Today's our Wedding Anniversary.

It seems hard to believe, but 4 years ago today Neil & I were in California for our wedding.

Where does the time go?

We have wonderful memories of our wedding day, we were very lucky to have met our new friends, Lynn & Andy, on a Mediterranean cruise the year before. We had been dinner-table-buddies for the week and all got on really well, so there were the usual 'we must keep in touch' and 'here's our e-mail' comments at the end of the week, and we did keep in touch by e-mail. Lynn & Andy live in California, about an hour south of San Francisco, so probably felt safe from us 'just popping-in' - but then it happened. They got an e-mail from us to say we would be in California, in April 2005 - would they be at home for us to call.

After a few e-mails, what we had planned as an afternoon visit as part of our 2 weeks holiday in California, turned into us staying with them for the 2 weeks. We had only known them from our cruise but here they were, opening their home up to us. We had a wonderful 2 weeks in Gilroy, met so many of their friends and had a few days travelling to Yosemite & Las Vegas - to see a bit of the surrounding area.

While we were there, Lynn spoke to Neil and said if we were ever to think about getting married, they would be happy to host the wedding ceremony for us, should we wish.

A few weeks later, Neil proposed to me and, after a nano-second, I said yes. So, thoughts turned to the venue and we decided we would ask Lynn if she was serious about us getting married at their home in California, and when she said yes, we were both agreed - we would marry abroad.

For several reasons, we set the date for Sept 3rd, less than 4 months away. One of my dearest friends, that I had met at college, had missed my first wedding and said she was definitely going to be at my next. So, it was an interesting phone call to her to tell her we were getting married (lots of screams down the phone) and her immediate response was 'this time, I'll be there!' I told her I would love that but it was happening in California - her response? 'I don't care, I'm still going to be there!'

And so it was that the 3 of us flew to California on Thursday, 1st September. We were due to collect the marriage licence from San Jose on the Friday, with the wedding on the Saturday.

Lynn had been fabulous over the previous 4 months, organising ....... well, everything. She had sorted the flowers, the cake, the buffet, the tables & chairs, the guests, the photographer - just everything. All I did was turn up with my husband to be and my dress. I had e-mailed a photo of my dress to her so she could match the colour for the cake decorations and my flowers, oh there was just so much I had to be grateful to her for, the day was fantastic.

We were married in their garden by Lynn,who is registered to perfom marriages, with Andy as Neil's best man and my dear friend, Liz, as my bridesmaid.

There's so much more I could write, so many little stories to tell of our wedding day (mmmhhhh, I feel another blog idea) but it all went amazingly well and 4 years on, it still remains an incredibly wonderful memory for us.

And so Neil & I are well settled into our new life in Spain and in a few weeks our Californian friends will be here to spend some time with us.

All this from being dinner-table-buddies!

Many thanks to Lynn & Andy for being brilliant friends.

Happy Anniversary Neil.