'I thought I'd have to get wed in PJs'

Disabled bride-to-be Amelia Peckham almost stopped searching for the gown of her dreams after wedding shop staff left her feeling humiliated

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When Amelia Peckham walked down the aisle at her wedding in 2016 it was the culmination of months of gruelling physical prep, not to mention 11 years of physio after a quad-bike crash left her paralysed from the waist down.

"I was shaking when I got to the church," she recalls. “It was the first time I had everyone in one room who had been there for me after the accident. I wanted to make them proud, but didn’t want everyone to just see my injury.”

It was a moment Amelia, from Harrogate, North Yorkshire, never thought she'd have after her accident. In 2005, as a 19-year-old, she was riding quad bikes with two friends in Scotland and hit a pothole, flipping over.

SURGERY

“We fell down a very steep drop into a river, and I came off first and rolled,” she says. “My hips got stuck, and the front of me kept going, so I literally smashed one vertebra in the middle of my back.

“Immediately, I lost the feeling and movement from the waist down. It was shocking, and within 24 hours, I was told, ‘You'll be disabled for life’. It was very clear I wouldn't walk again.”

During 10 weeks in hospital, Amelia opted for spinal reconstruction surgery, which was a success, giving her hope that she might move her legs again.