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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
Entertainment
Natasha Wynarczyk

Don't Tell the Bride's best weddings to love and cherish over the last 15 years

Don't Tell the Bride on Channel 4 is celebrating 15 years on TV - and The Mirror has trawled through the archives to find the best weddings featured.

But I organised this Neighbours-themed wedding especially for you...

A Scott-and-Charlene-style ceremony has been one of the highlights in 15 years of Channel 4 ’s Don’t Tell the Bride.

The show gives grooms £14,000 to plan their big day in three weeks with no contact with their fiancee – with results including a Mr Bean chauffeur and some legendary stag dos.

Don’t Tell the Bride: Revisited catches up with some of its most talked-about couples...

Becky and Lee

Becky and Lee revisit their wedding (Becky and Lee revisit their wedding)

Lee Ward proved Don’t Tell the Bride can be a very risky business - especially when temptation sets in.

He and his best man, older brother Shane, egged each other on and ended up deciding to spend £2,500 of the budget on travelling around Europe for the stag do.

The pair got so drunk they left everything else - including booking a reception venue - to the very last minute.

Fortunately, against the odds, Lee still managed to pull a romantic 2018 Big Day out of the bag for his wife-to-be Becky, 30.

First, she was picked up in a car by a Mr Bean impersonator, a nod to her first date with Lee when they watched one of the comedy character’s films together.

Becky and Lee on their wedding day (tpr media)

Then, Becky had to walk through a maze filled with memories of their relationship before meeting her husband in the middle where they had their ceremony.

She said: “I thought he would do something stupid or crazy rather than romantic. I didn’t think it would be as good as it was, it was lovely.

“There’s nothing I would change about our wedding day. Lee did so well and I loved every minute of it. Since then, we’ve been enjoying married life and bought a new house.”

Shane, 36, didn’t get off as easy when he wed his own fiancee Lisa, 32, 18 months later.

Don't Tell the Bride: Revisited looks back at some of the show's most memorable couples (tpr media)

Lisa says: “After I watched him on the show helping Lee, I didn’t want him involved in our wedding!

"So Shane didn’t know anything apart from the venue. All he had to do was show up. I even picked his suit and shoes.”

And as for that stag do which landed Lee and Shane in hot water, the brothers and their wives, who all live in Ripon, North Yorks, are now planning a road trip around Europe but this time there will be less alcohol consumed.

Lisa says: “We’ve talked about doing the same trip as two families, but taking all our kids this time.”

Anna and Sian

Anna and Sian were the first lesbian couple to appear on the show (tpr media)

Anna and Sian Mumford were the first lesbian couple to appear on Don’t Tell the Bride.

The pair met in a gay bar and quickly became inseparable.

Soon Anna, 42, proposed to Sian, 34, via text message.

However, their wedding plans were put on ice due to finances.

At the time, Anna was a support worker and Sian worked in retail, so money was tight.

They were inspired to go on Don’t Tell the Bride after Sian read her horoscope and it told her to apply for a TV show.

Sian adds: “Then I read Anna’s, and it said, ‘Expect new contacts and confetti’, you just couldn’t write it.”

But the wheels nearly came off their wedding completely when Anna blew the budget on her own hen do – a big night out at Liverpool Pride then a strip club.

It meant Sian, who’d been hoping for a fancy meal, was left with a basic hen party with plates of chips at the local roller rink.

But they still tied the knot in a civil partnership at Liverpool Town Hall in 2011.

And a decade later, all is forgiven and the Liverpudlian couple is still very much in love.

After eight years of trying to get pregnant, Sian recently gave birth to “miracle baby” Zepphi-Love.

She says: “It’s been a crazy 10 years, but a good 10 years really.”

“For me, I don’t regret anything about going on Don’t Tell the Bride – even relinquishing that control.

“All in all it was a brilliant experience, I wouldn’t change it for a million pounds.”

Adam and Rachel

Australian bridegroom Adam Taylor-Topping was sure he had found a fitting idea for his wedding to his beloved Rachel – recreating Scott and Charlene’s world-famous nuptials from Neighbours.

The 1998 TV soap wedding was such a big deal that in Britain alone some 20 million viewers tuned in to watch Jason Donovan and Kylie Minogue’s characters celebrate their big day.

Unfortunately for Adam, Rachel was not one of them.

Hence she was more than a little confused when she arrived at her own 2016 wedding – and was particularly stumped about why Adam was sporting a new blond mullet hairdo.

Rachel, 34, a local authority worker, says: “I felt like I was in the twilight zone.

“We went through the whole ceremony with me being completely confused.

“I’d obviously heard of Kylie and I knew the song Especially for You, which she sang with Jason Donovan and Adam performed to me during the wedding, but I didn’t know that they sang it together because they were a couple on an Australian soap.

“Even after the ceremony, somebody showed me a picture and I thought they were married in real life. It only made sense when I watched the episode later on.”

Australian-born Adam, 38, came up with a theme as a way to celebrate his heritage.

The care worker even got a replica of Charlene’s dress for Rachel and Aussie flag dresses for the bridesmaids.

But despite it all being rather lost on Rachel, she still thinks taking part in Don’t Tell the Bride was “an amazing experience”.

Indeed, she gets a daily reminder of her humorous nuptials when out and about near home in South Shields, Tyne and Wear.

She says: “Since the wedding, we’ve actually moved to a new house that’s very close to the church where we got married.

“I walk past it a few times a day and the memories come flooding back, and it’s such a nice feeling to have.

“After getting married, we’ve grown more as a couple. It gives you an extra sense of security and we get happier every year.”

  • Don’t Tell the Bride: Revisited, E4, 8pm, tomorrow night and each night until Friday.

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