KIRSTY O’Neill and Benjamin Ritchie have been engaged for five years but life keeps getting in the way of their marriage plans.

The couple, who live in Orcheston, met through friends when Kirsty, who is originally from Bulford, had just finished her GCSEs at Stonehenge School in Amesbury.

Ben was 23 when they met and, although they started dating, he had told her she was too young to get engaged. So it came as a big surprise to her when he proposed on Christmas Day, two years after they met.

“He’d said I was too young,” she said, “so I really wasn’t expecting it. He’s quite shy and he didn’t want to ask me in front of anyone so he asked me to go upstairs to his room and then he proposed.”

Ben, who works in data communications, and Kirsty, who is a sales co-ordinator with Burlen Fuel, went on to have a daughter, 22-month-old Leilani and then a son, nine-week-old Riley.

They have been ploughing all their spare cash into their children and into making their house a family home for them, and plans for their wedding keep getting put on the backburner.

They were nominated for the competition by Ben’s mother Mandy and her friend Jennie, who said: “Kirsty’s wish is to get married on July 7, 2012, which will be their eight-year anniversary. I know winning this competition would mean the world to them.”

To vote for Benjamin and Kirsty call 09011 511 092 or text WEDDING 092 to 80360.