KATIE DALBY faced a difficult decision when all her dance-school pupils begged to be bridesmaids at her wedding. Naturally, she did the obvious thing, and asked all of them.

So when she and her groom, Norman Gooch, walked down the aisle at St Nicholas's, Harwich, in Essex, last Saturday, she was joined by 80 attendants, aged from two to 17, all in matching dark-pink dresses.

Six were her actual bridesmaids - three sisters-in-law, a niece, a cousin, and her best friend - and the remaining 74 were students at the Boogie Shoes Dance Academy.

Ms Dalby said: "The children were all very excited when I told them I was getting married - some of them had been asking me for more than a year. It just wouldn't have been fair to choose two or three of them; so the only solution was to invite them all."

The Rector of the Harwich Peninsula, Canon Peter Mann, who conducted the service, said: "It was very good, and was actually a very normal wedding service, once they had all walked in. We did have some concerns at the beginning, but in the end it worked well.

"We made it clear that it was a Christian ceremony, about what people feel for each other, and celebrating the love of God and Katie and Norman's love for each other. They took on board that the service was not a show. . .

"We have quite a lot of space; so the girls sat two to a pew, and it formed a nice setting down the aisle. . . They came in first to their own music - a piece by Grieg - and then we had the normal entry of Katie with 'Here comes the bride'."