I woke up very early on the morning of the wedding, having not slept very much the night before. It was dry and bright, but not very sunny but at least there was no rain! Steve was staying at his best man Adam's house, and I was at our home with my best friend from school Julia and my Mum. Julia had to share my double bed with me, which we both agreed was weird and we'd spent half the night talking and giggling like we did at school. Julia is an artistic photographer based in London and she offered to take black and white reportage photos of the day..

As we weren't getting married until 3 o'clock, I had a leisurely morning, drinking tea and chatting. Mum insisted that I ate something in case I got nervous and fainted! At midday Kim the hairdresser arrived. Mum went first whilst I had a shower and wandered round in my dressing gown. This was slightly worrying as Julia was following me around taking pictures of me looking less than glamorous!! Then Kim started putting up my hair, in an elaborate up-do, which seemed to take ages! In the meantime, my friend Rach, who was also our florist, arrived with my bouquet, the bridesmaids' posies and the Mums' corsages. She then went off to find the Best Man's house to deliver the buttonholes. I had chosen a simple round posy of deep red roses whilst my bridesmaids had miniature versions interspersed with tiny white daisies. They all looked brilliant, Rach had done a wonderful job.

My bridesmaids were my two nieces, Hannah (8) and Victoria (2) and my cousin Lauren (5). My cousin Gareth (4) was the pageboy, whilst Steve's nephews Ben (12) and Dan (11) were dressed smartly in waistcoats to match Steve and Adam.

With hair and makeup done, Mum was just helping me into my dress, when the driver of the Rolls Royce turned up - 40 minutes too early! However, I refused to panic and he waited outside whilst we fiddled with my dress until it looked perfect. I carefully walked down the stairs with my long train spilling out behind me. With my clutch bag in one hand and my bouquet in the other, I walked outside with Mum holding my dress. All my neighbours were either looking out of their windows or had come out to wave me off, I could not believe I was the centre of so much attention!

On the way to the ceremony, the driver of the car failed to notice that the lights had changed from green to red. As he braked sharply, my bouquet flew off the seat and landed on the floor and several flowers fell out! I was horrified - I had a bald bouquet! We arrived at Poole Court only to find that the previous wedding was still underway, and I caught sight of Steve with his best man and family waiting outside along with Rach the florist! Julia jumped out of the car with my bouquet for Rach to fix it, whilst the driver swung the car around and took us for a spin around the local village of Chipping Sodbury. It was such a strange feeling, being driven around a familiar place in a strange car, with everyone craning their necks to get a glimpse of the occupants! As we drove through the gates of Poole Court again, it started to rain but as I got out of the car, I could not believe the number of people waiting to take photographs! Steve's Uncle Alan was videoing the event for us, and he was the first person I saw as I stepped onto the path. Feeling nervous, I made my way inside to meet the Registrar. My Aunt Wendy and Julia showed the guests to their seats, while my bridesmaids excitedly waited to enter the room. It was the first time I had felt any sort of nerves.

I heard the sounds of "Summer", part of the Four Seasons by Vivaldi, which was my cue to enter. I walked into the room and saw all our family and friends. There was standing room only, a real full house! As I walked towards Steve, he turned and looked at me and gave me a huge grin. He took my hand and I could see him shaking like a leaf! Uncle Alan had set up the video camera right next to the Registrar's table and he caught the whole thing on film.

The ceremony flew past in a haze, we had added "I Promise" by Dorothy Colgan to our vows, and everyone said how lovely the words were. As Steve said his vows, I could feel my eyes welling up - I have never been so overcome with emotion. My friends Michelle and Joanne said that they could see how moved I was (just by looking at my back, apparently!) and it moved them to tears! Before we knew it, we were posing for photographs while we signed the register. When we eventually went back outside, the sun was shining and the rain had stopped so we stayed in the grounds of Poole Court to have some more pictures taken

I couldn't wait to get in the car with Steve, it was the first time we'd been alone together for days! It was so nice to chat and find out how he'd prepared himself during the morning. We both agreed that it had been a lovely day so far, and that we were really looking forward to the reception.

The afternoon was spent at the Grange Hotel having afternoon tea. We had decided against a formal sit-down meal and we really enjoyed the relaxed afternoon spent amongst family and friends. The staff at the hotel were marvellous, bringing out plate after plate of lovely sandwiches and cream scones. Our cake was rich chocolate covered with white fudge icing and sugar roses to match my bouquet. It tasted as wonderful as it looked!

Then it was time to move onto Fry's Club for the evening Ceilidh with a local band called "Free Spirit". We had booked a company to decorate the venue with lots of balloons and streamers in our red, gold and ivory colour scheme, and it looked brilliant. The guests started to arrive and it wasn't long before everyone was on the floor dancing and do-si-do-ing, laughing, chatting and drinking far too much. As we'd had an informal afternoon reception, both Steve and the best man had decided to save their speeches until the evening. As everyone sat down to tuck into their buffet, Adam took the stage, remembering some great embarrassing stories about Steve. Then Steve, a little worse for wear at this point took stood up and thanked everyone, and then thanked them all again, and said some lovely words about me that made me blush so hard, I matched my bouquet!

And then, I couldn't believe it; the cab that we'd "sensibly" booked for 11pm had already arrived! In a mad frenzy, we dashed around the room, drunkenly thanking everyone for coming and kissing all our guests. The band decided that we had to have one last song before we left, and they sang a traditional Irish blessing song, which gave me a lump in my throat. Luckily the taxi driver was patient and he waited quite happily before whisking us off to the Bridal Suite of the Tracy Park Country Club before we flew to Cancun on the following Monday for the most wonderful and relaxing holiday ever.

WGUK was a godsend, and two years on from when I first discovered it, I have made and kept some really special friends. I still keep coming back, I'm an addict!

Do Differently: We both loved every minute of it, and both reception venues were marvellous, but if we could have had the reception in one place, that would have been so much easier! Oh, and the driver of the wedding car could have been a bit more careful!!!

Groom's Comments: Steve had a wonderful day, great fun!