A VALENTINE'S day wedding will top a three-year romance for a North Yorkshire couple who met through the pages of the Evening Press.

Kay Iveson, 34, and Barry Derbyshire, 40, went on their first date on St Valentine's Day 1999, after she answered an advert he had put in our Two's Company column.

"It was the first time he'd put an ad in and he was the first person I'd answered," said Kay.

"We spoke on the phone for about an hour and a half and then went for a date on Valentine's Day.

"We just went to the local pub for a drink and it carried on from there."

Eighteen months ago, Kay, from York, moved in with Barry with her two sons, Christopher, now six, and Jonathan, four, and they were getting married today at Selby Register Office.

Barry, a highways engineer, from Camblesforth, near Selby, has two daughters of his own, Nicola, 13, and Natalie, 11.

Kay, an IT trainer for the NHS, said: "It was really strange how it went on. I was a single parent and working and Barry was and worked full-time as well. I was in the same situation and you just don't seem to have the time to meet somebody.

"I just wanted to meet someone. I never thought it would turn out as it has done. It seems almost fate. We've never really told anybody how we met, nobody's really asked, they've just accepted that we met and that was it."

Updated: 09:29 Thursday, February 14, 2002