Axe Valley couple win dream wedding

AN AXE Valley couple who had to cancel their wedding last year after being hit by the recession will celebrate their ‘dream wedding’

AN AXE Valley couple who had to cancel their wedding last year after being hit by the recession will celebrate their ‘dream wedding’ yesterday (Wednesday, July 26) after winning a competition.

Ben Noble, 34, and Lucy Nethercott, 26, will tie the knot with a luxurious reception at Bickleigh Castle, in Tiverton, after they fought-off hundreds of contestants in a regional radio competition.

Only last year Ben was made redundant as a recruitment consultant and the couple could not afford to go ahead with the wedding.

But their luck has changed - with Ben now fully qualified as a primary school teacher - and the couple celebrating the big day with a package reportedly worth 10s of thousands of pounds.

Ben, who plays cricket for Kilmington, said: “We are over the moon and really looking forward to it. It’s an amazing thing to happen.

“We would have still got married but this is obviously different to what we would have been able to afford.

“It wasn’t great last year when I lost my job and we didn’t have money for the wedding, which was cancelled last May. It was all doom and gloom.

“But then Lucy saw the advert for the competition, it spiralled from there. I’m now qualified as a teacher so it’s a culmination of a good year, really.”

The couple has thanked all their friends in the Axe Valley and across the world for voting for them in the Heart competition.

The couple, whose parents live in Axminster, Colyton and Seaton, met through friends in the latter town. They later moved in together in Colyton and have now bought a house in Exeter.