Best man? No Jeff, you're the groom!

Jeff and Linda, from Hollinswood, Telford, rolled up at the Best Western Valley Hotel in Ironbridge, with Jeff thinking he was going to be best man and Linda chief bridesmaid as their friends Derek and Toni renewed their wedding vows. But Linda had other ideas.

Unknown to Jeff, Linda, 55, had been secretly planning the whole event for more than six months so she and her husband could renew their vows after eight years of marriage and have the complete wedding package they had missed out on first time round.

Linda wanted the whole thing to be a surprise for Jeff, just two days before his 56th birthday, and was so successful that the role-reversal cover story was kept intact until about 10 minutes before the ceremony took place.

She explained: “We got married at the old Wellington Register Office eight years ago and, don’t get me wrong, we had a great time but we were not totally happy with parts of the day like the dress and suit and so on.

“Jeff lost several family members recently and it seemed like we were only meeting up with people on very sad occasions so I thought it would be nice to do something positive.”

The couple went on holiday to Ibiza in June with Toni and Derek, who helped create the cover story by saying they were going to renew their wedding vows and asked Jeff and Linda to be best man and chief bridesmaid – a ploy needed to get an unsuspecting Jeff to the hotel on the day.

Linda added: "All the wedding paraphernalia had to be stored at Toni and Derek’s house, all phone calls were diverted to Toni and all the planning and creative stuff was again done at their house as I couldn’t risk Jeff finding out anything.

Jeff said: “I really didn’t know what was going on. I said to Derek: ‘Are you ready to meet your bride?’ and he said ‘No, mate, this is your day’.

"I was so shocked it was unbelievable. It was a great day and a wonderful experience.”