A bride has shared how her fairytale wedding fell into chaos after her sister-in-law threw black paint all over her dress.
Gemma Monk explained that she was subjected to the malicious "revenge" attack by her sister-in-law, which was witnessed by shocked guests who had come to see her marry her now husband Ken. Antonia Eastwood - the wife of Gemma's older brother, Ashley - fled the Oakwood House Register Office in Maidstone, leaving her paint-stained victim in tears.
Remarkably, Gemma, 35, managed to stay composed, cleaned the paint from her face and body in a changing cubicle, and changed into a spare dress before marrying her partner of over 20 years.
However, The Mirror can reveal that following the incident, her brother Ashley said he had disowned his sister, adding, "we don’t want anything to do with her."
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A guest at the wedding said: "She was so determined that she wanted her day. She’s strong-hearted. When she walked down the aisle with her dad, she did incredibly well to keep it all together. Everyone started applauding her as she walked down the aisle. You could see a tear in her eye. She’s one in a million."
She said: “We had waited for that day for so long. Nothing was going to stop me. She was determined that the wedding was not going to happen. I didn't think twice, I would have walked down the aisle in my underwear and with black paint over my face if I had to.”
Gemma spoke out after Eastwood, 49, now living in Manchester, was sentenced at Maidstone Crown Court after admitting two counts of criminal damage. The court heard that the bill for repairs and “loss of revenue” at the venue was believed to exceed £5,000.
Neither Eastwood nor her husband, Ashley, had been invited to the wedding, following a bitter feud that had started a year earlier at their own wedding.
Gemma claimed she had been falsely accused of “trying to trip up” Eastwood at her wedding in Dover in September 2023. Relations between the two couples have since deteriorated, despite Ken previously being Ashley’s closest friend - even introducing him to his sister when she was just 14 years old.
Brother Ashley admitted there had been “disagreements” in the family before the wedding - but he didn’t want to discuss them publicly.
He said: “There’s more to it. But she’s been punished now, she’s suffered more than enough. We want it over and done with.” He said, “she’s done what she’s done” and they now wanted to put it all behind them. He added: “I can’t believe it’s taken 18 months to get to this.”
The Monk’s ceremony did proceed on May 24, 2024, two hours after the paint attack at the Victorian mansion, which was forced to temporarily shut down for a clean-up. In the fallout, Gemma, who works as a mental health care worker, said she has battled depression and been unable to return to work.
Fighting back tears, she delivered her victim impact statement to the court, saying: “To have paint thrown over me by my brother’s wife changed my outlook on life and made me question whether I had done something really bad, whether I had done something wrong.
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“This has had a dramatic impact on my life. Even while I was providing this statement at the police station, I got extremely emotional and started crying while talking about the incident.
“Since the incident, if it wasn’t for my children or my family, I don’t think I would even get out of bed to care for myself. I have lost all my dignity and good habits in life. I have lost who I used to be. This has turned the most special day of my life into the worst memory I will never forget, and neither will my family.”
The ordeal coincided with a cancer scare for Gemma, during which she lost a significant amount of weight, dropping to a size four. She has since received the all-clear, and revealed her sister-in-law was aware of the medical issue at the time but “still decided to ruin the most important day of my life and put me at risk.”
The couple also abandoned plans for their dream honeymoon to the Maldives because she “wasn’t up to it.” She said: “I had a gut feeling, a bad feeling that something was wrong when I got out of the car with my dad. But he said it must be nerves.”
As she entered the cream-walled carpeted hallway with father Jason, bridesmaids and flower girls, she heard her name called out and assumed somebody had accidentally stepped on her dress. From the corner of her eye, she spotted someone hurl black paint at her.
Prosecutor Pietro Matarazzo told the court: “Her wedding dress turned black. It was splattered with paint, as were her eyes, face, and skin.” Gemma, recognizing it was her sister-in-law, who was with her brother, seized her by the hair, but she escaped. The police were called and in a voluntary interview three months later, she responded “no comment” to all questions.
Gemma and Ken, 39, who live with son Tyler, 18, and daughter Naomi, 11, in Herne Bay, had been putting money aside for years for their big day. She said: “It had to be 100 percent right. I chose Oakwood House because that was where my birth was registered.”
The wedding for approximately 50 guests, which included a reception at The Fields at Aylesford, cost around £8,000. Gemma spent £1,800 on her dress, in contrast to the replacement gown, which was too large for her.
Clement Idowu, defending, said Eastwood had written a letter to the court and wanted to reiterate through him “her wish to apologize” to her victim. No details explaining why she acted in revenge were revealed during the hearing.
Judge Oliver Saxby KC acknowledged that while “emotions were high” and those involved would “never forget,” they should now move forward in their lives. Sentencing Eastwood to a 10-month jail term, suspended for 12 months, with 160 hours of unpaid work, he told her: “This was meant to be a special day for Gemma Monk and her family. Courtesy of your conduct, it turned into a nightmare.
“It is not so much that what you did was upsetting and frightening in the moment, and it was both of those. It was also that you, by what you did, deprived her and her family - the wedding party - of the occasion they deserved and the memories that anyone who gets married cherishes.
“Worse than that, there is a lingering suspicion that even if you do express regret now, it’s been a while coming, that deep-down for some time you thought she deserved it. All this stuff about it being on the spur of the moment - yeah, right. You got it into your head that you wanted to wreck her day. And you did, and it was horrid and nasty and mean.”
Eastwood was also given a 10-year restraining order and ordered to pay £5,000 in compensation -- a total of £4,000 to her sister-in-law and £1,000 to Oakwood House.
Responding to the sentence, Gemma said: “I will never accept her apology. I thought the sentence was too light. She should have got at least 23 months for the wait we have had to get this to court. I want to find myself again. I want to move on. On that day, I managed to smile for the camera because I was marrying the man I love.
“But we don’t celebrate our anniversaries because of what happened. We plan to take our vows again and on the same date. That way, it may override the memory, and we’ll be able to celebrate. And maybe we’ll go on that honeymoon.”
A wedding guest told the Mirror: “We were all getting ready for the start of the wedding while another ceremony ended. Gemma had arrived with her dad in the car. Then we heard this uproar. Everyone was looking at each other. It was horrible.
“She had barged past one of the bridesmaids, knocking her over, and threw whatever it was over Gemma. Nobody knew at first what the substance was.”
Asked why Eastwood carried out the attack, the guest said: “Spite.” They added: “Obviously she’s got issues, but that’s one thing you don’t do. It’s a special day for a woman. They want the fairytale and that was all taken away from her all because of what someone else heard. When the truth came out it was nothing to do with Gemma.”
The guest said Eastwood had not been invited to the wedding but got wind of the date and venue. After the paint-throwing incident, Gemma's husband told her he was happy to reschedule to another day, but she refused to be defeated and went ahead with the nuptials around two hours later in front of around 50 guests."
Deputy Editor & UK News
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