Ladies (and some gents), I present to you:
InkedDoll’s Gretna Green Wedding Report!
(Before we start: I apologise that the pics are watermarked. We don’t have the proper ones back from the tog yet, but I wanted to do it while everything was still relatively fresh in my mind!)
Part One: How we met and proposal
H and I hail from different parts of the country, but both moved to Manchester in the late 90s. When I got my first job at a large well-known ticket agent, I befriended a girl who was also new, and H was a friend of hers. Neither he nor I can recall our first meeting, but it’s safe to say it was in a nightclub where he used to DJ (shout out to the late Jilly’s Rockworld), and there was likely alcohol involved.
Over the years we moved in and out of the same social circles, and when I started sharing a flat with another good friend of his in 2007, we started seeing more of each other. I was long-term single, but he was in a relationship, so nothing happened between us. Then in 2012 he became single, and we began flirting via email. He asked me to be his girlfriend after only a week or so, and I happily accepted.
Things became very serious between us very quickly. Despite the fact that I was 37 and fairly jaded after so many years of being alone, it was a whirlwind romance, of the type that I never thought I would experience. We started talking about moving in together after about three months, but were both tied to contracts and other flatmates, so that became a tedious process of looking at places without really knowing if we could take them. Marriage was also discussed, but I said we should wait til we lived together, at least.
Then one evening in May 2013, just over six months after we started dating, we were sitting on my sofa watching Match of the Day when he dropped to his knee and took from his pocket…a Ring Pop. This was a reference to a now defunct sitcom we both loved, The New Normal. I tried to find the scene on youtube so I could link it in, but alas no joy. Instead, here is what a Ring Pop looks like:
I laughed and told him to stop being ridiculous. He sat back down. About an hour later, he dropped to one knee again, and produced my vintage ruby and diamond in white gold engagement ring. I said yes. I cried. We texted my mother and ordered a takeaway pizza.
Ring
Pizza
Part two to follow…