Last updated 08:52, Friday, 03 October 2008

Brides and grooms-to-be, their families and friends gathered at Carlisle Racecourse on Sunday for the Live the Dream Wedding Event.

• Video: watch Live the Dream

Model Lucia in a Marion dress with spectacular hood from 1970

The show featured more than 80 stands exhibiting all the wedding day essentials, from transport and venues to photography and bridal wear.

Four catwalk shows featured bridal gowns, mother-of-the-bride and guest outfits – and it wasn’t just the latest styles and trends being modelled. A range of vintage dresses from the 1930s to 1980s sent in by readers of Cumbrian Weddings, a monthly supplement of The Cumberland News, were also on show.

The dress Jackie Wilson, from Irton, wore on her wedding day in 1977 was one of the dresses on show.

She said: “It was wonderful to see my dress being worn by someone else on the catwalk.

“Seeing it brought back a lot of memories.”

Finalists in the Cumbrian Weddings competition to win rings worth up to £1,000 from Jopson’s Jewellers in Carlisle also appeared in the Knowing Me Knowing You contest.

Each of the three couples had to answer six questions about each other and Melanie MacPake and Mark Milne from Carlisle were the winners, answering five questions correctly.

Melanie, 34, said: “We were a bit nervous about going on stage and answering the questions but it turned out to be enjoyable and we have had a really good day.”

It was the third time the wedding event has taken place.

Carol Milnes, of event organisers CN Events Management, part of The Cumberland News’s publishers CN Group, said: “The nostalgia dresses in the catwalk shows have gone down a storm.”

For a full report of the event, see Cumbrian Weddings, published in The Cumberland News next Friday, October 10. To watch video highlights online go to www.cumberland-news.co.uk.