'Why I'm taking the plunge'

A few weeks ago, I announced that I was getting married. I've had one phone call of congratulations, a rather sceptical e-mail, and, well, that's about it. Although I have six brothers and sisters, I've heard from only one of them, and that was to say she wouldn't be coming over from Australia for the wedding. I've been going out with my boyfriend for nearly two years, we live together, I haven't been married before, and I'm nudging 40, so what is the problem? Why aren't my friends and family happy for me?

Admittedly, I did announce my nuptials in an unconventional manner. I have started to write a weekly magazine column called The Wedding Planner, which is accompanied by an illustration of me wearing a white wedding gown.

Not much room for confusion there, but people still don't seem to take my engagement very seriously. One of my best friends, Kerry, e-mailed me with the following: "Great news, Lizzie, but how much of it is actually true?"

My friends and family, and indeed my long-suffering boyfriend (I described him in this newspaper recently as "smelly, splashy and windy"), are inured to me writing about my life in one way or another. I used to write a column in a Sunday newspaper about being single, bemoaning the lack of unattached, eligible men with good table manners and no restraining orders.

I would rail against small children and couples who hold hands in public, and how much I loved Friday night telly with no interruptions, and spending entire weekends wearing a pore strip and pyjamas. Sitting in bed with my laptop on my knees writing about the joys of singledom, I resembled Carrie Bradshaw, although not as well dressed, and not as thin, obviously.

Maybe that's the problem. Suddenly, the second most notoriously single person my friends and family know (the first is obviously Bridget Jones, no relation) is throwing in the towel and joining the ranks of smug marrieds who shop in Sainsbury's together. It is, I admit, a bit of an about-turn.

I am miffed at the lack of enthusiasm, having spent most of my adult life going to other people's weddings and being very supportive. When an old friend announced she was marrying her boyfriend, a man she had moaned about for the past seven years, I didn't warn her against it, saying, for example:"But he wears women's underwear" (one of her many complaints). I went along to the boring two-part ceremony. I do think you ought not to interfere in other people's relationships, however misguided they seem.

I've bought wedding presents for people who divorced two years later, and I've bought toys and designer outfits for my numerous nephews and nieces (the last count was 10). When you "just" live with someone, and have "only" three small cats, you never get any good gifts. I made my friend Michelle feel so guilty about not saying how happy she is that she offered me her house in Seville for the hen party.

So why aren't people thrilled now that it's my turn? My mum thinks that, at 28, he is far too young for me - "Anything more than a decade is asking for trouble." His mum, on the other hand, thinks I'm perfect for him, which might have something to do with the fact she is now able to use his old bedroom as storage space. My friend Sue thinks I'm far too highly strung and high maintenance for someone so laid back

"You'll make his life hell." My cleaner thinks he's not tidy enough. My sister thinks the huge disparity in our incomes - he is a wannabe novelist - could pose problems: "You shouldn't marry out of your caste," she said, a reference to a line in Sex and the City, not to the fact that he's Sikh and I'm Catholic. I began to wish I hadn't asked; now even I was starting to have doubts.

My friend Robi agreed, like everyone else, that my boyfriend is kind, funny, intelligent and handsome. But she didn't think that I was the marrying kind. "It seems, well, a bit grown up and conventional for you," she said, trying to be tactful. "You are a bit childish."

This is true. I still buy singles, I'm looking forward to the new series of Dawson's Creek and I vote every week for my favourite Pop Idol. But then, so does my boyfriend. And just because we're getting married doesn't mean I'm going to start making flaky pastry and he's going to start bleeding the radiators. We're getting married because we love each other. Nothing else - certainly not approval - matters.