A FOREST couple have taken the plunge and put their wedding on national TV in a programme pitting four brides against each other to win a five star honeymoon.

Living TV's 'Four Weddings' first contacted Natalie and Andrew Smith after they left a chance entry on a wedding planner site.

Natalie (née Warr) said: "When you join the site, you had to put in your wedding date. I then got an email saying 'Living TV want to film your wedding'. At first I thought it was a joke."

It was anything but. Within a week of agreeing to go ahead the couple, originally from Lydney, but living in Bream, were being filmed at Cannop Ponds.

"I'd never watched the programme before," says Natalie, a former Whitecross student. "They sent me a whole programme and then phoned up and asked me lots of questions, what I liked, what I didn't like."

The programme is described as: "Four brides battling it out to win their dream honeymoon" and Natalie says she has no illusions about the fact that all the brides are deliberately chosen to be poles apart: "I've been very very careful about what I've said. It is a bit weird being filmed though – especially when you're eating. You become very aware in case you're dribbling down your chin."

One of the brides is Lynn, a biker, who married at a Doncaster working men's club. The others are Roseanne is a wealthy Brazilian marrying a steel magnate in a Scottish castle on March 20 while Lisa is due to wed in an Essex manor house.

Each bride then votes on each other's wedding, based on venue, food, dress and overall experience.

Natalie who took Andrew "off guard" by proposing on a leap year, tied the knot at Cinderford Registry Office at the end of last month and celebrated their reception at the Inn on the Wye near Kerne Bridge.

Setting aside Andrew's speech announcing: "Welcome to our married life together and the end of mine" there was conflict from the start.

"We were obviously very busy with our wedding," recalls Natalie. "But I do know that one of the brides moaned a lot, sat about reading the papers and pouted for the cameras. But I suppose that's what she expects to do. It's what makes the programme."

So far two weddings have been filmed – the first being the biker wedding in Doncaster.

"The image of bikers is a bit scary, but it was really good fun. I went on the back of a trike along with a whole procession of bikes. I've never seen anything like it before. And it was quite daunting, Lynn is a lorry driver and most of her friends are men and all of them are bikers. But we're both down to earth and pretty laid back. I ended up singing Meatloaf on the karaoke."

There are two more weddings to film, followed by the show's finale at an aircraft hanger in Oxfordshire when the brides (in full gowns) go head to head and the successful groom turns up in a limo.

It is understood the finished series will be screened this June.