It all started when Sarah and I met in the Nelsons Head back in 2004. I remember trying to give her a charity raffle ticket (the sort that you’d never find out if you’d won), but every time I slipped it into her hand she’d find a cunning way of passing it back. I saw her again a few weeks later when she was desperately trying to get away from being set up with Sarah Halliwell’s friend. I saw my opportunity to sweep in and save her, so when we spent the evening dancing in the music box I thought my luck was in, but she got in a taxi with her friends, passed me her plate of chips out the car window and waved as the taxi pulled away, leaving me high and dry! At least I had some chips to eat as I walked home. Thankfully I knew Katie Sherwin had Sarah’s number, so I asked her to meet me for a drink the next weekend.

Not long after we’d started dating, I remember having the ‘where are we’ chat... I had it all planned, take her out for dinner and ask her, but my courage kept escaping me and she just wouldn’t stop talking, so on the way home, I pulled up in Splash Lane, looked her in the eye and said ‘Where do we stand?’ and she replied ‘Well you haven’t asked me to be your girlfriend?’ so I boldly replied ‘Will you go out with me?’ and when she burst out laughing hysterically, I realised she had tricked me into asking a really stupid question and how silly I must have looked. I hadn’t had to ask that question since I was about 14!

When Sarah and I went for our first meal, we had a curry at the Kushiara. I was looking at her thinking how beautiful she was, when all of a sudden her hand came down by her plate and flipped a fork full of rice into her hair! I could tell she was embarrassed so tried to stifle my giggling as she spent the next 30 min picking it all out. As funny as she looked, I couldn’t help but find her the most adorable girl I’d ever met!

We had been going out a couple of months and it finally dawned on me that I loved Sarah and wondered if she felt the same. I met Sarah after work on a Friday for her favourite part of the week - ‘The Nelsons Head at happy hour’, thinking it wont be long until she has had a few glasses of wine and I can ask how she feels about me. Well she obviously hadn’t had enough wine because when I asked her, she replied with ‘Don’t you think I realise that you’ve been waiting for me to get drunk before asking me a question like that?’ It took me by surprise how easily she saw through my plan, although she did tell me that she loved me straight after and told me not to be afraid to tell people how I feel in future!

We haven’t had much luck with hotels in our time. For our first Valentines Day I took Sarah to a posh hotel in Manchester. It was a nightmare to find it navigating through the one-way system, so when we finally arrived to find fire engines outside and the pavement packed by the guests, we feared the worst. It was a false alarm, thankfully. We stayed in a hotel in London where the porter who came to help fix our lights smelled so bad we had to leave the room. We had a hotel room on the Isle of Wight that had a bathroom so small that when sat on the toilet, my hip touched the side of the bath as my shoulder was tight up against the wall! Our first holiday together was spent in a hotel where the departing guests warned us not to leave clothes on the floor as the bathrooms often flood with overflowing toilets and blocked drains.

I proposed to Sarah in March when I collected her from Stansted Airport. She’d been to visit her friend Laura Daniel who lives in Edinburgh, and she was due to land at 11:45am. I had bought an enormous bunch of red roses and prepared large cards like a taxi driver would use to greet their booking as they come through the gate. I arrived at 11:30am, wandered over to the arrivals section and went for a nerve settling wee. I wanted to stand at the front of the crowd so that as Sarah came through the gates, she’d see me straight away and I’d have room to come forward and propose in front of the crowd. Everyone was jostling for position, and my heart was racing as I had to peer past everyone and manoeuvre past people with every wave of arrivals that came through the door. It was like shopping on Oxford Street in the January sales.

Of course everyone had noticed me stood there with my huge bunch of flowers, name boards and nervous look on my face, and I’m sure they all knew something was up. As I looked around, lots of people were looking at me but one woman in particular stood out as she had a weird grin on her face. I kept checking my watch, wondering how long it would take Sarah to get through passport control and collect her baggage. I looked around again and the grinning woman was still looking at me. She made me nervous just looking at her. Five more minutes went by and I was starting to get twitchy. I looked for the grinning woman but it appeared that she’d gone, only for me to find she’d moved to stand right beside me! If I wasn’t already freaked out enough, imagine my horror when she leaned over and said “I think I know what’s about to happen, so I wanted to get the best view.” She seemed pleased with herself, but it made me feel even more uncomfortable.

To my horror, Sarah rang me to tell me that she’d been waiting for me by the Juice Bar for the last 45 minutes. Puzzled as to how she’d got past me, but somewhat relieved, I walked away from the arrivals area to find her. As I wandered across the airport, I realised that I’d been waiting at the International Arrivals area, whereas the Edinburgh flight came through the Domestic Arrivals area at the other end of the airport! I saw Sarah coming towards me with a big grin on her face. We finally met in front of the airline information desks, with loads of women swooning around us as they saw me rotate my cards and reveal the phrase “Will you marry me?” After a big hug and kiss, it was obvious Sarah had said yes, and we were surrounded by lots of clapping and smiley faces.