Couple's Lancaster wedding same day as royals

Adrian Tonge and Marc Wilkinson will tie the knot at Lancaster Castle on May 19 – the same day as Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s wedding.

The pair will also be married during the Lancaster Pride Festival.

“The date was a coincidence, we chose it before the royals and didn’t realise it was the same as gay pride,” said Adrian, who grew up in Morecambe.

“We don’t have any guests in common with Harry, so perfectly happy they chose the same day!”

Adrian, 57 and Marc, 42, met in a cafe in Leeds in 2016 after discovering they had a mutual friend.

They soon became inseparable, sharing a love for travelling and taking many trips together including Manchester (where Adrian proposed), Berlin, Hamburg, Brussels, Budapest, Porto, Barcelona, Cologne and Antwerp.

The couple will have a drinks reception at the Midland Hotel before heading to Lancaster Castle for the ceremony.

“Marc thought the castle was a good place to get married – my parents were married in the Priory Church in 1954,” said Adrian, who works as a barrister.

“We were really taken by the Shire Hall as a venue, it’s a place I knew already but was new to Marc.”

Adrian and Marc also hope to hire a vintage Blackpool double-decker to travel with guests to the castle.

“I worked as a bus conductor in Blackpool in 1979 on this type of vehicle so there is a connection there,” said Adrian.

The couple will have a party at Forrest Hills, Lancaster after the ceremony and then another in Leeds, where Marc is a popular part time DJ. A ten day honeymoon will see the pair jet off to Pisa, Florence, Rome and Naples.