Wedding insurance, life insurance, health insurance… it’s sometimes all too apparent that when it comes to organising a wedding, the element most prone to let you down is your own health, or that of the key members of your wedding party. Sadly, there’s very little that can be done to prevent the possibility of someone falling ill, and there’s every possibility that someone will, and this could either mean having your wedding without someone very important there with you, or having to postpone your wedding at considerable cost. Neither is a good option, but at least if you have wedding insurance you’ll be able to afford to postpone it; without any cover, you’re on your own.

Take the recent case of Carol and Richard, a young couple who had been planning their wedding for the better part of two years. Richard opted for a dinner out with his friends rather than a stag party, and they all had a great time, except that both he and the Best Man woke up during the night with food poisoning (not together, I should add). Quite unable to leave the bathroom for long enough even to mutter the words ‘I do’, the whole wedding had to be postponed, costing several thousand pounds.

Or there’s the case of Mandy and Carl, a couple who had invested nearly £21,000 on the dream wedding, only for Carol to develop what she thought was a mildly irritating cold the week before. Unfortunately it turned out to be Swine Flu, which meant that quite apart from being too unwell to squeeze into her wedding dress, she was barred from her own wedding on the grounds of infection control. Their wedding also had to be re-arranged, at considerable expense.

Of course, if you are entirely certain that no one in your wedding party would be so inconsiderate as to fall ill right when you’re about to have the most glorious day of your life, or if you have a few thousand pounds spare you don’t know what to do with, then you’ll be fine. Otherwise, before you feel the need to reach for the tissues – why not reach for a pen to fill in a wedding insurance policy?