Durham couple hope for better luck after wedding disasters (From The Northern Echo)

Durham couple hope for better luck after wedding disasters

8:00am Tuesday 14th February 2012 in Durham City News By Mark Tallentire

TWO lovestruck Valentines are hoping it will be third time lucky at the church after suffering two wedding nightmares in the past eight months.

Dave and Chris Fletcher will renew their wedding vows at St Giles Church, in Durham, on Sunday after a start to married life to test any couple’s commitment.

While still on honeymoon in May last year, Mrs Fletcher developed an allergic reaction to nickel in her white gold wedding ring – and it became so painful the band had to be removed.

Devastated, the couple decided on a ceremony to renew their vows with a replacement 18-carat gold ring.

However, only one hour before the ceremony, Mr Fletcher, 51, sliced through his thumb doing DIY, meaning the couple spent the day in accident and emergency.

They plan to renew their vows as part of St Giles Church’s 900th anniversary celebrations, when their marriage will be blessed by the Bishop of Jarrow, the Right Reverend Mark Bryant.

Mrs Fletcher, 48, said: “This is really important to me. It had taken all our lives to find each other, and to have the ring blessed again by the bishop will mean a lot.

“It means it will carry all those promises that Dave made on our wedding day.”

The couple wed at St Giles Church in May last year, having been together for two years.

Mrs Fletcher said: “In the days after the service, my finger started to get itchy, but I assumed I had been bitten by a mosquito when we were on honeymoon in Crete.

“It kept itching and I went to the pharmacist who said he thought I had got some soap trapped behind it, but I was not going to take the ring off.

“All Dave’s love for me was in that ring. I was determined to keep wearing it. We tried everything. I had to take it off.

I was absolutely devastated.

That ring meant so much to me.”

Couples who were married at the church or who live in the Gilesgate area are invited to renew their vows at the church on Sunday. Call the Reverend Julia Candy on 0191-384-8853.