Who was best man at Paul McCartney’s wedding to Linda Eastman?
Without truly knowing it, Paul McCartney has likely been a part of the most weddings in history.
As the premier love songwriter in history’s biggest band, McCartney delivered a string of hits that have rightly soundtracked weddings all over the globe, and whether it’s the chirpy ‘All You Need Is Love’, the innocent ‘All My Loving’ or the profoundly delicate ‘Here There And Everywhere’, Macca’s voice often feels perfectly suited for those moments of grand romance.
But what about his own wedding in 1969, with Linda Eastman, would such a public display of self-indulgence be a gross move for one of the world’s greatest songwriters, or would it be a clever moment of unbridled intimacy that allows him to share a first dance with his wife to a song written with her as an inspiration?
Despite the gossip column inches between infinite in width when it came to Paul McCartney, there’s no evidential answer to that question. The affair was a relatively humble affair, and despite the global stardom of McCartney at the time, it contradicted all expectations.
Staged at Marylebone Town Hall, the wedding was a relatively hastily organised event, with essentially no guests. The service featured only the couple, witnesses, and Linda’s daughter. The official party consisted of Paul, Linda, her six-year-old daughter Heather, and witnesses Mike McCartney and Mal Evans.
So who was Paul McCartney’s best man?
Of that rather small guest list, it’s unsurprising to hear that McCartney’s brother Mike filled the role of best man, and it was a duty he later fulfilled during McCartney’s wedding to Heather Mills in 2002.
None of the Beatles was present during the small ceremony in Marylebone in 1969, and sadly, it was somewhat indicative of the fractured relationship between the band at that point, who, just one year out from their break-up, were beginning to act more like colleagues than actual friends.
Despite those tensions and the creative differences that got between them in 1969, it is incredibly important to remember that, at the end of the day, they were, in fact, friends, and sure, they might not have made best man material, but they had endured an experience in that decade that forever bound them together.
For McCartney in particular, John represented something of an unofficial brother. Their meeting was more than just musical fate manifesting itself; it was the forging of a genuine friendship that just so happened to create the most impactful songwriting partnership of all time.
Macca even acknowledged that bond, explaining, “Me and John, we’d known each other for a long time. Along with George and Ringo, we were best mates. And we looked into each other’s eyes, the eye contact thing we used to do, which is fairly mind-boggling. You dissolve into each other. But that’s what we did, round about that time, that’s what we did a lot. And it was amazing. You’re looking into each other’s eyes, and you would want to look away, but you wouldn’t, and you could see yourself in the other person.”
But somewhere along the way, that feeling was lost amidst bureaucracy and ego-fuelled tensions that meant none of them were present for the wedding of McCartney.
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