A couple preparing to tie the knot abroad fear their £30,000 wedding could be ruined by "nightmare" passport delays. Reanne House, 27, and Patrick Corbin, 29, got engaged in June 2020 and are set to jet off to Santorini, Greece, on June 1, before sharing their big day on June 17 with 30 guests.
On March 13, Patrick submitted an application to replace his lost passport and said at the time he was told it would be a five-week wait. That gave the application plenty of time to go through before the wedding.
However, the passport office is currently experiencing significant processing issues following an influx of post-Covid passport applications.
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The waiting time for a new passport has doubled, rising from five to 10 weeks and the government's passport website crashed due to demand earlier this week. The pair from Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, now fear they might not make it to their own wedding if Patrick doesn't get his new passport back in time - which would result in their special day being cancelled, leaving them heartbroken and out of pocket.
They risk losing the £30,000 they saved "religiously" for as companies stopped providing wedding insurance when the Covid pandemic hit. Speaking to The Mirror, Reanne, an artist, said: "It would cripple us, it would be absolutely heartbreaking. Patrick sent his passport within 13 weeks of our wedding, plenty of time. If we don't get it who takes responsibility?
"I was in an absolute state on Sunday, I was in tears and I didn't sleep. We have got 30 guests coming out to Santorini, and it's not cheap. My 83-year-old nan is coming with us. What happens if we can't get out there?
"I don't want them to lose out but then that's even more heartbreaking to think everybody will be going out to the place we were going to get married and we will be at home. Weddings are stressful enough as they are. We have spent two years saving religiously, we have done overtime - potentially for us not to get anything back."
She added: "It's been an absolute nightmare for us and I think it's the same for hundreds of people." Patrick, a fire alarm engineer submitted his application for a new passport on March 13 and got a lost reference number which was attached to his case.
"There was a five-week turnaround at the time," Reanne said. They were given a 'tracker' to check status updates, but claim it kept telling Patrick to send his old passport in.
"He was getting frustrated because he had given them a lost reference number, he kept [phoning] and they would say yes we have your lost reference number, you don't need to do anything, don't worry about what the tracker says. "He phones them probably once or twice a week," she said.
Reanne said Patrick has been on hold for up to two hours before only to be cut off, adding that the passport office has been a "nightmare to get hold of". Patrick is not eligible for his passport to be processed as an 'emergency', Reanne said.
The bride-to-be said Patrick was told last week to give it 10 weeks from when he applied, and if he has not received his new passport by then, his case would be upgraded to urgent. But that takes the couple until May 22 until the next step will be taken - a mere few weeks away from their wedding.
Reanne, who also pitches in with the phone calls, said: "I called them on Monday and was on the phone for one hour and 45 minutes, I spoke to six or seven people and would have to repeat the same information. One lady said 'we can see his lost reference number but the system says we are still waiting for his old passport'.
"I asked what that means and was told it means the application hasn't been touched for the last six weeks because they would have been waiting for his old passport. The lady said she would put an alert on the case to be processed urgently." Reanne said she is trying to be positive and praying they will get Patrick's passport in time to have their special day.
A HM Passport Office spokesperson said: "Given recent interest in passports, we are seeing an increased number of people visiting our website to view appointment availability for urgent services. This has not affected people submitting a passport application.
"We have increased staff numbers by 500 since April 2021, which has helped us to handle more applications than ever before, with more than one million passport applications processed in March 2022."
