A Bryncrug couple who had to cancel their wedding because of the coronavirus have marked what should have been their big day with a church service and burger and chips.

Julie Wickett and David Edwards had been due to get married earlier this month, but Covid-19 thwarted their plans and they have postponed until 2021 – a devastating blow for the couple who had already cancelled one wedding.

“We had been due to get to get married in 2009 but David was in a near-fatal motorbike accident in 2008 and the wedding was put on hold,” said Julie, 48.

David, now 52, was working in Mexico when the accident happened.

“I received a phone call from his boss saying he wasn’t going to make it,” Julie recalled. “I went there as soon as I could and, thankfully, he did make it, but he had blood clots in his legs and was still recovering so we postponed the wedding.

“After that, our two little ones came along; Sadie in 2010 and Jess in 2012. We didn’t really talk about getting married again until a year or so ago when we decided to go for it and booked a small village wedding.”

The small village wedding had been due to take place at St Cadfan’s Church in Tywyn on Saturday, 11 July, under the guidance of Rev Dr Ruth Hansford.

“The reverend phoned us at the start of lockdown and said we would have to postpone,” said Julie, “so we looked at 22 August but my brother said we should forget it this year because it’s not going to happen, and if it does, it won’t be the wedding we want, so we’ve booked it again for 29 May, 2021.

“But we still wanted to mark the occasion so Dave and our girls got dressed up in wedding outfits – not the ones we’ll wear next year – and went to the church at 1pm.

“We thought Rev Ruth was just going to open the church for us but she welcomed my brother and his family and my future sister-in-law, socially distanced them inside, walked us down the aisle to music, did a reading, said prayers, blessed us and my eldest daughter Bethany, who is away at university and couldn’t be with us, and gave us a beautiful pebble picture as a present.

“We didn’t expect anything like that. It was amazing, and quite funny. Rev Ruth said ‘Welcome to this non-wedding to not join these two people in holy matrimony’. It was really nice.”

The celebrations continued on the seafront.

Julie said: “My mum joined us and we had burger and chips and opened a couple of bottles of wine my brother had given us with Saturday’s date on.

“The weather was gorgeous and if I can order that for next year’s wedding we’ll be on to a winner!”