PANIC turned to joy when a Flood Hero salvaged a bride and groom's dream day.

Staff at The Villa, Levens, came to the rescue for Sarah and James Price after their chosen venue - Grasmere's Daffodil Hotel - was flooded in December.

The Stoke-on-Trent couple had set their hearts on an April 30 wedding, the date they met and got engaged. Every last detail was planned, with invited guests due to join them in the Lakes, where Sarah's family had a house for 20 years.

"Imagine our panic in early December when the Daffodil called us to say they couldn’t host the wedding due to being completely shut down due to the floods," said Sarah's father, David Litherland.

"My daughter was devastated and we really panicked as we just had no idea what we were going to do.

"Finding another high-quality venue at such short notice with accommodation and facilities to host a wedding appeared to be impossible, particularly as many other places were also affected by the floods, and we contemplated cancelling and arranging for later in the year."

However, a chance phone call to Rebekah Knowles, events manager at The Villa, saved the day.

"The Villa immediately booked out all the rooms to us for the night and reserved the function room, all on the basis of a telephone call," said David.

"They then replicated the wedding menu choices so we didn't have to get new choices from our guests, liaised with all our suppliers and even laid on my favourite beer at the bar (Loweswater Gold).

"Due to our circumstances they gave us preferential rates and a few ‘extras’ which certainly helped the preparations and altogether provided extremely professional and calm organisation of the day.

"The wedding day itself was fantastic; Sarah and James were married in the beautiful church of Holy Trinity, Brathay, the sun shone down for the day, there was snow on the mountains and the reception at The Villa was absolutely perfect."

David added: "Without the team at The Villa, and our Flood Hero Rebekah, we wouldn't have had such a wonderful, memorable day."

Events manager Rebekah told the Gazette how grateful she was to be nominated. "We wanted to still make the dream a reality," she said. "To be honest, I don't think we could have wished for a better day for them."