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Car disaster before big day

Lucy McGuire
3/ 7/2008

A COUPLE feared they would have been left with no transport to their wedding after the company they paid to supply vintage cars for their big day went into financial meltdown.

Frank Fitzgerald and fiancée Sarah Cawley, due to marry on Saturday, July 5, paid £700 to hire vehicles from Vintage Wedding Cars, in Swinton - only for the company to suffer financial problems shortly before their wedding.

The couple, both 25, are among hundreds of brides and grooms from across the area to be left out of pocket when the owner Ken Unsworth abandoned the company.

VWC, which has supplied cars for cast weddings in Coronation Street, persuaded Frank, a chartered surveyor from Irlams o’th’ Height, to pay them £700 up front to avoid paying VAT costs.

Now the couple have had to pay an extra £400 direct to the owners of the cars to secure their use.

Frank, who had hired a Model A Ford and a seven-seat Daimler, said: "I found out by chance that the company had gone bust.

"A colleague of mine also had a booking for the end of August and the people who owned the car he had hired got in touch with him directly.

"There was no official communication from the company to tell us what happened.

"We contacted the owner of the vehicles directly and had to pay a further £400 for exactly the same cars."

Bride-to-be Sarah, who works as a nursery nurse, said she was ‘highly distressed’ by the situation.

She said: "My immediate thought was, that’s £700 down the drain.

"If we hadn’t found out by chance, it could have been left until the actual day."

James, an ex-pupil of Hope High School, added: "The way it was handled was absolutely shocking - I can’t believe the way they can leave people out in the cold like that."

Staff at the company say they have not been paid since April - and are now trying to deal with inquiries from more than 400 couples.

Manager Bob Pole has carried on working unpaid so that he can try and honour as many of the bookings as he can, while the problems at the company are addressed.

He said: "We got a call from the manager’s wife saying he had had a stroke and was in hospital and that’s the last we heard."