Whilst fancy Rolls Royce’s and Horse Drawn Carriages might be many couples’ dream for their wedding; Michelle and Matt Gregory, of Scunthorpe, had their own ideas.

Matt, who runs a haulage company in Messingham, took his bride Michelle to the wedding in a Volvo FH12 articulated lorry instead!

Since Michelle dressed in a traditional wedding gown, she had to use a step ladder to get in and out of the lorry on her big day.

Michelle said: “I never dreamed I would arrive at my own wedding in a lorry but it was what Matt wanted. I can certainly say it was very different – we got a lot of waves and pips from passing motorists.”

Happy newlyweds Matt and Michelle with their wedding lorry

Mr. Gregory explained his idea: “It is the industry that I work in and that’s why I chose the lorry. I wanted to show lorries can be used for lots of things – not just road haulage.”

Congratulations to the happy couple from all at Shiply!

We just stumbled upon this video on the Internet and thought it was brilliant! The trucker in this clip really knows how to make such a difficult haulage job as easy as a piece of cake.

Hope you will enjoy it and have a great weekend!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EO_0LFnmNcs]

As Royal Mail industrial action is a very hot topic at the moment, we thought we would keep you updated on the proposed strike.

Latest movements of Royal Mail Postal Strike:

Updated 06/11/2009

Good news everyone! The Royal Mail strike were last night postponed until at least the new year.

It means Royal Mail services will be free of any disruption up to and during the Christmas period.

The Royal Mail and the Communications Workers Union (CWU) have agreed on an agreement of a “period of calm” in which both parties could hold further talks to reach a long-term deal.

The agreement means the planned walk-outs today and on Monday will not go ahead. The CWU also put on hold legal action against Royal Mail over the employment of temporary workers.

Updated 04/11/2009

There is no sign of an ending to the postal strike, with planned walk-outs on Friday (6 November) and Monday (9 November) involving all 121,000 members of the Communications Workers Union (CWU).

The CWU is in the process of taking Royal Mail to the High Court, claiming the company breached employment law by adding 30,000 temprorary workers to handle the mail backlog.

This week it was disclosed that Adam Crozier, Royal Mail’s CEO, was given 26pc pay rise last year, taking his total annual salary to £1.25m.

Updated 02/11/2009

The talks between union leaders and Royal Mail will resume today to find a solution to the dispute over jobs, pay and modernisation.

The third round of 24 hour national strike is planned for Friday (6 November) and the following Monday (9 November). It is expected to involve all 121,000 members of the Communications Workers Union.

Updated 30/10/2009

Today, 400 workers who deal with badly addressed mails have walked out and will be followed by 77,000 delivery and colletion staff tomorrow.

The Convervative party is keen on the plan to entirelly privatise Royal Mail rather than the 30 percent stake that Business Secretary Lord Mandelson wants to sell. It also believes that more investors will be attracted if the union is to be defeated in the postal strike.

Updated 29/10/2009

In the early hours today, postal workers began three more days of national strikes after discussions in the last three days failed to provide a positive outcome.

• Today 43,700 mail centre and distribution staff walked out
• Tomorrow, Friday 30/10/2009, 400 workers who deal with badly addressed mails will walk out
• Saturday 31/10/2009, 77,000 delivery and colletion staff will follow

Mark Higson, managing director of Royal Mail said: ”The union’s leadership appears to be split, with London members at odds with the rest of the country and unable to reach any decision.”

Updated 28/10/2009

Communication Workers Union (CWU) leaders will meet today to decide whether a new potal strike is to go ahead, only hours before the action is set to start.

Royal Mail and CWU have been negotiating for the past two days under the chairmanship of Trade Union Congree (TUC) and the talks were described as ”useful” by TUC general secretary Brendan Barber.

