For our Royal Wedding Week, we asked for people who were willing to tell us all about their very own perfect weddings. One author who kindly agreed to tell us about her wedding (and what a fab day it sounded like!) was the lovely Victoria Connelly, take it away Victoria!:

Fourteenth-century Bolton Castle in the Yorkshire Dales might not be everyone’s idea of the perfect wedding venue – Mary Queen of Scots was held prisoner there and many of the rooms haven’t even got a roof - but my fiancé and I knew it was the place for us. It sits in the middle of Wensleydale with sweeping views of the National Park, and a tour of the castle showed that the main ceremony would take place in the Great Chamber and we could have the fire lit.

We visited the castle the day before the wedding, making sure the deliveries of chairs, tables and wine had arrived, and it was then that we noticed that there was no electricity in the castle! Our ceremony was to take place late in the afternoon with the reception in the evening. What were we going to do without lights? Would the fire and candles I’d ordered be enough?

I spent the night before the wedding in a lovely B&B in Askrigg – the village made famous by the TV show All Creatures Great and Small – and it was from there that we drove to the castle through the Dales in an ancient Jaguar driven by an ancient driver who’d just had triple bypass surgery. Luckily, we all made it to the castle intact but my uncle followed in his car just in case ours broke down!

I’d helped design my wedding dress which was based on the Tudor portraits I loved so much (this was many years before the famous TV series!) My gown had long trumpet sleeves and a square, jewelled neckline and a double skirt. It was wonderfully heavy and we had to take it slowly climbing the spiral staircase to the Great Chamber!

I had two bridesmaids: my best friend and my new sister-in-law. Both wore pretty burgundy gowns and carried bouquets of white roses. My bouquet was a fountain of white lilies and deep red roses.

My husband was wearing a black nehru jacket with a burgundy cravat and waistcoat. He looked so handsome!

I’ll never forget the scent of the stargazer lilies in front of the fire in the Great Chamber, and the moment when Roy placed my wedding ring on my finger. It has never been taken off since!

We had a lovely lady to play the harp and one of the funniest photos we have is of her manoeuvring the harp up the spiral staircase with the help of the caterer’s son.

Another magical moment was when Roy and I entered the Great Chamber once it had been set for the dinner. The candles on the tables had been lit and the fire glowed brightly. We were so thrilled that the castle didn’t have electricity!

We’d hired a mobile disco which had been set up in another room and we were delighted to discover a bat circling the dance floor!

Last September, we celebrated our tenth wedding anniversary. I wish we could have relived our wedding day all over again but one thing is for sure – I shall never forget it!

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