A funny thing happened on the way to the Beer Festival... Bev's 40th birthday, Saturday 28th April.

Happy birthday to me. Happy birthday to me. Happy birthday dear me-he. Happy birthday to me!

I decided to celebrate at the 16th Chippenham Beer Festival since they were kind enough to hold it on my birthday – very thoughtful of them , I think you'll agree. It also meant that I didn't have to organise a party and it saved wear and tear on the new carpet.

Attendees were carefully selected from those of our acquaintance who appreciate murky beer and rough cider and can talk bollocks about them even before the first pint of Old Tom (8.5%) has taken effect. And when that didn't narrow the guest list down much we just picked those who could make it on the day. (To any friends who feel that they meet the initial criteria but weren't invited, our apologies. Get in touch and we'll put you on next year's guest list). So, this year's motley assortment were: Bev and Jon, Bev's Dad, Jon's Dad and his mate Dave, Jon's brother and sister, Messrs Davvie, Bones and Keith. With Bev and Jon's Mums and Helen (with Archie) doing the driving and having a potter round town for the afternoon.

Anyway, a funny thing happened on the way to the Beer Festival... We got married...

Yes, your eyes didn't deceive you. After almost 20 years of unwedded bliss we're now legal. We decided about 3 weeks before my birthday and didn't tell anyone, well except the Registar of course (oh, and George and Caroline, but more of that later). We arranged a strategy where Jon would tell all the above (and Roz) that they had to be at the Angel Hotel at 11.30am for Jon to give me a birthday surprise. They thought that he was going to tell me that we were going away to Bruges – which actually was a surprise but he had to tell me a couple of days before because he was fed up with me making appointments for Monday 30th and him having to keep ringing people 5 mins later and cancelling them! So, everyone turns up, Jon proposes a toast and tells them that I already know what my present is, and I say “You thought you all knew what the surprise was, but the real surprise is just round the corner, please follow us”.

So, we led them into Timber Street and round behind the Museum and then heard the chorus of screams as the Mothers spotted the 'Registry Office' sign. There was general hysteria from the rellies and much giggling from Jon and me – it really was worth keeping it secret just to see everyone's faces as they realised what was happening. So that explains why Jon and I are more formally dressed and everyone else looks like they're going to a beer festival. They were all shown upstairs into the ceremony room (which is lovely – Georgian with chandeliers and beautiful flower arrangements) and had just about calmed down by the time we were shown in.

We kept the ceremony very simple and didn't exchange rings, but it still felt like a proper official ceremony – more than we'd expected it to. Jon's sister Claire and our friend from university, Keith, were the witnesses. As with most weddings, the photos took longer than the ceremony, but by 12.30 we were downing our first halves at the Beer Festival. Apparently, Helen had to take the Mums for a cup of tea and feed them to calm them down 'cos they were so jittery and didn't know if they were coming or going!

Then members of our group spotted the photographer from the Gazette and Herald... Knowing that this would be just the sort of story he would like he was waylaid and we ended up having a couple of photos taken - this and this. When the piece about the Beer Festival appeared in the paper on Thursday the headline read "Lovebirds live merrily ever after. Couple share a pint just after tying the knot on the day of town's popular beer and cider bonanza"!

I got £5.00 of free tokens for saying we'd just got married and when Jon went up to the bar with his “I do” badge on from George he was given his tokens back and was given a free drink! Our friends George and Caroline couldn't make it to Chippenham as their third child had just put in an appearance, which is why they were the only people to know in advance what we were planning. So George had t-shirts made up saying “Just Married” with the CAMRA logo on, so we changed into those quite soon and Jon got more free beer when he went to to the bar!

Anyway, we had a lovely afternoon on the grass in the park, drinking beer and talking rubbish in the sunshine. At 3.30pm they called last orders and we wandered back to the house to have tea and cake with Helen, Archie and the Mums. But it was our turn to be surprised – whilst we'd been at the Beer Fest they'd managed to find a wedding cake in Chippenham, complete with plastic couple and everything! Lots of champagne was added to the beer, but luckily there was lots of cake to soak it up! All in all it was a very good 40th birthday.

So, why did we do it? Well, as you all know, there's no such thing as 'common law marriage' and unmarried couples have no rights to inherit, etc. Although we'd got Wills and Enduring Powers of Attorneys set up there were still one or two areas that we couldn't legally sort out without being married - pensions and Inheritance Tax amongst them - so we gave in!