Who would ever have thought that I would have ended up in Colombia, getting married in Cartagena, opening a hotel in Mompós writing the Michelin Guide and being a legal alien? After all, it’s a long way from a comfort zone of one of London’s leafier boroughs. But, I often feel that you make your own path and we all have a responsibility to help one another and well, after more than a few years of wandering, I ended up here. And of course, if I hadn’t been on the gringo trail all of this time I would never have met Alba, enough said, you all know how the story continues…  

It was mooted as well during my time at the NGO that I was leaving to join the Foreign Legion. I even looked at the recruiting process, but, after the careful consideration of a few seconds I decided that I valued my life.

There are so many people to thank for this magnificent event and well, I don’t know where to start. This wouldn’t have been possible without my darling wife, her family who are admirably represented here in force today and the dozens of people that we had to hire and fire to get it all done.

I need to thank those who have travelled far, a distance is relative when you compare hours of bone breaking travel over unpaved roads to arrive from Mompós, or long internal journeys from about Colombia. But, it is a real honour and very flattering to have people here who have come from as far adrift as from Canada, the United States, England and Thailand. What were you thinking? Your passports will never be treated the same again at immigration. And a special mention to those who arrived from England via Cali, perhaps the furthest most distant city still within Colombian territory into which to fly in order to reach Cartagena.

And so, here we find ourselves in this most romantic, picturesque and historic city. A city that inspires artists and celebrated bohemians and indeed stole our hearts and we wanted to share this with all of you.  

And I want to briefly address a topic close to my heart, that of absent friends and family. There are three people of course that I would have wanted here dearly, my father, mother and little brother all of whom enjoyed a good party. And while this is a somber note, I don’t feel alone as my family is ably and lovingly represented by the wonderful, caring and generous Paula, so a toast please to Paula.

And well, look around you, no fear, this enormous crowd is new family spanning from the deserts of the Guajira to the highlands of Bogota and of course for Alba all of these new faces and family members from England, Canada and so on are representative of a growing but yet more familiar world.

And look at Alba, please, a toast for my beautiful bride before I pass you over to the best man since I’m not going to stand up here all day and bore you with bad jokes, that’s his job.