UK Wedding Directory. When you're ready to say I do, we do.

10 Royal wedding facts from the Queens wedding

Did you know that our Queen, Queen Elizabeth II is the only british monarch to have reached a diamond wedding anniversary!

The Queen and Prince Phillip were married on 20th of november 1947 at 11.30

The Queen was the 10th member of the royal family to be married at Westminster Abbey

The Queen had eight bridesmaids and Prince Phillip had 2 page boys

The Queens wedding dress was designed by Sir Norman Hartnell

Over 200,000 people visited an exhibition of wedding gifts at St James’ palace

The wedding breakfast was held at Buckingham palace

The string band of the grenedier guards played music during the wedding breakfast

The Queen took her corgi Susan on their honeymoon

A service of thanksgiving was held in Westminster abbey to celebrate both their silver and golden wedding anniversaries

CONDÉ NAST BRIDES have released their UK Wedding Industry survey results, and there are a number of positive figures showing.  Here are some of the most interesting points:

The average overall cost of getting married is £22,858 (up from £21,901 in 2007)

Couples in London and the South East spend on average £23,932

Couples in Wales and the South West spend on average - £18,991

53% of couples pay for most of the wedding costs

35% of brides would consider cosmetic surgery for their wedding (an increase of 21% year on year)

5% couples in the UK will sign a pre-nuptual agreement (7% of Scotish couples,6% of Londoners, 5% of Welsh couples and 2% of those in the Midlands and North/North East)

88% of brides will take their husband’s surname once married. 3% will keep their own, while 7% of couples are combining surnames.

The average length of an engagement remains 18 months

93% of couples plan to live together, or are already doing so, prior to their wedding.

The average engagement ring costs £2,090 (a 6.1% increase from 2007)

61% of brides choose their own engagement ring

3% of grooms will not wear a wedding ring

45% of couples chose a religious ceremony

Brides in East Anglia spend most on flowers, at £750, spending 44% more than the UK average spend of £520.

Brides paid an average of £1,200 for their dress.

17% of couples have their honeymoon in Europe.

Couples spend an average of £3,860 on their honeymoon.

The average age to get married for a bride is 29 and that of a groom is 31.

Giving away the bride dates back to when women literally belonged to their father. On marriage she was given with her property to the groom who took over from the father.

The groom standing on the right is thought to stem from when a groom used to kidnap his bride. If he then has to fight off other suitors, he would hold her with his left arm and keep his swoard arm free.

Seating Families on opposite sides of the church stems from the days when daughters were offered in marriage to unite opposed tribes, in order to avoid fighting in church.

The ritual of throwing confetti originated in Italy where rice and nuts were thrown at the bride to bestow prosperity and fertility to the couple.

In 1840 Queen Victoria started the western world’s love of white wedding dresses, before then brides simply wore there best dress.

In 2000, the average bride was 24 years old and the average groom was 28 years old.

Ancient Greeks and Romans thought the veil protected the bride from evil spirits.

Minnie Munro from Austrailia was 102 years old when she married a man of the age of 82 years old.

Multimillionaire Peter Shalson and wife Pauline paid 2 million pounds to get Elton John to sing a song at their wedding.

The shortest well known celeb marriage was Britany Spears’s marriage to Jason Alexander, the the marriage lasted 56 hours.

One of the youngest famous marriages was Leanne Rimes to Dean Sheremet , as Leanne was only 19 when she accepted his proposal.

The Longest ever recorded marriage was Sit Temulji Nairman and his wife Lady Nairman, who were married at the age of five, The marriage lasted for 86 years.

The longest marriage in Britain was between James Burgess and his wife Sarah Ann, their marriage lasted for 82 years.

Mohegan Sun unveiled the worlds largest wedding cake at the New England Bridal showcase on the 8th Feb 2004.

The Cake was 7 tiers measuring 17 feet high and weighing 15,032 pounds. It was made from 10,000 pounds of cake batter and 4,810 pounds of icing and could feed up to 59,000 people.

Did you know the kiss that is given by the bride to the groom at the end of the wedding ceremony originates from the earliest times when the couple would actually make love for the first time under the eyes of half the village!

In the rhyme ’something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue’, “blue” is symbolic of the blood of royalty, since both the bride and the groom were once considered to be “royal” on their wedding day.

The reason that the engagement ring and wedding band is worn on the fourth finger of the left hand is because the ancient Egyptians thought that the “vein of love’ ran from this finger directly to the heart.

The largest wedding attendance was a Jewish wedding in Jerusalem in 1993 where 30,000 people attended.

The most expensive wedding was the one held in a purpose-built stadium in Dubai for a Shiek’s son. The wedding cost over £22 million.

The longest wedding dress train was found in Germany, it measured over 515 feet.