Don't Tell Me I Can't… ...get Married After 27 Years

Tying the knot was never important for Melanie Browning and her partner – until nearly three decades after they met

- Bess Browning

Standing in front of my husband-to-be Steve, I repeated the vows read out by the registrar. ‘About time too,’ my mother Patricia laughed, as we exchanged rings. She was right. a wedding usually marks the beginning of a happy life together, but after 27 years with Steve, our journey had begun a long time before...

Like most girls, as a child I envisioned every detail of my wedding day but watching my parents, who’d married within a year of meeting, arguing endlessly and eventually splitting when I was 17, I became increasingly sceptical of fairy tale matrimony.