Tuesday Topic, with Christine Rutter

YOUR wedding day should be the best day of your life - but it can also be the most expensive.

Thousands of couples in East Lancashire will be counting the cost of loving when they walk down the aisle this spring, having spent nearly £10,000 on their betrothal.

Getting married now costs the average couple a massive £9,250 - three times the amount it did a decade ago.

Yet it does not prevent around 340,000 couples in Britain tying the knot each year, spending an estimated £2.75 billion.

We talked to three couples who gave us a breakdown of their wedding costs - and the price tags were staggering.

Dearest items were the honeymoon and day reception. One night in a hotel could cost £100 and photographs cost around £400 or £500 for most couples.

The average bridal dress costs around £700 but one bride got a real bargain at £150.

MAYA KARECHA and RICHARD DEIGHTON'S fairytale spring wedding in a Cheshire castle cost well over the average for a traditional wedding.

The pair, both 24, really pushed the boat out, inviting 180 guests for the wedding which cost nearly £12,000.

Maya, who is studying journalism at the University of Central Lancashire, said: "I wanted the fairytale wedding. We picked a beautiful castle with a moat for the venue. It was a fabulous place. It was magical and totally exceeded my expectations. It is a lot of money to spend on one day but it is the biggest thing I have ever done and I was making a lifelong commitment."

She added: "My parents would have been really upset if I had gone off to the Caribbean to get married. We couldn't have afforded the wedding if we hadn't had help from my parents." Research by Norwich Union revealed that the average length of an engagement was 22 months, with wedding plans starting 18 months before the big day.

Preparation for the wedding of LIZ HARTLEY and 23-year-old MICHAEL LILLEY has been going on for 18 months. Liz, 23, who works in the Lancashire Evening Telegraph telesales department, said: "For most of the popular places you have to book them at least 18 months before the big day." The pair, both from Feniscowles, Blackburn, will marry at Pleasington Priory, Blackburn, before enjoying a reception at a hotel in East Lancashire at the cost of £7,370 or more. Liz said: "I had no idea how much a wedding cost and was really surprised how much it adds up. Both Michael and I are family-based people and we wanted our families around us on our wedding day. We both come from traditional families and having a white wedding is always the way it has been done. It is a lot of money but you pay for the memory."

The Rev Dick Cartmell, of St James Church, Lower Darwen, organises white weddings for couples for under £1,000, with parishioners using their skills to cut the cost.

The overseas option is looking increasingly attractive for engaged couples, given the mystery and romance of an exotic location. Last year 2,000 couples travelled abroad to take their vows with Thomson holiday company alone. St Lucia was the most popular destination and mixing the wedding with a honeymoon abroad does cost less.

NICHOLA O'BRIEN, from Burnley, married Army man IAN BROGDEN in Ocho Rios, Jamaica. And although the pair, of Marles Court, Burnley, had no family and friends there to celebrate their big day, they felt special just sharing it with each other. They did have a reception in Burnley for family and friends after the honeymoon but the cost was nowhere near the same as it would have been for a home wedding.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.