Linda and Kenneth's
	Wedding Homepage

Hi! Welcome to our wedding homepage. The following pages should tell you everything you ever wanted to know about us and our wedding. Thank you for visiting, and we hope to see you at the wedding!

Linda and I first met when she came to my shoe store in Inverness looking for a pair of Doc Martens (which I could not supply) and got chatting. I had been to Houston a few years back, so we talked about that. We seemed to get on quite well, but I didn't get a chance to ask her out. Besides, she was really just interested in the shoes, so she left to continue her quest for the elusive Docs. Later that afternoon, she very kindly (HA!) came back to tell me she had found them at the competition. It was my intention to ask her out when she returned to the store, but the shop was busy and my ego did not require a dent knocked into it by the elbow of rejection, so that should have been that.

However, as I was walking home from work that Friday evening, I met Linda again. This time, she was on the prowl for orange juice and bandaids (for her new shoes, bought elsewhere, were deservedly hurting her feet). This chance meeting was finally when I got the courage to ask her out. Of course, it might have worked better if she could have remembered who I was! A comment about Texas sparked her memory, and she said "yes" obviously, or you would not be reading this.

We went out to this little bar and restaurant called the Dores Inn (pronounced Doors) on the shores of Loch Ness. We had a delightful dinner, during which Linda couldn't get a word in over my nervous blethering (but Linda did tell me that she found this incessant talking very endearing). After dinner, we admired the Loch and pretended not to look for Nessie, the famous inhabitant.

It was a lovely warm night, a rare thing in Scotland as Linda shall tell you, and the sun on the water sparkled against the lush green hills surrounding this beautiful stretch of water, softening these features with a mystical aura which set the mood for a romantic evening.

From there, we drove through the Scottish hills back to Inverness. With the car safely deposited at my house, we traversed the lively pub scene. We sampled a few of the local ales and chilled out after a relaxing night. Well, I must have relaxed at least, because Linda finally got her chance to talk. We closed the bars, and I walked Linda back to her hostel.

Well, "the best laid schemes of mice and men oft gang aglee" as Robert Burns once said, and Linda's plans certainly went awry as she tried to go to her bed and discovered someone else was not only sleeping in it but also refusing to budge. This Goldilocks had apparently had one too many and wasn't bothered by all of Linda's stuff all over the bed. He just shoved it onto the floor and staked his claim.

So, poor Linda sat on the floor, remembered the "No Vacancy" sign on the door, and wondered what to do. Then she alighted on the great idea to bother the only person she knew in town and to beg for a place to stay. As the only person in town who Linda knew was already in his bed and fast asleep, I was a tad put out when the uncouth rapping on my door disturbed my gloriously deep slumber. (Go on, rub it in, Linda.)

Dragging myself out of bed while thinking that I had somehow moved to the USSR during the night, I opened the door to find this woman begging for a bed. (Happens all the time to me, I can tell you.) Maybe now looking back it might have been safer if it had been the secret police. I can say that because I know Linda's going to edit this...

So after stealing part of my sleep and my bed, Linda set off the next morning to demand a refund from the home of the three bears (that's the hostel to you and me). Once that was accomplished, she came to visit me in my store (that is 'shop' to our UK readers) to give me her address back in the states.

Luckily no one in the shop asked if they could help her as this may have presented her with a problem since she could not remember my name. Understandable, you might think, but as I had written my name and address on the fly leaf of a book I had gifted her and as she had seen it, I did wonder if she was, at times, not the sharpest pencil in the box.

So that should have been that, but Linda had other ideas. Distance held no fear for her. She wrote to me once she got back to New Jersey, and I meant to write back, honestly, but, as you can tell, I'm not the greatest writer in the world. Her second letter guilted me into responding, and the whole thing has snowballed since then.

I visited her, she visited me, we met the families, and the rest, as they say, is history - and herstory, too.

Now, the wedding's planned, and we hope you'll be able to share it with us. You'll find links below with information you might need about the wedding, and we look forward to seeing you there!

Linda and I will live at 3 Commerce Street, Elgin IV30 1BS, Scotland, UK.

Kenneth Paterson and Linda Bednar

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