A woman has shed more than nine stone in a bid to return to the weight she was on her wedding day.

Vanessa Treagus and husband Vivian renewed their wedding vows at Stoke Lacy Church on Saturday, just a year after the bride weighed around 20st.

Vanessa, who lives near Baron’s Cross and runs Leominster Engineering Ltd with Vivian, puts the loss down to Terri Whittaker, a psychologist specialising in eating disorders.

“I was losing pounds quickly but my husband said I’d never reach my wedding weight,” said Vanessa, who is 42. “I would have been derailed by a comment like this before I met Terri but she helped me use it in a positive way.

“When my husband promised to marry me again if I could fit back into my dress, I knew I would do it.”

The couple married in 1986 when she weighed eleven-and-a-half stone and Vanessa has now returned to that weight following a year of hard work and the loss of nine stone and three pounds.

“Vanessa had been struggling with her weight all her life and didn’t believe she could ever shed it,” said Terri, who owns psychotherapy service LifeConcerns.

“I was able to offer her nutritionally complete food while we worked out the reasons why she had been overeating and what she needed to do to keep the weight off for good.”