When Amy Dennison and her partner Matt got engaged, they had a unique idea for their nuptials…
Sitting in a local café with my friend Bernice on one our regular meet-ups, we sipped our lattes. ‘We should try something different,’ she said. ‘Something fun that will get us moving.’
‘Well how about Hula-Hooping?’ I suggested. ‘It looks like fun – plus I’ve heard it’s an incredible workout.’ ‘Sounds a laugh, I’m in,’ she giggled. With no room to wield the hoops at home, we went to a local hall near my Southampton home that was available for people to meet up and do activities in.
Armed with our weighted hoops and ready to wiggle our hips, I pushed open the door. I spotted a group setting up for juggling practice. I glanced over and a guy caught my eye. He had chestnut hair and twinkling hazel-green eyes.
‘He looks lovely,’ I thought to myself. The hall had a great communal feel, and before long we were mingling with people who were keen to learn to hoop, in exchange for a quick juggling lesson – including the handsome man...
‘I’m Matt,’ he grinned. ‘Nice to meet you.’ We ended up chatting, and our conversations over the next few weeks lasted longer than my shortlived enthusiasm for hooping – so much so, that I eventually ditched it for juggling!
Our conversation blossomed into a friendship. We were soon meeting up once a week to hit the pool and hot tub at our local gym – it felt like we’d known each other forever.
‘He’s very handsome,’ Bernice smiled to me over drinks one Friday night. ‘Are you sure you’re not more than friends?’
‘Don’t be silly,’ I laughed, sipping a glass of ginger beer. ‘We’re just friends, nothing more.’
But over the next few months, more and more people made small, well-meaning, comments about our friendship and gave us knowing smiles when they saw us together. Like in the great Jane Austen romance novels themselves, I had a sudden moment of clarity, like a thunderbolt out of the blue, that this was more than just friendship.
After our hands brushed while in the hot tub together one evening 18 months after we’d first met, there was a frisson of excitement.
‘I really like him,’ I finally confessed to Bernice over a drink. ‘What do I do now?’ I certainly didn’t want to ruin the friendship.
‘You have two options,’ she advised. ‘Either be brave and tell him like all the heroines in the great romances do, like Lizzie and Mr Darcy, or keep schtum and never know.’ She had a point…
