Wendy and Laurence Edgell married in an intimate ceremony in November 2025, followed by a cowboy-themed reception with 160 friends and family. The couple, together for seven years, wanted their day to celebrate their love of country music and booked a line dancing lesson for the event.
Fall during line dance
Halfway through the party, Wendy, 51, was line dancing when she tripped backwards toward her four-year-old granddaughter. Desperate not to land on the child, she put all her weight on her right wrist, fracturing two bones and dislocating the joint. Footage shows the bride stumbling and crashing onto the dancefloor before guests rushed to help.
"At the time I was line dancing when my four-year-old granddaughter ran across the dancefloor behind me. I realised it was a child behind me and was desperately trying not to land on her. I put all my weight onto my right wrist as I fell," Wendy said.
Makeshift sling and tequila
She immediately knew her wrist was broken but was determined to carry on. Her husband Laurence, 41, a former ambulance worker, made a makeshift sling. "There was no way I was walking out of my own wedding. He put me in a sling, I took some strong painkillers and drank a double tequila and two more shots. I would easily have done probably 20 tequila shots (but) they ran out of tequila," she said.
The civil servant from Ipswich, Suffolk, added: "I couldn't have gotten through that pain without the alcohol, it was very much medicinal. I carried on dancing with a sling on, I carried on until the very end."
Wedding night in A&E
After the reception, the couple returned to their hotel for champagne, then took an Uber to A&E, where they spent the rest of their wedding night. "This lovely huge bed scattered in rose petals didn't even get slept in," Wendy said.
In hospital, she learned she had fractured her wrist in two places, dislocated it and shattered the bone, requiring surgery to fit a metal plate and screws.
Wendy said: "It didn't massively affect the rest of the wedding because I just soldiered on. But it did affect the wedding night, which I feel bad about and I do have a fuzzy memory of the end of the night, which I didn't want."
She hopes to redo the wedding night at some point. "I think we'll try and do our wedding night again at some point. Part of me would love to do the whole party again. Everyone said it was the best wedding," Wendy said.
