First Valentine's Day together

Bethan, recently married her RAF sweetheart and this year they will be celebrating their first Valentine's Day together. They decided to support the Fund whilst celebrating their big day. Here she tells us why.

My husband Dan has been in the RAF for ten years as a Supplier. He has recently been promoted to Corporal and I am very proud of him.

We met three years ago when he was working on the Tactical Supply Wing at RAF Stafford. I, myself had just moved to the area after doing a bit of travelling. I have to admit that I made Dan work for a date and actually turned him down the first time! But I am glad I came to my senses as three years later I married the man of my dreams and am making a home with him now at RAF Odiham.

As all RAF wives/girlfriends know it's pretty tough having a partner in the military, especially with them being away on deployment. Dan has already served out in Iraq and four times in Afghanistan (plus the rest), and it gets harder when they are not around for big celebrations like Christmas or birthdays.

In fact, this will be our first Valentine's Day together! We haven't got any major plans; it will just be lovely to be together. Dan pulled out all the stops last year. He was out in Afghanistan and I was just at work as usual.

I was called to reception to be met with a box containing a lovely cake with the words 'I Love You Beth'. I then turned around to a huge bunch of flowers addressed to me from him. He'd arranged it all this before he was deployed at the beginning of December.

The reason we decided to get involved in the RAF Benevolent Fund was because we really respect how much they help the RAF community and families.

When we were planning our wedding we wanted to something memorable for our favours and everything just cost so much money that we decided we would rather put the money to better use.

So, as we were setting out to start our own RAF family, we thought it a good idea to support the charity that supports the RAF family.

Rather than the more conventional gifts, such as iced almond we decided to give all our guests an RAF Benevolent Fund badge.

All the guests loved the idea and they wore the badges proudly all night.