Blushing bride Tracy Laney managed to avoid a bumpy start to married life.

She had always dreamed of heading off to her nuptials in style aboard a traditional horse-drawn carriage.

But the romantic mode of transport had clearly not been dreamed up to deal with one 20th century invention - speed humps.

The finely-groomed Dartmoor ponies booked to lead Tracy to the wedding venue at Headington Hill Hall on Saturday might have been called Willing and Able - but the speed humps and steep hill on Bayswater Road, Headington, were just too much of a tall order.

Luckily, an alternative plan was hatched to make Tracy's wedding day dream come true.

The 27-year-old made the first leg of the journey from her family home in Stowford Road, Barton, over the troublesome humps in a relative's Vauxhall Vectra.

Then she climbed aboard the stylish carriage outside Townsend House old people's home, in Bayswater Road.

By the time she arrived to meet her bridegroom Nick Worrell, 31, at Headington Hill Hall, where the ceremony took place, she looked like the perfect fairytale princess.

Tracy's brother, Rick Laney, who accompanied his sister, said: "The speed humps are bad enough in a car and they might have messed up her hair."

Jane Fanner-Hoskin, the owner of Oxford Carriages, said: "The speed bumps and the hill made it a bit complicated. In the old days people were made to get off and walk up steep hills but we didn't think we could ask Tracy to do that. It wouldn't do to bounce her around.

"We were also worried about the speed cameras as well - there was a distinct possibility we would have broken the limit."

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