I’ve already covered most of the wedding news in “Is this stressful? - 1987” but I thought it deserved its own story as well.

I proposed to Gina in Newcastle in 1986. I had known I was going to propose for a while, had prepared myself with the ring and was waiting for the right moment. It came as a great shock to her because that right moment was just after an argument! She said yes, of course! And we had champagne in bed the next morning to celebrate. It’s tradition to ask the bride’s father for her hand in marriage and I did, but the next morning.

We then had a year to plan the wedding. Newly qualified myself and Gina still a student at this point a low budget wedding was in order. We had both attended St. Peter and Paul’s Church in our home town, Crosby, so it was the natural choice of venue but we asked the University Chaplain to marry us as we had such a good relationship with him.

Gina’s dad offered to sacrifice his beloved lawn and allow a marquee to be sited in their back garden. It was so big that the neighbours’ gardens had to be used as well. Stan also brewed all of the wine and very nice it was too. The bar was based in the garage; Stan had used huge demijohns when he had run out of bottles and they were impossible to move!

My Best Man, Andy was third time lucky; the first had chickenpox, the second was in Australia and at short notice Andy stepped up to the plate. He made an excellent speech.

Bridesmaids were Anne and Karen; Gina’s best friend and her sister.

We spent our first night together as man and wife at The Adelphi Hotel in Liverpool City Centre – at that time the best hotel Liverpool could offer.

We jetted off to Kenya the next day for a two week safari. Now you may be thinking “what happened to low budget?” – We borrowed the money. In fact the bank manager did suggest that we couldn’t afford it!

Kenya was fabulous. We took Andy’s camera with us (it had a massive lens) and when we went on our safaris I had a brilliant time taking pictures of the wildlife.