A groom who had been anxiously awaiting his emotional "first look" at his bride on their wedding day had his nerves turned into laughter when he was instead faced with his bearded best man in a dress and tiara.
John McDonagh, 33, was getting ready to tie the knot with his now-wife Zoey Lacey, also 33, when the pair asked their photographer to capture the moment that he saw her in her wedding dress for the first time.
The groom stood in the grounds of the wedding venue expecting to be moved to tears by the sight of Zoey in her dress, but when he turned around to see his "beautiful bride" he instead found his best mate Hamza Shep walking toward him in a £1 tiara and his sister's old wedding dress.
John, from Stockport, Greater Manchester, said: "I didn't know anything about it.
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"I hadn't seen Zoey all day and in my head, I was going to turn around and start to bawling my eyes out as I would see my wife on my wedding day. When I was waiting for Zoey, the emotions were kicking in.
"I had butterflies, then I turned around and it all went. It turned into sheer, hysterical laughter."
The best friends first met when Hamza started dating John's younger sister and he claims since then, they have had a "really close relationship".
And it wasn't just Hamza that was in on the prank, as John says his now-wife, his younger sister, and several of the staff working at the wedding were also clued in and pitched in to help pull it off.
John added: "Hamza is my future brother-in-law. We have a man crush relationship, as my wife likes to put it. There are times she has said she's like the third wheel in the relationship when we're together.
"A week or so before the wedding, my little sister and Hamza reached out to my wife and said they'd had an idea. They wanted to make me laugh. Basically, they needed me to agree to have a first-look photo with her.
"It came to the day and I'd just had an emotional moment with my mum a few minutes before. I started shouting at people to go away because it was a private moment between me and my partner.
"[The photographer] then said 'can you turn around please - here enters your beautiful bride'.
"There stood my brother-in-law Hamza in a dress that belonged to my older sister. I saw his face first. It was a confusing moment - I was like 'hang on, that's not who it's meant to be'.
"I had my back turned, Hamza came in and the photographer captured every moment of it.
"Everyone was laughing their heads off and they were all in on it."
Hamza, who has known John for eight years, claims he knew he had to pull a prank on the special day - but now fears John will try and outdo him in October when it's his turn to tie the knot with John's sister, Erica.
He said: "It was probably one of the best moments of my life.
"We were in Erica's mum and dad's room - me, Erica, her mum and dad. John was pointing at the window saying 'where's Hamza - we need to take photos?'
"Literally about 10 minutes before that, he'd had a nice moment with his mum and he got a bit upset. He was getting emotional.
"Erica and I get married in October. I've already heard he's going to do something then but I'm not sure what. He's going to have to up this - that's the scary part."
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