by Suzy Watts

Created on: July 18, 2010

My partner and I have been together for 27 years.  He was married once before in his late teens, which ended in divorce, and he made it plain from the start that he was not going to marry again. 

My 60th birthday is just around the corner, and we had been talking about going on a Mediterranean cruise to celebrate, but after weighing up the pros and cons, we decided cruising wasn't for us. So you could have knocked me down with a feather when he suggested we get married for my birthday!  To say I was surprised would be an enormous understatement, I was flabbergasted. 

I did not answer straight away, I took a couple of days to mull over the proposal, being logical and thinking through the practicalities.  Would we marry in Spain, where we live?  Would we marry in Britain, where our families are based?  After searching the internet about getting married in Spain, and discovering how costly and complicated it could be, we plumped for the UK.  But where in the UK, our families were scattered from Scotland to southern England? Then a light bulb clicked on in my head - my partner's brother is a minister in Edinburgh, could he marry us?  I telephoned to ask the question, and the answer was yes, once he had gotten over the initial surprise.  The next day, he sent me all the necessary paperwork, helpful information and guidelines as to what was required.

There was only one obvious date for the wedding - my 60th birthday.  This was only three months away, so action needed to be taken quickly.  I contacted our closest family members and passed on the good news.  All were surprised and happy, and all wanted to attend.  Next, I turned my attention to designing and making the invitations.  These were despatched, and then we started to tell our friends about the wedding, and that caused at least one domestic situation with the wife wanting to attend and the husband being more practical as regards the cost.  So what started out as a very small family wedding has now doubled in size, and we are not sure if the church will be big enough to hold all the guests.  Maybe loud speakers will need to be set up outside for the crowd to hear the service!

My surprise proposal has opened up a whole side of life i never knew at first hand - wedding planning.  More of that in a later article.

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