More and more pre-wedding couples are opting to stay in the UK to celebrate the sealing of their relationship in style.

New research by hotel chain Travelodge found 80 per cent of the 4,000 brides and grooms questioned champion destinations closer to home for their hen and stag party shenanigans.

Mark Kemp, reservations chief at the low-budget mecca, attributed the trend to the soaring cost of living.

"Nowadays weddings are a very expensive affair and not everyone can afford a trip abroad in addition to the wedding itself," he remarked.

"In some cases the cost can be thousands of pounds."

Erstwhile hotspots Prague, Amsterdam and Dublin are apparently being elbowed out in favour of London, Edinburgh, Newcastle, Liverpool and Birmingham, with Harrogate, Kendal and the Isle of Wight also increasingly "hitting the hen and stag radar".

The research further revealed that party-mad men head out for an average of two stag nights every year, while women clear a date for hen-party mayhem just once annually.

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