She wanted me to have a fairytale wedding - and the money was there to give me the day of my dreams. I was overwhelmed and very touched.

Finally, a year after her death, I was ready to start looking to the future. I’d seen Jordan’s wedding pictures in a magazine, and although I’m not a big fan of hers and her dress was quite over the top, I thought the glass Cinderella carriage was really pretty.

It took a while to track it down, but after searching on the internet we discovered it was owned by Georgina McDonagh and had been built in 2004 for her daughter’s Holy Communion.

The story behind it was really lovely. Georgina’s father was dying of cancer and knew the Holy Communion would probably be his last big family affair. (He died seven weeks after the ceremony.)

He’d wanted to spoil his granddaughter and had paid almost £14,000 for the carriage to be built -although it’s worth even more than that now.
Originally, the carriage, with its ornate heart latticework, had gold-covered seats, but after Jordan’s wedding the seats were covered in pink satin. To me, it was perfect.

Having been brought up on a farm in Wales where we had ten horses, I loved the idea of pulling up to the church in a coach led by two white horses.

I hoped I’d feel like a princess. To me, it summed up the fairytale theme perfectly. Because I wanted the bridesmaids’ dresses to fit in with the theme, too, I chose pink fairy dresses for my two little bridesmaids.

I wore a diamanté tiara and had pink roses in my bouquet. When I first told Matthew I wanted to hire the carriage, he thought I was absolutely crazy and told me I should hire a normal car instead.

But I was very determined and, seeing how much it meant to me, he relented. On the day of the wedding, I was really excited - until I looked out of the window and saw all those people staring at me.

Word had travelled around all the local villages - goodness knows how - and everyone had turned up to take pictures of it. I couldn’t believe it.

But I loved riding in a glass box - being able to see out and have everyone look at me. Nothing, though, prepared me for arriving at the church.

If there were 300 people at my house, there were nearly 1,000 people lining the road up to the chapel. Everyone was cheering, clapping and taking photos. It was so packed that we couldn’t even have any photos taken on the church steps. There just wasn’t room to get clear of the crowds.

Matthew and I took the carriage to the reception, but it left as my evening guests arrived. To be honest, it was a bit of a relief when it went because all the onlookers disappeared too.

I’ll never regret hiring the carriage, though. It was the highlight of my fairytale day.