But when my girl married her husband 18 months ago, I was struck by their courage and their honesty and their certainty. Despite the fact that they were only in their early 20s, they were willing to commit and not keep their options open.
Oh, we'd talked about marriage, the Irishman and I. But it all seemed like such a palaver. And it is. What sort of wedding? Who to invite? How to afford it? And yes, I know our wedding will be in the New Zealand Woman's Weekly but I'm a columnist with them and we weren't paid a cent - in return for the pictures, the NZWW will make donations to three Coromandel charities.
But while there was a bit of hoo-ha initially, after the decisions were made on where and who to invite, the whole thing's been remarkably stress-free. Perhaps that's because I'm an older bride. I'm not stepping off the edge into the unknown.
I've had a marvellous single life; I've done my apprenticeship in Relationships 101 over 15 years and now it's time to graduate to fully fledged wifedom.
