Groom turns up in wedding dress

A cross-dressing factory worker's family only found out he had a secret double life as a transvestite when he arrived at his own wedding - wearing a bride's dress. Dean Dudley, 35, has been dressing up in women's clothes and make-up since the age of six but never even told his mother.

And he kept his alter-ego 'Deanne' a secret from his macho workmates at an engineering factory for fear of being teased.

Dean met Robyn, 28, in 2003 in the ladies' toilets of Chicago Rock Cafe in Barnsley, South Yorkshire, while she was trying to tidy her hair with her hands and he offered her a brush.

They chatted for 45 minutes, swapped mobile phone numbers and began dating.

Chicago-born Robyn said: "I had seen what appeared to be a tall, gorgeous red-headed woman moving on the dance floor, but when she offered me her hairbrush, it turned out to be a man called Dean. We got on really well immediately. I accepted who he was and that it was not my place to change him. Even if we had got together in normal circumstances and he had come out with it later, I wouldn't have had a problem. It is something that is just part of him. I love being with my husband and the person he is."

Dean goes clubbing with his wife every Tuesday and Friday night as Deanne but has also made shopping trips to Manchester, Blackpool, London and on holidays abroad in women's outfits.

It takes him 10 minutes to get ready for a night out when he is Dean but two-and-a-half hours to prepare as Deanne.