THIS photograph of Feniscowles reader Eileen Whiston's late uncle and aunt on their wedding day in 1931 is like many another in East Lancashire family albums.

But what makes it extra interesting is that it comes with detail -- down to the last old ha'penny -- of how much the bride, Ethel Bridge, spent on the beautiful dress and veil that she wore that day when she married Albert Murphy at Christ Church in Mosley Street, Blackburn.

Not only that, because she kept the dressmaker's bill, we know, too, the cost of her going-away outfit -- a green sleeveless dress, with a long-sleeved coatee over the top that had been dyed and altered to go with it.

Together with her 'fine quality net veil' decorated with lace embroidery and sprays of orange blossom, her ankle-length wedding gown, trimmed with five velvet flowers at 1s 3d (6p) each and silver leaves priced 11d (4.2p), cost £3.14.10d (£3.74) -- the equivalent today of £122.42. And together with the cost of making her going-away ensemble, the total bill for the outfits created for her by dressmaker Miss A. Readett, of Bolton Road, Blackburn, was £5.13.0d (£5.65) -- or £184.75 at today's values.

But though it sounds a small amount now, the outlay was no mean sum then. And where today would a bride get a hand-made wedding gown and veil as splendid as Ethel's for £120-odd?