EXCITED residents at a care home had front-row seats at a wedding dress catwalk to celebrate the royal marriage.

Bridge House Care Home in Abingdon invited children to design and create a wedding dress, with the winning entry featured in a parade through the home.

Youngsters from the 11th Abingdon Christ Church Brownies and Our Lady's Abingdon school took part, tasked with making a dress Meghan Markle might like.

The winning design was by nine-year-old Chloe Johnson of the Brownie pack, which was the centrepiece of the dress parade last week with 11 other wedding dresses.

These belonged to care home staff, residents or their relatives, with some modelled by granddaughters and daughters of residents and others displayed on mannequins.

Bridge House manager June Maharaj said: "There was so much excitement in the home about the Royal wedding, so we thought it would be lovely for the residents to have a little pre-wedding event.

"When we put out a call for people to bring their wedding dresses we didn’t expect such an overwhelming response.

"Everyone was delighted to have the chance to wear their dresses again."

One was handmade by Marlene Phillimore, a resident at Bridge House, for the wedding of her daughter Lisa Padbury.

She had originally seen an expensive dress in a magazine but her mum insisted she could better it with her own creation.

Mrs Padbury said: "It took so much work and when we eventually took it to Debenhams to find a hooped petticoat to go under it, they said it was the most beautiful wedding dress they had ever seen and so did the chauffeur who drove me to the church.

"I was thrilled to get the chance to wear it again."

The parade preceded a tea party featuring elderflower and lemon drizzle cake made by Bridge House's chef, which was based on Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's own cake.