Wedding Blog

My romantic story is from Valentines Vay this year. My BF is a doctor and was working a particularly busy ward on Valentines Day this year, but was adamant that he would be home in time to cook me dinner that night. My BF is on record as maintaining that as long as you use two ingrediants, it counts as cooking: adding cheese on top of an oven pizza: cooking. Two portion microwave meal: cooking.

I meanwhile, channel Martha Stewart at any opportunity so I was apprehensive to say the least. We live together, so I got home, cleaned up a bit (myself and the house) and put some champagne in the freezer, expecting him home within the half hour. An hour and a half later he comes home and shuts himself in the kitchen. An hour after that, I’m foot tapping and feeling rather lonesome trying to maintain an alluring position on the couch and getting pretty hungry…

Eventually he appears … with a three course spectacular. We have soup to start (fresh packaged but not tinned at least!) with bruschetta. Then *spatchcocked chicken* (!!!) with gratin potatoes, caramalized orange, carrots and beans on the side. Then for dessert, a layered mango, chocolate sauce and cream sundae. I was blown away.

It transpired that he had been on the train home from the hospital using his palm pilot and mobile phone to go online, look up recipes and then went to three different supermarkets trying to find the ingredients. The rather random oranges on the side of the main course were “from a duck recipe but I thought they looked nice”! The fact that he went to so much effort for me, when it really wasn’t his idea of an evening well spent, meant so much more to me than booking a table at the nearest restaurant.

For our first anniversary, he also spent two weeks tracking down and eventually driving two hours to find a jeweller to get a matching bracelet for a ring I’d purchased. The boutique where I’d purchased it no longer carried the line. This was all in time for a surprise trip to meet me while I was on tour in Edinburgh.

I go in for big gestures and fanfares and it’s really easy to miss the quiet lengths he goes to to make me happy and feel loved. I promised myself after Valentines this year to expect less grandeur and I will get far more romance. And it’s been so true.

Helen
London