in the news
from May 2008

Irene Fleming and Helen Wardlaw are surprised - and delighted - to find themselves in the final ten couples of local radio station Ridings FM’s ‘Wedding of the Year’ competition.

The Wakefield couple have been together for four years, having met on the internet and ‘just hit it off!’ as they say.

‘I popped the question to Helen in Edinburgh last September,’ says Fleming, ‘and shortly afterwards we began to look into arranging our dream wedding. However we soon realised that we would probably need to remortgage the house in order to afford the wedding of our dreams. With this in mind we put it on hold for a few years so we could save up. Helen heard of the competition a few months ago and secretly entered without telling me. Then last week she received an email advising we had made the final ten and rung me to announce the news. I think she was more surprised than I was that we had made the final ten. Suddenly we were in the radio station having our photograph taken for the website and our lives have been taken over by rallying around for votes.’

The most nerve-wracking part is still to come, as the public now has to vote for which of the ten couples should win the grand prize - a complete wedding package including reception, photography, a chauffeur-driven Rolls Royce, rings and much more.

And this is where Shout! readers come in - if you’d like to see a queer couple walk away with the prize (and let’s face it, who wouldn’t?) you need to get along to Ridings FM’s website and vote for them before May 16th.

Good luck to the two of them!