AS thousands of flights and holidays remain cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic, The Mail is reminiscing on its favourite destination weddings and proposals.

Zoey Halliwell-Bousfield, 38, who works at Lakeland in Windermere, and Simon Bousfield, a Barclays area manager escaped to the Mediterranean for their dream wedding abroad.

The couple jetted off to a secret intimate wedding in Cyprus before tying the knot with their loved ones back home in the South Lakes.

“We have a blended family and wanted to get married with just the children abroad,” Mrs Halliwell-Bousfield said. “We just told them we were going on holiday then said at the airport, we’re going to get married in Cyprus. The wedding was lovely. It was just us seven in a little gazebo on the beach. It was all about our families coming together as one.” Two weeks later the pair had another wedding back home in Kendal.

Lisa Brotheridge, 41, and her husband, Gavin Southward, 40, also said ‘I do’ in the idyllic backdrop of the Cyprus landscape. Lisa said: “We spent 10 days out there with family and friends and just had the best time.

“We both wanted a small gathering in the sunshine and decided Cyprus was the perfect place.”

However, the pair wanted to ensure any guests who were unable to attend the ceremony could come to an evening ‘do’ back home. Mrs Southward said: “I put my wedding dress back on and did it all over again.”

Tatiana Baez, 26, an accommodation officer at a language school, and Lucas Saunders, 26, who owns a family business, crossed continents, cultures and climates to be together in their magical winter wonderland wedding.

Mr Saunders popped the question in his wife’s home country of Puerto Rico during a romantic holiday.

She said: “We were on the beach one night watching the sun go down when he suddenly asked me."

For their big day, the pair chose to tie the knot at the Abbey House Hotel in Barrow in front of 80 people with another 40 people joining them in the evening.

Laura Heavyside, 29, a marketing manager originally from Walney, and Antony Lavender, 31, an air operations supervisor from Hertfordshire, got engaged during a trip to New York.

Mrs Lavender said: “We were in Central Park and I was enthralled by the skyline, the views were amazing and he was trying to get my attention by talking to me but I was too busy staring at the sky. I turned around and he was on one knee. It was absolutely amazing. I was crying with happiness and excitement.”

The pair said ‘I do’ at Storrs Hall in Bowness-on-Windermere.