Coronation Street stars past and present turned out to celebrate the marriage of Charlie Lawson and Debbie Stanley, but it was a certain familiar face presiding over proceedings that very nearly stole the show.
Charlie, 63, and 59 year old Debbie’s officiator was, remarkably, daytime TV legend Eamonn Holmes, 63, who’s been close pals with the groom for more than thirty years. He conducted the service from an elaborate silver throne that had been set up for him, amid his ongoing mobility issues.
Eamonn got the call asking him to “conduct the ceremony” a mere month before the wedding, joking, “I should maybe become some sort of preacher.”
Charlie – who played Coronation Street’s fiery Jim McDonald from 1989 until 2000 and made brief comebacks between 2003 and 2018 – couldn’t have been more thrilled by Eamonn’s appearance.
“We actually legally got married two weeks before the proper wedding at Macclesfield Registration Office, with just three witnesses, so that Eamonn could do the service,” he told OK! , who exclusively covered the wedding.
During the ceremony, guests sat on white chairs with sage green silk bows which tied in perfectly with pretty bunches of gypsophila – matching Debbie's bouquet flowers – lining the aisle, whilst at the head of the room sat officiant Eamonn, on a huge silver gilded throne.
Charlie and Debbie stood either side of Eamonn, who had the guests bursting into laughter during his tongue-in-cheek ceremony duties., which included a quip suggesting Debbie 'could have married him', saying: "It could have been me, darling".
During our chat from their honeymoon villa in Portugal, Debbie explains that Eamonn's cheeky comment was due to the fact that she once 'fancied him' on TV and was nervous to meet him as Charlie's girlfriend two decades ago – a fact that Charlie was only too happy to reveal to Eamonn, much to Debbie's embarrassment.
Charlie spoke fondly of his decades-long friendship with Eamonn, as he revealed that he thought it would 'give Eamonn a lift' when he asked him to officiate at the wedding.
Charlie told OK!: "Eamonn and myself have both been in TV a long time and we've met over the years and become really good friends – we're very similar human beings. Famously, over the years, Eamonn has participated in lots of ceremonies – including George Best's funeral – and I couldn't think of anyone else better to oversee our wedding.
"I'm also terribly aware that Eamonn has had a tough time with his health over the past couple of years, and I just felt that this would give him a bit of a lift. It transpired that he was quite nervous about the whole thing, but he's messaged us since and said that it was one of the best days he'd ever had because everyone was very kind to him."
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