�They say all you need is love – but for a wedding party some good old pie and mash helped too.

Almost 21 years since the day they met, Laura and Jim Groom held a Valentine’s Day reception with a twist – it was at Roy’s Pie and Mash on the High Street.

The couple tied the knot at Langton’s register office, Hornchurch, with bride Laura dressed in red for Valentine’s and Jim in a traditional suit.

The 46 guests tucked into their traditional cockney grub followed by apple pie and said their speeches in the specially decorated eatery before moving on to a Dagenham pub.

Teaching assistant Laura, 44, said: “We couldn’t really afford the sort of prices which restaurants charge so we weren’t sure what we were going to do.”

After jokingly suggesting to a friend that van driver Jim, 45, would like pie and mash for his wedding meal, she looked into the possibility.

She said: “Everyone thought it was a great idea. Everybody likes pie and mash, I don’t really know anyone who doesn’t – especially men.

“Being together so long, we didn’t really want a traditional wedding and it just seemed like a fun thing to do.”

The Dagenham couple, who have two children – 16-year-old Sonny and 13-year-old Nancy – met at a Valentine’s night in a club.

Laura said: “We kept putting off getting married but eventually we just decided to go for it.”

‘Wind-up’

Friend Lesley Staines said: “It was a proper East End wedding. I think that, when people first got their invitations, they thought it was a bit of a wind-up. But they’re all East Enders and so they thought it was a fun thing to do.”

Lesley was part of the group which helped to decorate the pie and mash shop. And they were under strict instructions to cover the pictures of West Ham players on the walls so Spurs fan Jim could enjoy his big day properly.