Here comes the bride...to her great surprise!
worried thinking, ‘What if I’m wrong and I turn up in a bridal dress to my friend’s vow renewal?’”
But her husband and friend reassured her that the dress was a bridesmaid’s and nothing like the bridal gown.
It was only when she and Chris walked into the Azur restaurant in St Leonards, Hastings, and saw Tina wearing a simple floral frock that Lesley realised what was happening and burst into tears of joy.
Perhaps the couple’s long relationship helped Chris, 53, predict his bride’s tastes to a tee.
“It’s amazing. I mean, what man organises a wedding and gets it all spot on?” said Lesley. “Everything I would have chosen – colours, my cake, it was all done.”
Chris told how he had devised the cunning wedding plan.
“I came up with a little bit of a scheme with my hairdresser way back on Boxing Day evening,” he said.
“Then we started to plan for the final six months. I didn’t want it to go on for too long because trying to keep a secret like that is difficult enough.”
Lesley, who works as a kennel maid, admitted that at one point she even suspected Chris of having an affair after he unfriended her on Facebook and put a password lock on his phone.
“So even before I went to get the dress, I had a few suspicions. I can’t even tell you what it was, there were just things that didn’t add up,” she said.
“But until I walked in, even though I had those little doubts, I just didn’t know.”
She added: “It still has not sunk in that we’re finally – after 17 years – married. It was amazing.”
The newly-weds were joined for their big day last week by about 50 guests including Scotland-born Lesley’s brother and grandfather Fred Black who travelled down from Dundee.
Bailey only found out about the wedding at the venue too. He thought he was to be Tina and husband Michael’s page boy – but was actually his father’s best man.