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Our lives since then have been a whirlwind of happy anticipation, tinged with panic. Less than two months to pick a venue, find a celebrant, dig up passports and birth certificates, send out invitations, order cakes and flowers and, in my case, drop at least two suit sizes. Yikes!

Julia is Australian, which, in part, explains why we have taken so long to get around to marrying. With loved ones in two hemispheres, it is hard to keep everyone happy. We couldn't very well split the difference and get married somewhere in the middle.

Our solution – a wedding in Melbourne, with a celebratory lunch in Oxford three weeks later – is not perfect. But simply announcing our plans has brought a smile to so many faces that we have been wondering what took us so long.

We have both been married before, another factor inducing caution, but you can be Elizabeth Taylor going up the aisle for the eighth time and still benefit from the Wedding Effect – the overwhelming feel-good emotion that erupts in breasts young and old as soon as you mention the W-word.

"Daddy, I'm so happy for you!" shrieked my daughter, bursting into tears. The response of our friends to a round-robin email was equally gratifying. The phone did not stop ringing, and my inbox was deluged within hours. "Are you sure you're not rushing into this?" joked one friend.

Even complete strangers have been happy to share in our happiness. One French hotelier insisted on getting a bottle of vintage wine from his cellar, so that he could toast our health in broken English. I told a family waiting at a bus stop why I was grinning and got spontaneous applause.

It hasn't all been plain sailing. Marrying in middle age can never be quite the same as marrying in your twenties, in the days of innocence. We were sent a draft order of service by our Australian celebrant that made us wince in horror. It read like a script for a teenage movie. All those corny protestations of undying love, finding the man/woman of your dreams… Some drastic re-editing was needed.

My speech at the wedding in Melbourne will also be problematic. I know I won't be able to resist making passing reference to the fact that England thumped Australia 3-0 in the Ashes, and that Andy Murray beats Australian tennis players for fun, but when will rubbing in the point become rude to my hosts, who are notoriously sensitive on these matters? I don't want to get the raspberry from the bride's sports-mad sister.

There have been so many other questions to answer, too. Can we get away with asking A and not B? A two-tier or three-tier cake? Readings from Shakespeare or a violin solo? Professional photographs or pot luck with iPhones?

And how about presents? Would it be rude to tell friends to forget about pillows and fish kettles and just make a contribution to our dwindling pension pot?

Even with weddings that are modest in scale, there is so much to organise that it is easy to see why so many people can't be bothered. And yet – what excitement! What drama! What a glorious new chapter in our lives! We have felt young again simply by mimicking the ways of the young, love-struck and without inhibitions.

The latest, most intriguing development is an email from a journalist friend offering to organise a stag party in London. Knowing the friend, it will involve rather more than a quiet sherry at the Savoy.

Is this wise? Aren't stag nights for Prince Harry and his generation? Should fiftysomethings on medication risk life and limb on all-night benders? Which leads on, in a roundabout way, to the biggest question of all: is one ever too old to seize the moment, throw caution to the winds and embrace happiness with both hands?

The answer, as I am discovering to my surprise and delight, is no.