A bride and groom due to fly to Greece for their dream beach wedding learnt of Thomas Cook's collapse in the taxi to the airport.
Matthew Parkin and Kelly Newbold planned to get married in Kos on Friday.
But the 25-strong wedding party found out the bad news at 2am today over the radio in their cab as they set off from their Glossop home for a 6am flight from Manchester Airport.
Now Matthew, 25, and Kelly, 33, fear the £11,000 wedding at the four star Mitsis Norida Beach Hotel will have to be postponed until next year.
Matthew's brother and best man Ian Parkin said: "We'd been watching the news all night trying to find out what was happening and it didn't say anything.
"We got the taxi at 2am and as soon as we got in it came on the radio that they'd gone under.
"All the children were really upset. My brother and his partner are devastated. We're all gutted.
"The wedding's been 16 months in the planning and we find out four hours before we were supposed to fly.
"I was supposed to be best man, my wife was maid of honour."
One member of the wedding party didn't book through Thomas Cook and is now in Greece on his own.
In a post on Facebook Kelly said: "Absolutely heartbroken. Wedding lost, all our family and friends' holidays lost, all them people without jobs.
"Mike didn't book through Thomas Cook so he's off to my wedding alone. I suppose that's the funny part of all this mess."
Thomas Cook collapsed after failing to secure a last-ditch rescue deal, leaving thousands of holidaymakers stranded abroad.
All flights and holidays booked through the tour operator have been cancelled, with customers due to fly today advised to not travel to the airport.
There are more than 600,000 holidaymakers stranded overseas, including 150,000 British customers.
Ian says the wedding party are now desperately trying to find out what's going on.
He added: "We can't get through to ATOL - the phone's just going dead every time we try.
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"We went into Thomas Cook in Glossop on Friday to change some Euros and they told us there was nothing to worry about.
"It's the money we've spent on suits and dresses, all the money on the wedding, the time off work. Everyone's money's tied up in the holiday, so we can't afford to just go out and book another."
