YOUR wedding day is supposed to be one of the happiest days of your life, but for one young couple it turned into a frantic search for the bridegroom after the ceremony, with his new wife believing that he had come to harm.

On Tuesday, January 14, 1845 a young couple from Menstrie made their way to Stirling to get married.

Accompanying them was the bridegroom's best man who was to be the witness at the marriage, making it official.

There is no record of what exactly happened next but late the following morning, the young newly wed found herself at her home in Menstrie along with the best man, but her husband was nowhere to be seen.

Why he was not missed during the journey from Stirling back to Menstrie is unknown and is open to speculation.

The two young people slowly began to recall the events of the previous day. The last they remembered seeing the bridegroom was while he was holding on to a lamp post near Stirling Bridge.

The young woman immediately set off to find her husband, heading straight back to Stirling.

It later transpired that the young man had followed his wife and the best man as far as Causewayhead in an almost unconscious state, thanks to the copious amounts of alcohol consumed.

Instead of turning right at the foot of the hills to head back to Menstrie, he turned left and headed north.

He continued walking in the wrong direction for some time, until he reached the Sheriffmuir Inn, then known as Menzies Inn, around eight miles north of Stirling.

Realising his mistake, and asking the inn keeper for directions, he set out over the Ochil Hills and headed home, even though he was exhausted from his ramble.

Meanwhile, the young lady found nothing of her husband in Stirling. No-one recalled seeing him, so she returned to her house, frantic with worry, wondering where her husband could have got to.

The following day, at one o'clock in the afternoon, the young man finally arrived home. However, his wife was nowhere to be found.

Disconsolately, she had returned to Stirling to look for him, now beginning to think something sinister had happened to him.

It turns out that on the day of the wedding, a thick fog had descended and that was why the bridegroom had become disorientated and taken a wrong turn.

They were happily reunited later that day when his wife returned from Stirling.