Manchester couple fear they could miss dream Italian wedding

The couple need to register their marriage this week to legally wed on Saturday

A couple fear they could miss out on their dream Italian wedding after the cancellation of thousands of flights.

Adam Ashall-Kelly, 35, and his fiancée Christine Marriott, 36, had their flight from Manchester to Verona cancelled on Monday due to a fault in the UK's air traffic control system.

The glitch has seen more than a quarter of departures and arrivals axed.

The bride and groom-to-be are now frantically trying to rearrange transportation.

The couple, both originally from Manchester, are due to get married in Malcesine near Lake Garda on Saturday but need to register their wedding at a local court before they can be legally wed.

Mr Ashall-Kelly said he and Miss Marriott, along with other family members, have managed to book on to a flight to Milan on Wednesday but have "no idea" whether it will also be cancelled.

"It's incredibly stressful," Mr Ashall-Kelly told BBC News.

"We've looked at whether we can get a flight to Paris and then a train, but there's strikes. We've looked at driving all the way there and we're thinking about maybe getting the Eurostar to Brussels and then there's a 14-hour bus.

"We're looking at so many options, if someone had a solution and said we had to leave by 16:00 today we'd go."

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The finance management consultant said 45 wedding guests were in a similar situation and were arranging new flights at different airports across the UK.

He said: "Some people are meant to be flying today and they're waiting to find out, some people are meant to be flying on Thursday, but they don't know what the impact of all this will be.

"Everybody is completely on edge."

'Significant cost'

Mr Ashall-Kelly said the priority was getting to the wedding, but told how he and his fiancée have lost a "significant amount of money" on "hotels and rebooking flights and taxis".

"There's a significant cost financially but obviously for Christine and I, it's the stress and the inconvenience in what is meant to be a very exciting time."

Manchester Airport has urged passengers to check before they leave for the airport as their flight times may have changed.

In a statement posted on social media, the airport said staff were "working hard with our airlines and their handling agents to get passengers though the airport as smoothly as possible".