Like most women, I spent my childhood dreaming of a fairy tale wedding: Brad Pitt and I, plus an idyllic white sandy beach and the setting sun casting a rosy glow over the both us.
Sadly Brad met Angie first and the only way I was heading to the Maldives for my wedding was if I won the National Lottery.
So like many women, I was forced to go for second best: Kevin Pickles and a cheap 'do at the local registry office, followed by a weekend mini break in Bognor Regis.
Dreams CAN Come True! When Kevin went down on one knee during a week in Ibiza, I thought he had drunk too many bottles of lager.
Then he produced a small white gold ring with a diamond stuck on it and I was reduced to tears.
Tears of joy I hasten to add! Once we arrived back home, we set a date for six months later and the wedding preparations began.
No Money = No Dream Wedding Sadly it soon became apparent that between the two of us, we couldn't afford much of a wedding and the nearest I was going to get to my beach wedding fantasy with Brad Pitt was a walk on the seafront at Bognor with the promise of a fish supper to look forward to.
I was reduced to tears yet again, but after a while I thought about it and realised that although the Maldives was possibly a few thousand quid too far, Kevin and I didn't have to settle for cheap and nasty nuptials! Save, Save, And Save A Little Bit More So I started a wedding fund to help save for the second best wedding of my dreams (Brad was refusing to take my calls by this point and Angie's lawyers had threatened me with a restraining order).
Kevin and I went through the bank statements and made a list of all the areas where we could save money.
He cancelled his Sky Sports subscription and I cancelled my store cards.
Then we looked at saving money on the utility bills.
Cheaper Bills Saved Me A Fortune! I was amazed at how much we managed to save each month just by cutting back on the food bill and switching utility providers.
I had been with British Gas for years, but when I did a price comparison, I discovered I would save a fortune by swapping to a smaller supplier.
In less than six months, we managed to squirrel away nearly £2k in our savings account.
What I Spent The Extra Cash On Kevin wanted to use the extra cash for a massive knees-up at the local Working Men's Club, but I put my foot down on that one.
I wanted a nice wedding not a horrendous hangover, so I found a lovely country pub with a restaurant for the reception and booked a two-week honeymoon in Greece.
It wasn't quite the Maldives beach wedding I had always wanted, but in the end we had a fabulous day!