A COUPLE chose the most romantic day of the year to get married - just as they did when they got engaged.

Christopher and Grace Jones wed at a County Durham church on Valentine’s Day, a date when the couple, like people around the world, celebrate love.

After two years together, Mr Jones popped the question to Grace Ashurst while they were staying in his home town, Chester, last Valentine’s Day.

She immediately accepted and spent the next 12 months planning their big day so they could be married exactly a year later.

On Saturday the couple exchanged vows at Whitworth Church, Spennymoor, and celebrated with 86 friends and family with a reception at Whitworth Hall Hotel before more guests joined them for an evening party.

The new Mrs Jones, a 23-year-old call centre supervisor from Crook, said: “We’ve always made a fuss of Valentine’s Day since meeting through a mutual friend three years ago.

“I had a very romantic proposal, he was stood at the end of a candlelit walkway in our hotel room when he asked me to marry him.

“The wedding was everything we hoped.

“It was a gorgeous, a beautiful day.”

Mr Jones, who serves with the Royal Artillery and is training at Lichfield, Staffordshire, to become an Army medic, added: “It was the best day of our lives.”