A man and woman emerge from the stone archway in soft dawn light. He is dressed immaculately in black tie and polished shoes, his youthful complexion betraying no signs of being up all night.
She is held protectively in his arms, her own around his neck, pristine pale blue chiffon dress fluttering gently in the breeze. His expression is enigmatic, hers hidden behind his cheek.
It is, to date, the most romantic picture of the year – and it originates, not on a Hollywood film set, but at 5.23am on Tuesday, outside Cambridge University’s 158th Trinity Ball.
Normally, the infamous ‘survivors’ pictures capture revellers looking bleary-eyed and dishevelled.
And there were plenty of those this year, including one man with a cardboard box over his head to protect him from the drizzle. Others were clad in muddy trainers, more Glastonbury than gilded youth.
Which only makes the glamour of this photo all the more remarkable, and begs the question: are we witnessing 2025’s greatest love story?
Alas, no, although young women would be forgiven for breathing a sigh of relief, because the accidental poster boy for his peer group’s biggest evening of the academic year – to which tickets cost £410 a pair – is single.
The Mail can reveal that the man is fourth-year medical student Pierre Meyer, 22, and the woman in his arms not a long-term lover but ‘a friend of mine’.
Revealing the story behind the picture exclusively to the Mail, Meyer confirms he is ‘not in a relationship or romantically linked at all’ to his female friend, who was just ‘a bit tired’ after nine hours’ partying. ‘So as a joke I said, “do you want me to carry you?”’
As he emerged from Trinity College’s New Court, he recalls, ‘I saw a man but I didn’t spot the camera.’ Mainly because he wasn’t wearing his specs.
‘I did have contacts in, but I find it much harder to see further away. [The photographer] was standing right in front of the door. So that must have been the moment…. It really was just two friends having a bit of a laugh on the way out. I apologise that it is nothing more exciting!’
While his female friend found the photo ‘funny’, he thinks she’s also ‘very glad her face isn’t in it, if that makes sense’.
So what really went on at the most exclusive student event of the year, with a waiting list to get in and champagne breakfast on the way out? The Trinity Ball has been running since 1866, and some would have you believe it’s as eagerly anticipated – and by some metrics pricier – than a Taylor Swift concert. Pierre, who’s studying at Peterhouse and on the university rugby team, arrived for the ball at 6.30pm with his friends. After a two-and-a-half-hour wait, they were let into Neville’s Court, where Isaac Newton famously tried to discover the speed of sound by stamping his foot and listening to the echo – and where Pierre ‘went straight into the pizza queue because it was 9pm and I was starving’.
‘There were cheesy pasta stands. I tried to get to all the food but the queues were so long. There were drinks everywhere, bars everywhere.’
Trinity Ball guests have been known to fall into the River Cam when punting tipsy.
There was a Big Wheel ‘which threw you upside down a bit’ and came as a welcome relief after a ‘high-pressure’ year.
‘Cambridge is the most amazing university, but it’s rewarding when you’ve had a long year and a lot of work and it’s relatively high pressure, to be able to do this,’ says a fellow student attendee.
‘Everyone just lets their hair down,’ adds Pierre, who attended Torquay Boys’ Grammar School, where he got 11 A* GCSEs and an A in astronomy, which, according to his LinkedIn, he taught himself a year early.
He did the International Baccalaureate instead of A-levels, in which he got the maximum score of 45.
The ball’s ‘vibes’ were about friendship, and despite an endless supply of Irroy Champagne, which ordinarily sells for around £30 a bottle, nobody was out to get sloshed. ‘It’s not like a night out where you are trying to drink as much as possible,’ says Pierre, the son of South African parents who moved to the UK aged nine, now lives in Devon and, for all his film star presence, describes himself as a private person, ‘excited’ to re-live the night but keen not to reveal too much and drop his mates in it.
At around 10.30pm, says the second attendee, crowds watched ‘probably the best fireworks display I have ever seen’ and, in addition to ‘phenomenal’ pop star Kate Nash, who was headlining, students enjoyed support acts including the intriguingly named Danny and the Deviants.
The night flew by, continues Pierre, who speaks fluent Afrikaans and holds British, Austrian and South African passports. ‘I think we were there for nine hours. I was gutted when it finished. It was an amazing night. Easily one of the best events I’ve been to.’
With two years left of his medical degree, he says he’d love to attend another Trinity Ball. ‘I won’t be here next year because I’m on elective,’ says Pierre, who hopes to work in Sri Lanka and visit some Buddhist festivals while he’s out there. ‘It will be nice to get in some surfing as well.’ For now, he’s enduring some gentle ribbing from his friends about his newfound fame.
‘It’s a sweet photo to be fair, so I wasn’t upset about it. But I don’t want anyone getting the wrong impressions.’