Kate's Wedding by Chrissie Manby Page A

given up on the idea of ever being in a long-term relationship again, let alone getting married. But then she met Ian, and now she was going to have a wedding, albeit a full decade later than ‘the norm’.
    ‘Has hell frozen over?’ asked one of her college friends when she telephoned to tell him the news. Even her very best female friends – Helen and Anne, who had known her since the three of them had rocked up at Cambridge, aged eighteen – agreed that they wouldn’t have put money on this particular outcome, though they were absolutely delighted, of course.
    But no matter how often Kate kept pinching herself, expecting the status quo to be restored at any moment, Ian was still there beside her when she woke up in the morning. He had been beside her for only eleven months but already it was starting to feel as though Kate had never been without him. She certainly never wanted to be without him again. Spending the rest of her life with him should be a breeze.
    When people asked how they met, Ian would say, ‘In a bar.’ He wouldn’t be drawn any further. Ian liked to keep things simple. Plus, he was slightly embarrassed by the truth.
    ‘Your version of events makes me sound like an alcoholic nympho who hangs around in public places waiting for unsuspecting men,’ Kate protested, but Ian did not want people to know they had met through a dating site.
    Kate had no such qualms, though she found that when she said, ‘We met on Sugardaddy.com,’ people were generally too amused to ask for the whole truth, which was that she and Ian had found one another on Guardian Soulmates. Perhaps it wasn’t as romantic as eyes across a room, but, realistically, where else would she have met her match at such a late stage in the game? The pool Kate could fish from had dwindled dramatically during the four years she had wasted with Dan. She just didn’t meet single men any more. She didn’t have a wing-woman with whom to go clubbing. Most of her friends had long since paired up and were on to their second, third or even fourth babies. Kate’s social diary was all fortieth birthday parties and christenings. She hadn’t been invited to a wedding in years. The choice was simple: it was sign up or never have sex again for the rest of her life.
    Kate actually passed over Ian’s profile the first time she saw it. He hadn’t included a photograph and the computer declared them to be just a 20 per cent match. Despite such a damning assessment, Ian wrote to her anyway, and through his emails he soon set himself apart from the crowd. He was polite and thoughtful. There was none of the innuendo that she had come to expect. He didn’t seem to be trying to gauge whether she might be up for a one-night stand. Ian said in his profile that he was looking for a serious relationship and he approached their early acquaintance accordingly. Kate was glad. The week before Ian started writing to her, she had become embroiled in a furious email slanging match with a man who accused her of being a ‘frigid bitch with an agenda’ because she asked if she could have his phone number in preference to giving him hers for the sake of personal safety. In that context, perhaps it was easy for Ian to seem refreshingly normal. Whatever, by the time Ian let Kate see his photo, she was already sold. She knew she would definitely meet him.
    Ian’s behaviour on their first date was equally gentlemanly. He was waiting for her when she arrived at the bar where they agreed to meet for a drink. He said he had been there for fifteen minutes already to make sure she didn’t find herself alone. He didn’t want her to feel awkward. Kate appreciated that. She had chosen a drink at a bar as the safe option. As a veteran of Internet dates, she knew only too well that what seemed promising online could quickly turn into a nightmare when you brought it into the real world. She was determined not to be stuck spending a whole evening with a man whose conversation began