A wedding guest was left with nowhere to go after a fire broke out causing the building to go up in flames.
Katie Jones attended her friend's wedding at Thornton Manor hotel on Saturday which she said started "amazingly".
Everything from the morning to evening was "brilliant" and everyone was having a "great day" at the popular Wirral wedding venue until the music was halted and guests were suddenly asked to evacuate into the car park.
READ MORE: IITV Good Morning Britain viewers switch off over Richard Madeley's comments
Katie, 31, told the ECHO: “It was our friend’s wedding and it was an amazing day up until that point.
“The bride looked amazing, the speeches were so funny, the food was amazing. We were having a great day.
“Everyone was dancing, drinking and having a lovely time and then the fire alarm went off and the music just stopped.”
Katie, who lives in Ellesmere Port, said staff entered the room and began to chaperone the “concerned” wedding party out into the car park at around 9pm.
Following the first fire alarm, the wedding attendees were asked to wait in the car park for around half an hour until they were told the problem had been resolved and the group could re-enter the building.
Katie added: “The first time it went off people were concerned.
“When we got sent back in we were told it was a fire and it had been extinguished and we'd been cleared to re-enter."
Guests resumed “dancing and drinking”, until the fire alarm went off for a second time half an hour later leaving them “frustrated”.
Katie said: “When it went off the second time people were just frustrated and assumed it would be the same as before and we'd be sent back within half an hour or so.
“Obviously once we'd seen the smoke and the flames coming from the roof everyone was concerned and we started to realise it was serious.”
Merseyside Fire & Rescue attended the venue at around 9pm to extinguish a fire involving a boiler however when they inspected the building further the fire spread was detected in the roof which is when the party was evacuated the second time at around 10pm.
By 12pm, eight fire engines and aerial appliance attended the scene to tackle the ongoing blaze and wedding guests were sent into one of the ground's marquees while staff organised transport for them to their accommodation.
However, as Katie's keys were trapped inside the building she was left without anywhere to go.
She said: “We'd left our key for the cottage we were staying in in the main building so then we couldn't get into it, but our house keys and car keys were in there so we had nowhere to go.”
Eventually Katie was designated a room by the hotel at around 3am and she added the staff remained "brilliant at keeping people calm and safe" despite the nights "overwhelming" events.
She said: “We managed to get a couple hours sleep but because of all noise from the fire engines and police we didn’t get that much sleep.
“The next morning we managed to get our jacket with our keys and there was still a lot of thick smoke.
The 31-year-old added following Saturday’s events, her friends the bride and groom are “very overwhelmed” and trying to “get their heads around everything”.
An investigation into the cause of a blaze at Thornton Manor Hotel is now underway.
