HERE comes the bride - and there goes the bridegroom arm-in-arm with the best man. Ah yes, there's nothing like a soap wedding to bring out the worst in people.

Events on the day run as smoothly as Virgin train services. Everything that can go wrong does go wrong. And the moment when the vicar asks if anyone present knows of just cause or impediment why the couple shouldn't be joined is as suspenseful as anything in Alfred Hitchcock's thrillers.

Things are already set up for this week's wedding of Mike Baldwin and his younger bride Linda to join the list of great soap wedding disasters. It's only a matter of time before he finds out that she's been having an affair with best man Mark, who happens to be Mike's son.

Soap brides don't so much say "I do" as something along the lines of "I will as long as he doesn't find out I'm already married, a lesbian, having an affair with his best friend" (please delete where applicable).

As Linda prepares to become Mrs Baldwin - she'll be called that whether she marries father or son - it seems the right time to reflect on previous wedding days that went wrong in the soap world.

The marriage of Butch Dingle and Emily in Emmerdale was doomed from the start. The bridegroom was lying dying in a hospital bed after being injured when a lorry crashed into a coach. The odd couple tied the knot just hours before Butch passed away.

There wasn't a dry eye in the house. It was even more of a tearjerker than Mark marrying dying Gill in EastEnders.

Short-lived soap marriages don't end because one partner is dying. Mel stayed wed to beastly Ian Beale for just a few hours after their turn of the millennium marriage. He'd virtually blackmailed her into the wedding by claiming (falsely) that his daughter was dying of cancer. No sooner had she taken off her wedding dress than Mel had walked out on Ian.

She should have known better than to marry a man with his shameful record with women. He married Cindy in 1989 when she was pregnant with Wicksy's baby. A row at the reception ended with Cindy hitting Pete Beale with her bouquet. Ian left his sobbing bride to spend her wedding night alone. Eventually she decided against divorce, instead hiring a hit man to kill him.

When both the bride and bridegroom are male, there are bound to be marriage problems. So it was in Coronation Street with Roy Cropper and Hayley Patterson, who'd had a pre-nuptial trip to Amsterdam for an operation to become a she, but legally they couldn't marry. Finding a cleric to bless the marriage wasn't the end of the matter. Les Battersby alerted the press to the story and Roy arrived to find the church surrounded by reporters. In the end, the ceremony was held in Roy's caf.

Sometimes a hitch in getting hitched resolves itself in time. The Street's Derek Wilton finally asked Mavis Riley to marry him in 1984, only to see love rival Victor Pendlebury propose to her as well.

Mavis dithered as only Mavis would but eventually plumped for Derek - only to decide to leave him standing at the altar when she couldn't go through with it. She was annoyed to discover her beloved felt the same and hadn't turned up anyway. They'd jilted each other. The reluctant lovebirds went their separate ways with Derek marrying the boss's daughter. The pair finally became Mr and Mrs in 1988.

Brookside weddings often end in mayhem. Frank Rogers and his bride Lyn drove off from the church to the reception unaware that they'd run into - literally - a car with a cocaine-fuelled Jimmy Corkhill at the wheel. Frank's vehicle was forced off the road and into a brick wall. He died and young passenger Tony Dixon went into a coma from which he never recovered.

The most recent Brookie wedding was a double affair at posh Cuddington Hall with Jacqui due to wed solicitor Nathan and her brother Mike marrying Rachel (the one whose father was murdered and buried under the patio). After much emotional argy-bargy Jacqui called it off leaving the other couple to wed alone.

Perhaps, the most extraordinary wedding occurred in the US soap Dynasty, never a show to do things by halves.

Amanda Carrington was due to walk up the aisle with Prince Michael of Moldavia in a ceremony in his dad King Galen's palace. Suddenly terrorists burst in and showered the congregation, all shoulder pads and big hats (and that was only the men) with bullets as part of a revolution to overthrow the monarchy. Amazingly there were only two casualties, both expendable supporting players. The storyline appears to have been a clever ploy by the producers. It was the final episode of the series and any actors who'd dare to ask for more money could easily have been eliminated from the new series