40 for 40 - Anna Sugden

It's pretty typical of the way that the internet has connected the world now,  and the way those connections work in the romance writing that I actually met lovely Anna Sugden in America before realising that she was in fact a Brit and that she had lived  not too many miles away from where I live now.

Anna will tell you all about that in her post. She'll also tell you why she  is a special guest today. She is another of my friends who is celebrating  her wedding anniversary - and the celebrations are today.
Anna has another special reason to be celebrating - a little early today perhaps, but what's a few days when you're celebrating your  first sale, with  your very first book  - A Perfect Distraction  - coming out on September  1st. So I'm delighted that Anna could join us to mark bother these wonderful events.

Congratulations x 2 Anna!  And welcome -

I’m thrilled to be part of Kate’s 40 for 40, celebrating her 40^th anniversary with her fabulous hubby aka The Babe Magnet.

Kate is one of the nicest, kindest and most generous people I know. I first ‘met’ her over at eHarlequin, when I joined the awesome ‘Brit Pack’ contingent of the Struggling Writers thread, and we bonded over our love of cats! Kate was always the voice of calm and experience, helping us newbies through the torturous journey of writing and attempting to get published with sound advice, big hugs and a kick up the backside when needed *g*.


She’s supported me ever since, keeping me going through all the ups and downs of this crazy journey, so it’s particularly fitting that I can celebrate the release of my debut novel for Harlequin Super Romance -- A Perfect Distraction -- which is out Sept 1, at the same time as Kate and The Babe Magnet celebrate their wonderful anniversary!

Today is also particularly special for me - 12 years ago today, on a day that was just as hot as it has been here in England over the past few weeks, I married my very own romantic hero. So, happy anniversary, Doc Cambridge and thank you for twelve amazing years.

Doc Cambridge and I both appreciate tradition -- you can’t fail to being Brits! However, we’ve also always marched to a different drummer. For example, I’ve never found a bouquet of red roses particularly romantic, preferring instead gerbera daisies. As Meg Ryan said in “You’ve Got Mail”, they’re so cheerful.

And you can keep your diamonds -- they do nothing for me. Instead I love the fire and colours of opals.

When Doc Cambridge proposed, he broke with tradition too. He didn’t do the ‘down on one knee’ thing. He surprised me with a proposal poem that he’d written himself!

Our wedding wasn’t very traditional either. At that time, the only places you could get married in England were your local church or registry office. We’re not religious and the registry office wasn’t exactly romantic, so neither appealed. Luckily, the laws had just changed to allow us to get married in a beautiful, local country house hotel -- so we did.

I didn’t wear white or ivory, but oyster pink. My dress wasn’t long and meringue-like, but knee-length and fitted. No veil or hat, but gerbera daisies in my hair, to match my bouquet. My ‘bridesmaids’ didn’t have the traditional awful dresses, but wore their own outfits - which amazingly, actually matched. I didn't arrive in a limo, but in an antique car. Instead of sherry <blech> we had Pimms and champagne.

Oh, and for those of you who know my love of shoes - they were hand-made for me by Jimmy Choo!

Although my father did ‘give me away’, he didn’t give a speech. And although we did have a top table, it wasn’t the formal family arrangement traditionally found at English weddings - we had our dearest friends. No towering wedding cake either; partly because I can’t stand the heavy fruit cake that is traditional at our weddings. Though it’s common now to have cupcakes, at the time, we were one of the first.


Even our wedding photos weren’t traditional - we did have all the formal posed shots, but we also had a wonderful array of casual black and white shots too capturing the details, heart and the happiness of our wedding. We also put disposable cameras on each table so people could take happy snaps of the wedding - still some of our favourite pictures.


Ah, but just to be sure - I did follow one wedding tradition. My old was an embroidered hankie from my mother, my new was my wedding set of jewellery, my borrowed and blue was a blue garter from one of my best friends.


How about you? Are you one for traditions and everything done according to the ‘book’ or do you like to be different? Did you do something unusual for your wedding or did you stick strictly to tradition?

In honour of so many celebrations, I will give one lucky commenter a prize package that includes a signed copy of A Perfect Distraction, a presentation pack of special Royal Mail stamps commemorating Jane Austen, Cadbury’s chocolate and some Anna Sugden goodies.

My website is: www.annasugden.com and I can also be found on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest – links on my website.

A Perfect Distraction can be bought at all good book retailers including

Amazon.com

 and Amazon.co.uk

For those in Australia, it will be out as an Essence Duo in Sept, but I don’t have a link yet.