Gill's diary

Gill Banks is 23 and lives in High Wycombe. She works for a Communications company that sells video conferencing equipment and travels round the country training customers who have bought the equipment. Gill got engaged to Mike Dover, who is 24, just over a year ago, on her 22nd birthday. Mike and Gill originally met over 10 years ago when they were growing up in neighbouring villages near High Wycombe. Throughout the years their paths kept crossing and they are now busy planning their wedding for next year: the big day being 31st July 2004! Read Gill's story and pick up some useful tips along the way.

The engagement

I first spied Mike when I was about thirteen, but as he was one of the popular boys I never plucked up the courage to speak to him! As we lived very close to each other, inevitably throughout the years our paths crossed many times and we found that we knew many people in common. It took me until I was eighteen (with a bit of Dutch courage from an alcopop or two) to actually speak to Mike. When we arranged to go out on a date soon after, I was walking on air. Unfortunately this wasn't to last (I tease him now about him dumping me and breaking my heart!) and we agreed to stay friends. I was needless to say, gutted, but vowed to never let Mike know!

It started in a snooker hall...

We both continued enjoying life, Mike went travelling to Australia and I went to work in Spain. I wasn't long back from Spain, heading for my 21st birthday and proclaiming to anyone that would listen that I was so happy being single and wanted to stay that way for the foreseeable future. One evening I went along to the local snooker hall (not the most romantic setting) to watch a couple of friends play. As I didn't expect to see anyone other than these two friends that I was meeting, I had made absolutely no effort with hair, clothes or make-up. I wandered into the snooker hall and started watching, not really noticing anyone else, when my friend Jamie pointed out Mike playing on the table next to where I was sitting. Not understanding the importance of hair and make-up to a woman, Jamie was incredibly amused at how mortified I was to see Mike when I looked so bad. I figured there was nothing I could do except brazen it out, pretending to be only mildly interested in Mike, when really I was over the moon to see him!

The next day I had two text messages on my mobile, one from my Mum, worried that she had done the wrong thing by giving my mobile number to 'a lovely sounding man who phoned the house' and a text from Mike. I was needless to say extremely grateful to my Mum, much to her relief. We decided that after our previous attempt, we would just take it slowly and see how things went. One date soon turned into seeing each other as often as humanly possibly!