Having divested the single state, a wedding weekend becomes a memorable delight

Single women over the age of 30 hate weddings. Oh, they may assure you that's not the case, but trust me ... they do. I've spent years dreading wedding invitations. Delighted for my friends, of course, but angst-ridded over a day spent with a false smile upon my face, surrounded by couples, celebrating a desired state that I have no chance of reaching. Most of my wedding memories end with me alone in some posh hotel, crying myself to sleep with wet, gasping sobs as the sound of celebration continues to seep through the walls from the reception steaming along below.

Thankfully, those days are no more. Last weekend, for the first time ever, I attended a wedding as half of a whole. How that changes the perspective! You're no longer the lonely outsider peering through the window, you're a full participant in a glorious celebration of love. The dread is gone, there's only enjoyment. And perhaps a bit of hopeful dreaming for the future. So while I've been to more elaborate weddings, the circumstances mean that Sarah and Mark's simple Kentish country celebration has vaulted to best amongst my memories.

Of course, even in my formerly embittered state I would have appreciated the day, with Sarah's rigorous party planning and venues that could have sprung from a Jane Austen novel.

Tiny Tudely church near Tonbridge hosted the ceremony. The simple, whitewashed interior is enlivened by a set of windows by Marc Chagall, dappling the space with jewel-like blue light. The reception was at the nearby Plough at Leigh, the kind of rambling, architecturally venerable pub you always wish you could stumble upon in the countryside, and rarely do. The building dates from 1570 with a barn added about 100 years later.

A classic Kentish construction with hung tile exterior walls, it sits far enough down a leafy lane to give the impression of being in the middle of nowhere, though it's actually quite close to civilisation.

Sarah had booked both the garden, with its wedding-appropriate wishing well at its heart, and the barn. We were blessed with fine weather, afternoon sun gilding linen-draped tables set for a traditional afternoon tea. Sarah's party favours were chutneys and jams she'd made herself; the wedding cake was of the carrot variety also born in her kitchen. (Thank God. I'm still American enough to find the British tradition of wedding fruit cake with royal icing absolutely vile.) One guest at this event had a particularly bad time ... the spitted hog that had been dancing over the fire from the time we arrived. His noble sacrifice made a fine centrepiece for a buffet once the sun went down and we'd decamped to the old barn for dancing. The whole day was simple, highly personal and elegant, and I'm delighted to say the only tears I shed were ones of joy for my friend's happiness.

The wedding had also given us an excuse to briefly abandon the box-filled moving site that is our new home. We spent the weekend at The Hand and Sceptre, a gastropub with rooms on the outskirts of Tunbridge Wells. The place scored high on value for money: £110 for the two of of us for Friday and Saturday nights, with Sunday ... or a late check out ... thrown in for free. Thus you have to take my criticism with a grain of salt.

The Hand and Sceptre is trying very hard to be an elegant, modern, hip and trendy hotel. The colour palette is the inevitable beige, taupe and mushroom with stone tiled bathrooms and a few Asian decorative elements. I'm convinced somewhere there's a handbook everyone is using to make their places all safely the same. And yet, The Hand didn't quite get there. The first thing I noticed was a dead fly on the window sill, followed by badly-stained grout in the shower. The decorative elements in the room were nice, but two huge walls were completely empty. And then there's the ultimate betrayal of the luxury look: foam pillows and polyester-based bedlinens. It's as if they ran out of money near the end of their renovation, thus didn't have enough for finishing touches or maintenance.

It's a low budget version of the kind of thing you get for real at The Wavendon Arms in Milton Keynes (19.7.10) or The Crown in Wells-next-The-Sea (12.7.10). Had I not been to such places recently, I might not have been so critical. But I found myself wishing The Hand had either charged a little more to deliver on its promise, or not tried so hard so their delivery could match my expectations.

The restaurant was much the same. Cool, modern interior, heavy on walls of glass, pale wood and butcher block tables. A huge menu of the dining-around-the-world style (wood fired pizzas, country pate and Thai curry). The wine list was equally diverse and mostly in the £10 - £20 a bottle range. The food was good, though we both agreed that the fusion idea went too far in places. Haddock carbonara was interesting enough to be tried, but it really shouldn't have moved past the experiment stage. Breakfast, however, was a triumph of the traditional English fry up and embarassingly large. (Your room rate comes with a generous cold buffet and the cooked breakfast is a reasonable £5 surcharge, an idea I think more B&B's should adopt.) On the whole, the restaurant lived up to the promise of its design more than the rooms did. While I'd return here for a nice meal out, an overnight return would only be if we needed something functional and cheap in the area. For memorable charm I'd look elsewhere.

Fortunately, it was never the accommodation that was going to make this weekend memorable. I finally understand, and have partaken fully in, the celebration of togetherness that is a wedding. Long may it last.