Theatre star Carrie Hope Fletcher and her fiancé Joel Montague have secretly got married after eloping to Gretna Green, HELLO! can exclusively reveal.
The couple, who have been dating for less than a year, tied the knot at the iconic Blacksmiths Shop in the famous Scottish village a few days before Valentine's Day, with just a couple of witnesses, a photographer and the registrar present.
Carrie, 30, looked radiant in a white Phase Eight gown, accessorised with a dried flower crown and bouquet, while Joel, 36, was dapper in a grey check three-piece suit.
Carrie Hope and Joel became engaged in October. Copyright: Alister Lynn
"Everything we do is a performance and in front of people and we just thought, let’s do away with that on what’s meant to be the happiest day of our lives," Cinderella star Carrie tells us in an exclusive interview.
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"Also, I get so emotional about everything and of course I cried. I burst into tears and I was like, 'thank God, this is only in front of four people', otherwise I think I'd be absolutely mortified."
Even the couple's families were kept in the dark until the last minute, including big brother Tom Fletcher and his wife Giovanna, who were let into the secret during a Facetime call the night before.
The couple have been together for less than a year. Copyright: Alister Lynn
"They were thrilled," says Carrie. "My brother and I like being on stage in the context of what we do – me playing a character and Tom playing with his band - but if you put us in front of a big group of people as ourselves we get really nervous. So I think my brother quite liked the idea that I was just running away and doing this in private."
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Carrie and Joel, who plays King George 111 in hit West End musical Hamilton, say they knew on their first date last spring that they would get married and tell how Joel moved into Carrie's house in north London that night and proposed in October.
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"I think when we met each other everything just seemed to perfectly align," says Carrie. "You can't explain it, you just can't put it into words and even if you did find the words to explain it, it still wouldn't quite do it justice."
The full interview and wedding album will appear in next week’s issue of HELLO! Magazine. In this video you can see Carrie doing what she does best singing a beautiful duet from the musical Once.
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