When Ray met Roz

Planning an accessible wedding wasn’t nearly as difficult as finding a hotel with a wet room, says Ray Lang

Roz and I met on the Disabled United website. We both joined to make friends and possibly find that special person.

We got on very well, we had similar tastes and sense of humour and just seemed to bounce off each other.

I kept asking Roz for her phone number and she kept saying no, because of all the horror stories she’d read about meeting someone on the internet. But I was persistent and one day she finally gave me her number.

We started to talk on April Fool’s Day 2005! The conversation just flowed and we talked every day for the next two weeks, for hours each day, until we finally met on 16 April. I lived in Kent and she was in Essex, so I visited her bungalow in Brentwood. She now says that probably wasn’t the brightest idea, but luckily I didn’t scare her off.

When we first met we were both very nervous. Because I am partially-sighted, I had to look around her home to familiarise myself with it, which I found embarrassing. Then we had a cup of tea and talked for hours. The next time I visited, we knew there was something between us.

After about three months, I stayed at Roz’s for a weekend, then after that a week, then two. At first, Roz would go into another room to change because she was embarrassed about her disability. But gradually I started to help her and things soon became comfortable between us. After a year of seeing each other, I moved in.

Roz has rheumatoid arthritis, so her mobility is poor, but our two disabilities complement each other. In a way, Roz is my eyes and I am her legs.

After I proposed to Roz, the venue was one of the first things we needed to get right. As Roz mainly uses a wheelchair and with my eyesight, we needed good lighting and somewhere spacious but not too big.

Several places we looked at were cramped and not wheelchair-friendly, and one hotel had no lift, with the wedding suite up a flight of stairs. They said Roz could be carried up and down in her wheelchair, but we would both have felt very uncomfortable. Another venue was better for Roz but not me as the layout was confusing.

We finally found a suitable venue, a sports and country club near Brentwood, which was very good for my sight and all on one floor, so perfect for Roz, too. The staff were great and luckily on the day, 13 July, we had no accessibility hitches. Roz decided she wanted to walk up the aisle with her mum, which touched everyone and almost brought me to tears. We had a fantastic day.

We’re going away this weekend and wanted to stay somewhere with a wet room for Roz. Organising that has proved more difficult than our wedding!