It was a drive down memory lane for a Hadleigh couple when their daughter left her wedding in the same classic car they cherished at their own ceremony 31 years ago.
Mary Dorney bought the red Caterham Seven sports car in 1989 and drove it off to her honeymoon with husband Graham on their wedding day in 1990.
The Hadleigh couple sold the car to Mary's brother to keep it in the family when their eldest daughter Becky was a few months old, realising the super-lightweight racer wasn't an ideal family vehicle.
Daughter Becky, now aged 28, had planned to marry her sweetheart Lewis Davey last year, however the pandemic put a spanner in the works.
After a year of waiting they decided to go for it having only 15 guests at the Priory Hall Wedding Venue on Saturday, May 1 — with Becky seven months pregnant they couldn't hold off any longer.
"There was always a family joke about the car," soon-to-be grandmother Mary explained.
"When I bought it Graham joked he'd marry me if he got to drive it and then when Lewis saw it at my brother's he took a shine to it.
"It became a family joke that he'd marry Becky if he got to drive that car, so it was lovely for them to be able to have it there on the day after all.
"I remember our wedding exactly how it happened, my cheeks ached from smiling so much and Becky's day was just the same — it was perfect."
Both couples met at school, Mary and Graham met in St Albans aged 11 before getting together at 20 years old, while Becky and Lewis met at Ormiston Sudbury Academy and started dating aged 18.
Lewis proposed after seven years of dating at the colosseum in Rome when the pair were on a trip for his birthday. The wedding was initially booked for August 2020.
Becky, who lives in Sudbury, said: "The pandemic really put everything in perspective and I got to marry the man I love.
"The day itself was lovely sunshine and we had already pushed it back a year so we didn't' want to wait anymore.
"We drove the car down Hadleigh high street after and felt like celebrities."
The couple's honeymoon to Australia, booked for November last year, will now wait until after their little one is born.
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