Couple tie the knot for second time @ Rutland Hotel Sheffield!

A COUPLE who were reunited by a picture from their original wedding - after not seeing each other for 26 years - have tied the knot a second time.


Ann and Chris Jackson divorced over a quarter of a century ago but were brought back together when a picture of the happy couple at their first wedding was featured in a book.

Now the lovebirds have enjoyed their second wedding together, attended by family and friends, to make the fairytale reunion complete.

The rekindled romantics were joined by 140 guests for a service at The Rutland Hotel in Broomhill, Sheffield, and they are now looking forward to a short honeymoon break in Whitby, North Yorkshire.

A delighted Ann said: “It was lovely. Everybody had got a bit older but it was fantastic to see them all there! There were more people at our second wedding than we had at our original service. They were all excited for us and crying, it was wonderful.”

Ann, who remarried in 1990 to become Ann McCreesh, said: “I was really happy when the vicar said I was called Mrs Jackson again. It just felt right.”

The couple who had submitted the picture which got them back together - Jacqueline and Orrett Hanson - attended the service too and Ann’s nephew Gary, who was just three years old at the first wedding, was Chris’ best man. Ann’s son Josh, 21, gave her away.

Ann, now 54, originally met Chris, 60, at her brother’s wedding in 1973, when she was just 17. They quickly began dating and married in 1977 before moving closer to Chris’ family in Wrexham, North Wales - a move which was to put a strain on the relationship.

Ann felt isolated because Chris was working long hours as a trucker for his family’s haulage business, meaning the couple slowly drifted apart and eventually divorced in 1985.

After returning to Sheffield where she became landlady of The South Sea pub in Broomhill, Ann met Shaun McCreesh. The couple married and had two children - Josh, and Ellie, now 14 - before divorcing in 2009.

Ann swore off men forever... until, a year later, she was told about a book in which her first wedding photograph was featured - The Dirty Stop Out’s Guide to 1970s Sheffield.

Inside the book was a snap of newlywed Chris and Ann sitting on the stage at their reception venue, the Hofbrauhaus, in an image which tugged at Ann’s heartstrings.

She phoned Chris to invite him to the book’s reunion launch night and, four days later, the former lovers met up.

Chris popped the question for the second time just three weeks later.

Ann, from Wadsley, said: “I was a nervous wreck before I rang Chris for the first time after all those years. It was amazing when we spoke though, it felt right again.

“He told me he’d only ever had one love and had sworn never to marry again. He kept that promise until he asked me to marry him – again.

“I can’t believe I am so lucky as to have another shot at happiness, and with a man I was already married to.”

Chris, who has sold the family business in Wales and moved to Sheffield to be with Ann, said: “I never stopped loving her, and I never remarried.

“You only get one love in your life, and she was mine.”