Honeymooners stranded after travel agent goes bust

Wick couple, Ben Bonetti and Victoria Franklin, who are due to get married on Saturday, will now miss out on their dream honeymoon to The Maldives, which they were expected to book on Monday with a view to travelling later that week.

Newly-weds Simon and Clare Brown, of Clover Lane, Ferring, discovered just hours before their big day on Saturday that World Hoppers in the Guildbourne Centre had gone into administration.

The couples had both set up honeymoon accounts with the company and their family and friends paid into it instead of buying them presents. The couples both agreed: "We are absolutely devastated."

Ben, 24, and Victoria, 25, who have a two-year-old son called Joseph, are getting married at St Andrew's Church in Ferring.

Their guests had been paying into the honeymoon account for five months and the couple were due to go into World Hoppers on Monday to book a dream trip to The Maldives for later that week.

Ben said: "We are devastated and Vicky is broken. My Dad telephoned me on Tuesday morning to let me know, but the administrators didn't bother telling us.

"We have been told there are no funds. I can't believe people can do this. I do feel sympathy for companies which go into administration, but I am frustrated this has happened the week before the wedding and we discovered indirectly.

"Our day has been ruined and our guests have lost money. We are not in a position to pay ourselves for a honeymoon and this was going to be our first holiday on our own since our son was born."

Simon and Clare, both 32, were married at Lion Gate Hotel at Hampton Court on Saturday, with their son Jack, four, as a pageboy and daughter Ella, two, a bridesmaid. They had hoped to go somewhere like Fiji for a beach honeymoon in the New Year.

Simon, said: "It came as such a blow when we found out. On Friday, the day before the wedding, we were horrified to hear from a friend who had tried to pay some money into the account, World Hoppers had gone into administration.

"When we called them friday afternoon they said as of Thursday at 3pm they could no longer accept any monies and any monies which had been paid into our honeymoon account would have to be claimed from the receivers.

"We set up the account a few months ago because we have two children and trying to save for a honeymoon was hard. I had to announce what had happened in my speech at the wedding and everyone was shocked.

"It is really embarrassing because the idea of the account was we would be told how much was in there but not what each individual had paid. We have now had to ask people and tell them to contact the creditors to see if they can get any of their money back."

Their big day was as special as they had planned, but the news did put a dampener on things.

Simon said: "We were so stressed by what had happened, Clare went to fill the car up the day before the big day and accidentally put petrol in it instead of diesel. It cost us 150 to get repaired."