40 for 40 - India Grey

Some people you just remember exactly where and when you met them. India Grey is one of those  people.  The Magnet and I had been invited to a party at Susan Stephens'  house. We had just negotiated a parking space close to the house when  the driver of the car parked in front emerged in a flurry of long, silky dark hair. When we realised we were heading in the same direction, she introduced herself as India Grey and, fizzing with excitement, produced  her very first copy of her not-yet-published book  The Italian's Defiant Mistress. I understood that excitement - it might be years ago now, but I still remember how it felt.
Another thing India and I share is our preference for understated weddings -  my wedding (to the Magnet of course!)  and hers sound really very similar - including the 'straight out of university'  bit.  Perhaps it's one of the reasons why we write romance - the real romance of a wedding is in the love between the bride and groom.
So India's post made me smile  as it brought back another memory. This time one of 40 years ago . . .

Thank you India - and welcome:

With an immensely successful career and 61 books (and counting) covering just about every luxurious setting imaginable, from grand palaces to exotic white-sanded beaches, there’s not much you could tell Kate Walker about the trappings of love. She’s a world-class expert, the Empress of Romance, so it might come as a bit of a surprise that she chose to spend her 40^th wedding anniversary, not in a posh hotel in Paris or a villa on the beach in St Lucia but in student accommodation in Sheffield. (A decision applauded by her many friends also at the RNA Conference this weekend!)

When Kate invited me to write a post to mark this special celebration it made my thoughts turn to weddings, and specifically the ones I’ve written in my books. It struck me that, although the books are about people who are wealthy and powerful enough to have the kind of nuptials which would cost enough to fund the NHS for a year and would warrant a pull-out souvenir section in OK! Magazine, they never actually do. Almost all of the weddings I’ve written have been tiny, private, sometimes even secret, because to me those are about a squillion times more romantic than the Windsor State Circus-style ones. When I got married,

straight out of university and reeling with love and laziness, I bought my dress from the first shop I went into – a vintage clothing shop where they had a grand total of two to choose from. (Since then, looking back at the photographs, I’ve often thought that a little more attention to boring details like finding one that actually fitted properly might not have been a bad thing...)

Having just written another very modest wedding in the book I’m currently working on (this time in wartime and featuring a borrowed dress, a bouquet picked from a neighbour’s garden and a buffet comprising bloater paste sandwiches and almost-fruitless fruit cake) I was interested to find out what kind of wedding Kate and Steve had. I suppose what I really mean is that I had an idea what I thought their wedding would have been like, and I was interested to find out if I was right. So, when I tentatively asked, ‘was it lavish?’ I probably would have fallen down the stairs (for that was where this conversation took place – you have to grab your chances whenever you can at the RNA conference, particularly with the perennially in demand Ms Walker!) if she’d sighed and said, ‘Oh yes... Six tiny bridesmaids in ankle-length silk spilling out of a fleet of vintage Rolls Royces and a reception for two hundred at the local country club...’

No. A dress made by her new mother in law, an heirloom veil from her Irish grandmother (the original Kate Walker). A reception of about twenty family members and close friends. ‘I didn’t really care who came...’ she admitted, and I knew what she meant. Because Steve was there and that was all that mattered. I guess that’s all that matters still, forty years later. And that’s why Sheffield was as good a place to celebrate as St Lucia.

Happy anniversary, Kate and Steve, and thank you for sharing your celebration with us here, and in Sheffield at the weekend.

I'd love to hear about other people's wonderful, low-key or spontaneous celebrations, whether for weddings or anniversaries or birthdays or anything else, and have two books from my back catalogue (the

wartime wedding book being still in progress) that feature the most understated weddings to give away: Spanish Aristocrat, Forced Bride and Mistress: Hired for the Billionaire’s Pleasure – plus chocolate, because books and chocolate go together like books and chocolate.

With three daughters of my own fast approaching wedding age I could do with storing up some ideas!