Click the pictures to see a larger version.

Sometime in 1995 my sister announced her engagement to her then boyfriend Paul, She also announced that she wanted to use my 1961 Morris Minor, known as Amelia Jane, as her wedding car. I had been given the car as an 18th birthday present in 1990 with the intention of restoring it but at this point it was still sitting on the drive rusting.

I actually started work in august 1996, this photo was taken shortly after she was pulled out of the bushes and plonked in the middle of the drive where I could get at her.

Once I had pulled her out I started to find out what needed to be done, it was not a pretty sight.

As I started to dismantle things more and more rust appeared. Interestingly the rust was generally confined to the important structural parts of the car.

This is a similar view to the second one above but the other side and looking a bit more healthy. All the black bits are new.

As is traditional with such projects, there's always about half the work still to do right up to the last minute. This was two weeks before the wedding.

The wedding was on Saturday morning, this was Wednesday evening, all the mechanical components are on and I'd just sprayed the primer, I sprayed the top coat the next day. Dads compressor broke down halfway through the first coat so I wasted several hours hiring a replacement, but I didn't panic. I was beyond panic by that time.

This was taken just after Amelia Jane had moved off the drive for the first time in 7 years. Work was completed at about 5pm on Friday evening, the wedding was 12:30 the next day so I'd finished with a whole 19 1/2 hours to spare, loads of time, I don't know why I was worrying really.

The morning of wedding, and the devastation of the night before has miraculously disappeared! The cars are all ready to take everyone to the church, the other 2 were provided by friends.

Just to be different the reception took place on a narrowboat. This one was taken just after everyone had arrived at Sutton Cheney Wharf, the interloper is the best mans TR2. I'll do a better version of this at some point, this one was scanned from a screwed-up photocopy enlargement of a print.

Copyright © 1998 David Reid