A GLAMOROUS art deco ballroom has made history by hosting its first gay wedding.

Reynagh Jarrett, 80, and Keith Westcar, 53, are both members of the line-dancing club which meets at the Old Regent Ballroom, in Corringham Road, Stanford-le-Hope.

And the couple decided to use the venue as the location for their "emotional" wedding ceremony, surrounded by friends and family, including Mr Jarrett's grandchildren and great-grandchildren from a previous marriage.

Mr Jarrett, a retired community health director, said: "When Keith proposed to me last year, we couldn’t decide first of all where we should tie the knot. It was a bit of a dilemma.

“Gay marriage is fully legal now in terms of the law, and of course we could have got married in a church.

“We have been coming up to the Regent Ballroom for their brilliant line-dancing club for some years and we wanted to have it somewhere north of the river because family were coming from north Wales."

The couple live in Cliftonville, Kent, but travel regularly to the Old Regent's dancing club due to the quality of the teaching.

Mr Jarrett added: "We have made so many friends over here. We all go away quite a lot line-dancing together.

“We knew the owner well and spoke to him and he asked if we would like to have the wedding here.

“It’s a beautiful venue. I was excited about it and it’s definitely a community event. Most of the staff who work at the Old Regent are local and they have been marvellous to us. We are really thrilled the community have embraced it.”

Mandie Groves, who works at the ballroom, said: “They are a lovely, lovely couple and this is the first of what we hope to be many same-sex weddings at our venue, and we believe it’s the first civil ceremony in the area. History is being made.

“We only got our certified wedding licence last September, and since then we have been run off our feet.

“We’d love to be known as the venue for any couples getting married. We like to call ourselves an inclusive, and exclusive, venue.”

Mr Jarrett added: “We’re just two guys getting married, we certainly don’t see ourselves as icons.

“We had lunch in a sandwich shop opposite the venue and there was a wedding going on as we ate. We told them we were getting married and they were really excited. They said, 'can we come and watch, we haven’t seen a gay wedding before?'”

Following the ceremony, the happy couple jetted off yesterday morning to the Loire Valley in France for their honeymoon.