Hi,

Would anyone like to correspond with me? I'm 29, a single parent, student, voluptuous (but desperately trying to be skinny!). I'd like to write to anyone with a sense of humour...

Sandra

These are the fateful words that I read on the 23rd June 1997, while browsing the soc.penpals usenet group on the Internet. I'd been using the Internet since the autumn of 1995, and used to dip into the soc.penpals group periodically looking for new people to correspond with. Since getting on-line, I'd written to people in the UK, America, Norway, South Africa, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, and even met up with someone who lived a hundred or so miles away from me.

Sandra's posting stood out mainly because she was female (definitely a minority on the Internet in those days) and she was British, and I was vaguely looking to start writing to people that I might one day have a chance of meeting IRL (In Real Life). I replied immediately (Sandra later told me that over 180 people replied) and we found that we had a great deal in common, and we started to write to each other just about every day. Sandra was living in the city of Swansea in South Wales, which is about a hundred and ten miles from Taunton by car.

Our friendship developed over that first couple of months, and when I was about to leave for a few days at the Greenbelt Music & Arts festival with friends, it developed into love, even though we hadn't even met. We agreed that I would ring Sandra from the festival as we wouldn't be able to kep in touch by e-mail. I was physically shaking when I dialled her number, and it was just fantastic to be able to hear her voice.

We met for the first time in the car-park of Sainsburys supermarket in Swansea on September 20th, 1997 and instantly found that we were as compatible in real life, as we were in cyberspace. This was the first of many happy weekends that I spent in Swansea with Sandra (well - happy apart from the bit leading up to Sunday evening, when I had to drive back to Taunton alone). I met Matt (Sandra's son) the second time I visited, and I was probably more nervous about meeting him when I was about meeting Sandra for the first time.

Sandra visited Taunton for the first time on October 17th, 1997. She had quite a lot to deal with that weekend, because as well as meeting my parents and friends for the first time, I had received an invitation, with guest, to the wedding of a college friend. Sandra came with me, and met many more people. After that, I was travelling to Swansea every two or three weekends, and Sandra & Matt sometimes came down to Taunton by train (long journey, usually arriving late) or coach (even longer journey, and often arriving even later).

On February 14th 1998 (Valentines Day!) I proposed and Sandra accepted. We bought the engagement ring in Swansea that day, and then set about telling our parents and closest friends. At the time, Sandra was doing some part-time courses at a local college, and Matt was in his last year of primary school. We decided that we would wait until Sandra had finished her exams in the June, and then start looking for a house in Taunton. The plan was to be moved in time for Matthew to start school down here at the beginning of September.

In early June, I wrote to all the local estate agents asking for details of suitable houses in the area. We narrowed this down to a list of four that sounded promising, and arranged viewing appointments over a weekend when Sandra could make it down. The first appointment was for a house that was at the bottom of my list of four. We arranged to see it first as a 'practise' viewing for the other three, but everything was great when we saw it, and none of the others compared to it at all. We saw it a second time that weekend, and then started putting things in motion to buy it.

Have you ever tried to arrange a joint house purchase (including mortgage, insurances, contract signings, etc.) when the two parties live a hundred miles apart? Believe me, it's not easy, but I was fortunate enough to be working with a former estate agent, who was able to recommend a good solicitor and we took possession of the house on August 14th, 1998.

After we moved in, the first few months were spent getting things sorted out. Matthew started at Ladymead, and Sandra approached some employment agencies about doing some temping work. Ideally, she needed a job where she could work term time only, so that there would be someone at home with Matthew during the school holidays. She was taken on by Jobseekers, and her first placement was at another local school (within walking distance of our house) for six weeks to help the school prepare for an Ofsted inspection. During those six weeks, someone resigned from the office, and Sandra applied for the vacancy. And got it. Everything was working out well for us.

In December, we made an appointment to speak to the Vicar about getting married. He came to see us one cold December evening, about two weeks before Christmas and we told him what we wanted. "Just a small wedding" we said, "with close family and a few friends only. Oh, and we want to get married by candlelight".

The Vicar flipped through his diary. "We'll steer clear of Christmas" he said "and we'll call the banns on the first three Sundays in January. You can get married anytime after that." We said that we'd like it to be as soon as possible, and he looked back to the diary again. "Would you like to get married on Saturday 23rd January?" he asked. So the date was set, and we threw both sets of parents into blind panic once more by announcing that the wedding would be in just six and a half weeks.

