morning Glory?; and there's Pulp's Different Class, 'the one with the wedding photo on the sleeve'.
But whose wedding was it? Now you know.
And you can listen to my fascinating conversation with Dom here: