Coro star’s wedding wish
Married couples seldom live happily ever after in TV soaps. But actress Kym Marsh would love her character Michelle Connor to buck such a trend as she approaches her wedding to Steve McDonald on Coronation Street.
Coronation Street actress Kym Marsh has just one wish as her character Michelle Connor prepares to marry Steve McDonald (Simon Gregson). She wants the couple to have a long and successful marriage.
“It’d be nice for them to stay together,” Kym says. “I think it would be weird if they didn’t now because they’ve been through so much to get to where they are – not just recently with (Steve’s) depression but over the years with Becky (Steve’s former wife).
“They’ve got such history that for them to get married and not live happily ever after would be a little bit odd. But who knows, especially when Tracy Barlow’s involved. It’s soapland, so you never know.”
And because it’s a soap the chances of long-term happiness are remote. However, Steve and Michelle have been compared with another popular on-again off-again TV couple who eventually found happiness together.
“Simon always says that we’re the Ross and Rachel (from Friends) of
Coronation Street,” laughs Kym. “It’s quite funny.” Michelle was anxious about Steve’s well-being when he raised the prospect of marriage, but she is now more positive about the future. “Obviously when we saw him propose and he had the money worries, she was concerned that he’d asked her to marry him,” Kym says. “They had all these problems so she didn’t want to push for the wedding to happen because she knew they had to sort out that first. But now I think she’s absolutely confident that they’re both heading in the right direction and she’s very much there for him and he knows that.”
Even though it is a fictional wedding, Kym, 40, admits she felt pangs of nervous exhilaration building up to the big occasion.
“You get excited because you’re in make-up and having your hair done. You want to look nice and all the rest of it. Then you put the dress on and everyone says, ‘Aww, you look gorgeous’.”
Kym had plenty of input into choosing Michelle’s wedding dress. And finding the right gown turned out to be easier than she thought.
“It (the dress) is not what I would wear (for my wedding),” Kym laughs. “It’s so hard when you go looking at wedding dresses for your character ... You want to buy something that’s you but at the same time you have to keep in your mind that it’s got to be right for the character.
“It (the wedding dress) is not massively frilly and huge. It’s a bit vintagey. I think the whole theme is quite vintagey. I went shopping with our costume team. It was only the third one I tried on. I was like, ‘That’s the one’.”
The wedding had to be relatively low-key to reflect Michelle and Steve’s financial plight. So any dreams of a big, glamorous occasion had to be put to one side.
“It’s at a registry office because they don’t have much money,” says Kym. “So they haven’t gone to town.
“But obviously Michelle being a wedding planner, she’s been able to pull in favours so they’ve done a really nice job ... It’s all on a budget but it’s beautiful.”
Kym knows a bit about weddings, having been married twice herself.
She married actor Jack Ryder on August 10, 2002 but announced their divorce seven years later.
In September 2012 she wed actor Jamie Lomas. Their union was brief, though, and the divorce was finalised in January 2014.
Steve and Michelle’s wedding leads on to several big storylines, including a proposal, fire and death.