THE bride, bridegroom and guests all assembled for what would be a very special service.

And so did a dozen or so complete strangers who used the happy event as the perfect opportunity to window shop for their own wedding ideas.

Yesterday, bride-to-be Lynn Jewitt and her future husband Paul Morris, walked up the aisle at possibly the first ever civil ceremony to take place at a commercial wedding fayre. Paul and Lynn tied the knot under the watchful eye of Clitheroe Registrar Mrs Valerie Crooks, in an event at the Stirk House Hotel.

Video coverage came courtesy of RP Racing Video, Park Limousines Ltd provided a chauffeur-driven car, dried flowers were by the Old Rock Company, fresh flowers by Sylvia Robinson, photographs by Dale Frankland and the honeymoon suite, naturally, was on the house. But Julie Penrose, sales and marketing manager at the Gisburn hotel, said the couple, from Nelson, were delighted to take up the offer of a very public wedding.

She said: "They had already booked their wedding at the hotel and we asked whether they would mind if it was included as part of the wedding fayre.

"They couldn't have been more pleased.

"I would imagine that this is the first event of its type in the country, I certainly don't know of any other civil wedding ceremonies that have taken place at a Wedding Fayre."

The couple were married in the hotel's Pendle Suite, one of three available for the now regular services, which are usually not so public.

Mrs Penrose claims the fairly recent wedding venue option has become very popular, ssaying: "People aren't that religious any more and civil weddings in a hotel save a lot of hassle getting people from the church to the hotel.

"Our civil ceremony suites are also an extremely nice setting for weddings."

More than 37 companies were at the fayre to exhibit their merchandise.

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