There was no time to arrange a wedding reception so, to keep it really simple, we invited our parents only. My father was not fond of travelling and felt he could not make the trip to England. Ursula’s mother came and her brother Grant who, being slightly handicapped, would not have understood why he was not invited, also came.
We informed Fr. Keirin that we wanted a full Nuptial Mass but he suggested we get married at the side altar, taking our vows and receiving the blessing of the church. However, we did not think the number of guests made any difference and finally persuaded Fr. Kieran to see it our way.
On the 8th of November 1974, we walked to the church together, wearing our best warm winter suits and were married at the main altar, with full nuptial mass, two altar-boys, the priest and all six of us standing in front of him. It was perfect!



Everything was peaceful, calm and sacramental. Our friends in London, France, Italy etc. had decided to have a mass said for our intentions exactly at the same time as the wedding ceremony - In all, there were 24 masses said for us that day - the most beautiful wedding present ever! We truly felt that they were all there in the spirit. After mass, we all piled into Ken’s little mini and went off for a meal in an Italian restaurant. We said goodbye to our guests - Ken and Rosemary went back to London and Ursula’s mum and brother took the train back to Scotland.
We can honestly say that we never felt in any way cheated out of our ‘Big Day’ In fact we remember every single minute of it.
During the ‘honeymoon’ weekend that followed, we went for walks and enjoyed being in our new flat together. It felt as though we were walking in a cloud of God’s blessings.
The following Monday we went back to work, refreshed and ready to start our new life together as a married couple.

A month after we got married, we decided to have a house Mass in our flat at 107 Richmond Road to thank God for all his blessings. Most of our London friends were eager to come and join us and we thought it would be marvellous if the Dominican priest, Fr. Simon Tugwell who was our friend and advisor, were to celebrate this mass for us. I wrote a letter to him suggesting this but heard nothing for a couple of weeks so we wondered whether he would in fact turn up.
In the meantime, Fr. Michael Simpson, a Jesuit priest from London who often counselled many of our group members, suggested that he celebrate Mass for us, and another young priest asked if he could join him. I felt slightly guilty not knowing what Simon was doing but was glad a Mass was going to be central to our celebrations, so I said, “yes, please come.”
A few days before the eighth I had a dream and distinctly saw Simon coming towards me, his words were “I will be there.” I felt relaxed and reassured and wondered what his reaction would be to concelebrating with two other priests.
Our guests started arriving at all hours of the day and it proved a marathon prayer session. By about 7.30 nearly everyone had arrived including Simon who took it for granted he was expected. We did indeed have mass, a wonderful concelebrated one. The evening was one of great joy, thanksgiving and praise. A real celebration of a Christian community.
During the mass, Fr. Tugwell said a few words about the occasion and jokingly warned about being too eager in collecting ‘saints’ referring to the three distinguished celebrants in our front room. I told him it was his fault, he never answered. We all laughed but really, it was God’s fault, just another demonstration of his amazing generosity of Spirit. It was HE who made this gathering possible.