Our wedding ceremony took place at St Peter's Church in Mill End, Rickmansworth. We were blessed with a beautiful sunny day, not something you can count on during November in England.

The guests were greeted by our three ushers, Mike's brother Stephen Robbins, nephew Matthew Robbins and Linda's cousin David Andersen.

Mike arrived at the church accompanied by his best man, friend Tony Smith. After the obligatory photographs they settled in the church to await the arrival of the bride.

The bride's mother and the bridesmaids duly appeared. The bridesmaids were Linda's friends Nicola Mercer and Laura Aitken, and Mike's nieces, Claire Mason and Hannah Robbins. The bridesmaids assembled at the door but where was the bride?

It's traditional for the bride to be late but in this case it wasn't her fault (no, really, it wasn't!). The bridal car had to return to her parents' home because her father had forgotten his top hat! This caused much amusement to some walkers in Shepherds Lane who saw the car pass them three times in various directions, resulting in the driver opening his window on the third encounter to remark "she'll make up her mind in a minute".

Finally Linda made it to the church and entered on her father's arm to the sound of Wagner's Wedding March from Lohengrin.

The ceremony went without a hitch (except the one that we were all there to see) and included the hymns "Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the King of Creation" and "Love Divine, all Love's Excelling". The reading was from Corinthians 13, verses 1-13, and was read by Mike's father.

During the signing of the register, which was witnessed by our mothers, the choir sang the anthem "Make me a Channel of your Peace".

The ceremony complete, we left the church to Mendelssohn's Wedding March from A Midsummer Nights Dream, preceded by Hannah who carried out her duties as flower girl in an exemplary fashion.

Wedding party and guests then assembled outside for photographs before heading off for the reception.