A NEWLYWED couple fear they will have to live hundreds of miles apart after officials refused the bride's application to move from to the UK from Bulgaria.

Darwen lorry driver John Slater, 40, married 37-year-old Sonia Mineva in a "fairy tale wedding" last month after a chance meeting in a Hull pub sparked a year-long internet relationship.

But Sonia faces having to move back to Bulgaria from the marital home in Greenfield Street when her visitor's visa expires in March.

Her application for permanent spouse visa was rejected because officials were not convinced the marriage was genuine.

The couple's plight has now featured on national TV in Bulgaria, where Sonia was a director for international company Ticketpro and a top music promotions firm.

John said: "We want to live in Britain, where we can both speak the language but feel our marriage is on hold. Our wedding day was the happiest day of our lives. Neither of us have married before waiting for the right person. And now we have found each our love is being questioned. Our happiness has been crushed."

Bulgaria is bidding to join the European Union - a move that could give millions of citizens the right to settle and work freely in the UK without visas.

The Foreign Office said Sonia would be able to live in the UK once Bulgaria is admitted to the EU - but no date has been set for when that will be.

That means she may have to leave the UK in March and return once the decision has been made.

The couple, who have not even had a honeymoon amid the disruption, met last July and began meeting each time Sonia visited the UK on business.

In March John flew to Bulgaria to surprise his new love and ask her to move to the UK to live with him as his wife.

Both families celebrated with the Bulgarian traditions of breaking bread and throwing flowers to determine the sex of their first child during a romantic Bulgarian wedding last month.

But their marital bliss was soon shattered by a letter of "spouse visa refusal" from the British Embassy in Sofia. It read: "I am not satisfied that each of the parties to the marriage intends to live permanently with the others as his or her spouse."

The British Embassy added that the pair had not sufficiently proved their commitment because Sonia had omitted to include any of John's details on her last visa application but instead used those of a male friend in Hull.

Sonia said she had only used her friend's details because that was what she had done when previously applying for visas and did not think this would be used against her.

She now faces a string of interviews with the British Embassy in Bulgaria, where she must return with documentation, including phone bills and wedding photographs.

Sonia said: "I sacrificed my international career as an executive director in big international company in the music industry, and everything I achieved over the years, a standard of life and social status, just to be with my beloved husband.

"My parents gave us a wedding that people still talk about. They rented two governmental limousines and hired the restaurant of a five star hotel in Sofia for the reception.

"John and I feel stigmatised and branded for life."

More than 600,000 workers from eight other eastern European countries have moved to Britain since they joined the EU two years ago.

But the government has yet to decide whether it will adopt the same open-door policy to Bulgaria.

A Foreign Office spokesman added: "Even then a person in this (Sonia's) situation without an existing visa may never be allowed to work in the UK as restrictions on the labour market maybe applied."