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When Martin Allaway (37) and Stephanie Povey (30) got married on 1 June, they had a special form of transport laid on to get their guests to their reception venue in Gosport.
The couple - now Mr and Mrs Allaway - hired an Eclipse BRT bus for the occasion, treating their guests to the utmost luxury as they made the eight-mile journey from the Alverstoke Evangelical Church to Bay House School for the reception, and then on to Bridgemary College for the evening celebration.
Chosen because the colour of the bus matched the colour-scheme of the wedding, Martin couldn't think of a more perfect
way for his guests to arrive. Talking about it, he said:
"Stephanie and I use the Eclipse BRT route all the time, to travel between Bridgemary and Fareham Railway Station. When we started thinking about our wedding, and particularly how we would get our guests from one venue to another, the Eclipse service immediately sprang to mind. Our son Joshua is also a big fan of Eclipse so that sealed the deal from our point of view.
"We were thrilled when, having spokento First, the company agreed to hire us an Eclipse vehicle for the event. Our guests were taken to the reception in real style, enjoying all the vehicle has to offer in terms of a spacious layout, leather seating and wooden flooring."
To mark the occasion, the destination blind on the bus was specially programmed by First to read: "Congratulations, Married Today and All the best for the future: Stephanie and Martin"
The Eclipse BRT service was officially launched in April 2012. In April 2013, First revealed that in its first year of operation the luxury
buses, running on Eclipse BRT E1 and E2 routes, more than 1.3 million passenger journeys were made, and that the introduction of the service had led to an increase in the numbers of people using public transport in general.
Specifically the number of people using public transport to travel between Gosport and Fareham had risen by 11.86% overall, while 64% more people now use the Eclipse BRT service than used the services that it replaced (ie Services 82 and 86).