Six weeks of preparation followed. We designed and printed the invitations ourselves so that we could get them posted off as soon as possible. We were getting married at St Andrews, but couldn't hold the reception there as the hall was already booked so we viewed the hall of another nearby church, and booked that for the reception. It was their bingo night so we couldn't check out all the facilities, but it was big enough for the 35 or so invited guests (Sandra has a BIG family!). As the wedding was to be at 5:30pm, there would only be an evening do, and I asked my band to play at that. Sandra's brother, Alan, agreed to do the catering, and everythingwas falling into place.

Sandra's Mum gave us her mother's wedding ring for Sandra to be married in. We chose a ring for me from the same jewellers in Swansea where we had bought the enagement ring, and when we later looked at the hallmarks, we found that they were made exactly 100 years apart, which suggests that Sandra's great-grandmother may have worn it first.

With just one week to go before the wedding, Sandra still hadn't completed her outfit, and I started having fits of hiccups as I was getting so nervous. We tried every remedy under the sun - frights, holding my breath, sugar the tongue, and the thing that helped most was drinking a whole glass of water through a straw without stopping. But whatever we tried, the hiccups kept returning. Looking back on it now, it seems so funny, but believe me at wasn't at all funny at the time.

A few days before the wedding, Alan came over to check out the kitchen in the hall where we were to hold the reception. Sandra came down with us, and as the three of us we walked in we noticed that the hall was decorated in

ORANGE and BROWN!

When we had seen it before, it was full of people and we didn't notice the decoration at all. It was too late to try to arrange anywhere else, so we had to live with it. However, unknown to Sandra, Alan and I spoke the next day, and he told me that he could hire a white marquee lining that we could hang around the hall to make it look nicer. He'd spoken to the church, and they didn't mind us drilling some small holes into the wall to hang it from. But we'd have to start fairly early in the morning to get it all sorted.

I was working as usual on the day before the wedding, and mid-afternoon they held a presentation for me, where I was given gifts and vouchers from my friends and colleagues, as well as a card signed by just about everyone in the offices. As I left that evening, I found that my car has been decorated with shaving foam, and as I pulled away, I could hear the distinctive rattle of all the tin cans tied to the tow hook.

The evening before the wedding was lovely. People had started to arrive from all over the country. Sandra's parents had come by train from Swansea, one of her brothers came from Nottingham, and we gathered at our house until, at about ten, I headed off to my parents' house where I was to spend my last night as a bachelor.

THE WEDDING DAY DAWNS!

The alarm went off at something like 6:30am, as my Dad & I had to meet Alan and my best man, Matthew, at the hall at 7:30 to put up the marquee lining. The lining took about two hours to put up, and then I had to go off and get my hair cut and have lunch. In the afternoon, the band set up and sound-checked, and I took our bags to the hotel where we were to spend our wedding night (a closely guarded secret). Then I got showered and dressed, and we arrived at the church about an hour before the ceremony was due to start.

I actually remember very little about the ceremony. The church looked lovely with candles everywhere and there were lots of people who had just arrived in Taunton, especially Paul, one of my school and college friends who had driven down that afternoon to play some of the music for us, but had to drive back that night so that he could play at his own church on the Sunday.

Matthew (our Matthew that is, not the best man) was our ring bearer, and it was great to have him there with us on our special day.

Eventually, I took my place at the front, and the organ started up with the traditional "Here comes the Bride" music. After a few seconds, the Vicar leaned forward and whispered "You are allowed to look round, you know" and I turned to see my beautiful bride-to-be walking up the aisle with her father.

Of the bits of the service that I do remember, the highlight has to be Sandra's brother Ronnie almost setting his sleeve on fire with his candle during the first hymn. Afterwards, Julian (the Vicar) invited people to put their candles out if they wanted to as "we are hoping to use the building for services tomorrow".

I know that I managed to make it through the vows without laughing (which I was unable to do at the rehearsal - something to do with the "For Poorer" bit, if I remember correctly), and I remember profound sense of relief when Julian pronounced us "Man and Wife". After the wedding, came the photographs with smiles firmly fixed to our faces, and then onto the reception.

We walked into the hall and it looked fantastic. Sandra just burst into tears looking at it, and Alan came rushing over to ask "Which bit don't you like? I'll change it!".

The reception was great too! The food was wonderful, and playing with the band was fun, especially when Alan and Ronnie got up to sing as well. We finally headed off to the hotel at about half-past ten.

I'm not going to say much else about the day - but do go and have a look in our gallery and see some of the pictures from the day.

Click here to read Sandra's version