HONEYMOONERS who were planning a dream trip to Mexico have seen swine flu wreck their plans just weeks before they were due to travel.

The couple booked their trip to Cancun, Mexico, in 2007 but they now have to choose between cancelling their honeymoon and losing hundreds of pounds, or travelling in to the epicentre of the epidemic .

Chester Chronicle telesales worker Gemma Hopper, 25, of Beechwood, Runcorn, said: “It is all I can think about at the moment, I have never been so stressed in my life.

“We feel like cancelling the holiday and waiting for it to all calm down, but deep down I know that will spoil the wedding. Both of us have not slept much and we are getting more worried.

“At the moment I wouldn’t want to go to Mexico. Even if we can’t get something else I would rather not go. I wouldn’t want to be worrying about it.”

Gemma is due to marry Neil Mackintyre-Holmes, 30, a retail manager for Makro, Queensferry, at picturesque Northop Hall Country House on Saturday, May 23, before flying to Mexico on Tuesday, May 26.

“First Choice have told us only people flying up to May 22 can cancel or change their holiday. They aren’t letting us do anything. If we cancel we loose 70% of the booking. If it’s not much money I am willing to lose out but we haven’t got another penny to put towards a different holiday.

“I count myself lucky. I have heard about a couple who have turned up at the airport but couldn’t go. It’s a waiting game, there’s nothing else we can do.”

More than 150 are suspected of dying from swine flu in Mexico with 64 confirmed cases across the rest of the world.

Newlyweds Iain and Dawn Askham, from Polmont, near Falkirk, were named as the first UK cases of the disease after returning from their honeymoon in Mexico last week.