They had booked Manchester Town Hall months earlier, the way you do, and then the phone rang.

 

They had booked Manchester Town Hall months earlier, the way you do, and then the phone rang.

The staff wanted to let them know that a VIP would be in the building on the same day.

John and Frances Canning, from Prestwich, asked who.

It was the Queen. She was coming to Manchester as part of the Diamond Jubilee tour, and there would be a luncheon in the same building, on the same afternoon, roughly one room away from where they intended to get married.

So John wrote to Buckingham Palace.

He described it afterwards as a lighthearted letter. Since she was going to be there anyway, would she like to come to the wedding.

A reply came back from her lady-in-waiting. Politely, kindly, and clearly: no.

They accepted that, and got on with it. There were extra security checks in the run-up, which they assumed was as close as they would get.

On the day, after the ceremony, a man from the town hall asked them to wait in the corridor for a few minutes.

Then she came round the corner.

She knew both their names. They had been added to her schedule at some point without anyone telling them. John bowed. Frances curtseyed. Prince Philip appeared behind her, grinning.

One guest was so startled she knocked something over, and the Queen turned and asked her if she was all right.

"It was a bit scary," Frances said afterwards. "But she was so nice. She was so gracious."

They had asked for a low-key wedding at the town hall.

"Basically," Frances said, "it was a wedding gift for us"