It turns out the perfect bench does exist. You just might need to get married before you realise you’re sitting on it.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!For seven years, Sam Wilmot has been travelling around reviewing benches through his Rate This Bench Instagram account, judging seats on everything from their design to the view they offer.
His unusually specific mission has taken him across the United Kingdom and even overseas, with each bench receiving a score documenting how highly it ranks.
But throughout all those years and all those benches, one number remained completely untouched.
Sam had never awarded a perfect 10/10.
That finally changed on one of the biggest days of his life, when he married his fiancée Sophie and revisited a bench in South Gloucestershire that was already hugely significant to the couple.
The bench itself wasn’t a new discovery. Sam had actually reviewed it before and handed it an impressive 9/10.
There was just one thing stopping it from reaching perfection: the elusive “wow” factor needed to earn that final point.
Moments after getting married, however, Sam sat on the same bench alongside his new wife, surrounded by their friends and family.
Suddenly, the missing point made complete sense.
“The overwhelming feeling of joy and awe in this moment is the wow,” he wrote on Instagram. “No moment or bench will ever come close to this for me, I can proudly say I have found my 10. In Sophie, and this bench.”
It was a fitting place for the milestone considering benches have been woven into Sam and Sophie’s relationship from virtually the beginning.
Rate This Bench existed before the pair got together, but their first exchange seven years ago was itself related to a bench.
Sophie would later become involved in Sam’s unusual hobby, joining him on trips to hunt down new benches and helping to photograph the reviews along the way.
For years, Sam had wondered whether his first perfect score would only become obvious retrospectively.
Perhaps, after eventually reviewing his final bench, he would look back through the collection and decide which one deserved to stand above the rest.
Instead, the answer arrived while there were still plenty more benches left to discover.
And while the location had already scored highly, it was the significance of that particular moment that transformed a nine into an unbeatable 10.
“There is no possible moment in life I will cherish more than sitting on my favourite bench, alongside my wife moments after marrying surrounded by our friends and family,” he explained.
Anyone fearing that achieving the ultimate score means Rate This Bench has completed its mission can relax.
Sam confirmed that more reviews are still to come, meaning the search for interesting seats and impressive views isn’t over just yet.
The only problem for every future contender is that the benchmark has now been set almost impossibly high.
After seven years, it took more than a great design or spectacular view to produce the first 10/10.
It took his favourite bench, his wedding day and the person he wanted sitting beside him.
Featured image credit: ratethisbench / Instagram
