WHEN a young girl first met a French teenager in her rural village in Herefordshire, little did she know that more than 40 years later he would become her husband.

Emma van Laun, as her name was when she was 11, met Vincent Valbret in Longtown during a summer holiday.

Vincent had come from Paris and was staying with a penpal in Northampton, when they went to the Longtown Education Centre, which at the time was run by Emma's parents, John and Miriam van Laun.

The centre was for many years owned by the then Northampton County Council and was an outward bound centre specifically for schools in Northampton.

Emma, now 52, said: "Vincent suggested that I (aged 11) could become the correspondent of his sister, Hélène, who was the same age as me.

"Hélène and I visited one another over the next three to four years."

Their parents stayed in touch for the next 37 years, while Emma and Vincent went their separate ways. Emma married and lived in London where she had two children, while Vincent married and had four children and lived in Paris.

But four years ago, Vincent contacted Emma to see if she would like to do a second generation exchange with one of his sons (then 15) and her younger daughter of the same age. By this point, both Emma and Vincent were divorced.

Emma said: "Vincent and I met again and of course, fall in love. Two years later I moved to Paris and two years after that we married."

They were married at La Mairie in the fifteenth Arrondissement of Paris in August.

Their reception was held at Pavillon Royal in The Bois de Boulogne. There were 150 guests from 12 different countries but mostly France and the UK.