Wedding

A couple who met on a blind date were married at a Shropshire hotel after winning a newspaper competition. Clare Costello entered the competition to win the wedding of your dreams at the Macdonald Hill Valley Hotel, Golf and Spa in the Shropshire Star in 2006. And on Saturday (February 23) Clare married Nathan Bools at St Thomas & St Stephen RC Church in Market Drayton before heading to the four-star hotel in Tarporley Road, Whitchurch, where the celebrations began. Sixty guests enjoyed the wedding breakfast in the Shropshire Suite while 100 guests attended the evening reception. Clare, who lives in Market Drayton, said her uncle, Christopher Wilkinson, had organised the blind date. Nathan served for fourteen-and-a-half years with the Royal Welsh Fusiliers and he was in the army with my uncle who gave him my number, the 34-year-old said. I was a bit shocked when he rang because my uncle hadn’t warned me because he thought it would be a nice surprise.

Nathan was on tour in Ireland for the marching season for six weeks at that time so we ended up writing and then when he came back to Tern Hill, he came round to the house and we went to the Four Alls pub just on the outskirts of Market Drayton. When Clare accepted a proposal from the 32-year-old HGV driver, the mum-of-three spotted a competition to win a wedding in the Shropshire Star. You had to collect tokens and then post them for the winner to be decided in a prize draw, she said. I never expected to win. When I received a telephone call to say I was the winner, I thought it was a joke because I have never won anything in my life. The Hill Valley is a brilliant hotel and we had a fantastic day. We’re going to have our honeymoon later in the year because I only had a baby five-and-a-half months ago and we didn’t want to leave her. Baby Elle was a bridesmaid along with 14-year-old Sian and 12-year-old Macaulay, Clare’s children from a previous relationship. Nicky Brundell, conference and events manager at the Macdonald Hill Valley Hotel, Golf and Country Club, said this was their first wedding of 2008. It was great to start our 2008 weddings with such a lovely couple as Clare and Nathan, she said. Since they weren’t dashing off on honeymoon they were able to visit the health club and spa the following day to round off their wedding in style.