If the postal strike is to go ahead, its schedule will be:

• Thursday: 43,700 staff in mail centres, drivers and garage staff
• Friday: 400 workers who deal with badly addressed
• Saturday: 77,000 delivery and colletion staff

Updated 27/10/2009

Royal Mail and the Communication Workers Union (CWU) will recommence discussions at the Trade Union Congress today to try to reach an agreement before Thursday’s planned second round of postal strikes which is expected to last over three days.

A CWU spokeswoman said it expected to decide today on whether to take legal action against Royal Mail in using 30,000 temporary workers to help with deliveries.

Royal Mail said yesterday that the volume of delayed mail caused by last week’s strike was expected to have fallen to 5m items.

Updated 26/10/2009

The talks between Royal Mail and the Communication Workers Union (CWU) are due be held today through the Trades Union Congress, which assisted the 2007 pay and modernisation agreement.

Billy Hayes, CWU general secretary, warned the talks could be difficult: “If Royal Mail attend the talks and just simply reiterate their previous position, that won’t help. But if they come there genuinely seeking agreement, then I’m sure we can go forward.”

Updated 23/10/2009

About 42,000 mail centre staff and drivers walked out yesterday and 78,000 delivery and collection workers began the action at 4am today.

The next round of strikes is expected to last for three days at the end of next week with participation from different worker groups. This means more service disruptions and further increase in backlogs in the run-up to Christmas.

Updated 22/10/2009

http://news.sky.com/sky-news/app/skynewsflash/OBU_Player.swf?type=embedded&baseColor=6710886&highlightColor=16711680&channel_key=News&ad_channel=2169867&ad_alias=pre_skynews_skynews_Home_Business&networkId=999.1&unique_id=2073426&media_title=Royal Mail Post Strike Begins&attrib_url=http://news.sky.com&smoothing=true&tracking_account=DM530320KARC&video_url=http://static1.sky.com//feeds/skynews/latest/flash/ACT-BB-TH-POST-STRIKE-GRAPHIC-221009.flv

The first part of a two-day national strike has started in the early hours of today, with Mail Centres and Network Distribution Units workers walking out.

Experts said that the strike will create a three week backlog for Royal Mail to clear before postal services get back to normal.

Barely a quarter of Royal Mail’s 30,000 temporary workers will be able to start next week as Roya Mail is forced to make sure that all these workers are vetted carefully before they are allowed to handle any mail.

The current backlog of 9 to 30 million mail items is expected to jump up to 100 million after the strike.

Updated 21/10/2009

Final attempts to halt the nationwide post strikes have failed which means the Royal Mail strike will start at midnight tonight.

The strike will last for two days (Thursday and Friday), but the backlog means it will take the postal system much longer to recover.

Updated 20/10/2009

Union sources say there has not been any sign of a breakthrough ahead of the first of two 24 hour walkouts on Thursday.

Royal Mail says it is willing to proceed with the conciliation service Acas but only if the CWU call of their national strike.

CWU call for independent mediation has been backed by about 100 MPs and the Business Secretary Peter Mandelson.

The Ministry of Defence said they might lay on extra aircraft to make sure in-the-field troops get their Christmast post.

Updated 19/10/2009

The last ditch talks to avoid a national postal strike look quite hopeless as both parties refuse to give ground.

The CWU said it was considering legal action against Royal Mail’s plan to recruit 30,000 temporary staff for the coming Christmas holiday as well as to clear the backlog of undelivered post from this week national strikes.

TNT CEO Nick Wells said that the company would be keen to provide a rival service if it was financially viable. Up to now, the main obstacle which kept rivals out of the playing field for Royal Mail was the fact that it was exempt from paying VAT.

Updated: 16/10/2009

The Communication Workers Union has announced the intention to proceed two national strikes next week, following their recent ballot:

Thursday 22/10/2009: Mail centres, network distribution units and collection hubs around the country will be affected, resulting in limited process, movement and collection of ordinary mail.

Friday 23/10/2009: Delivery offices in all areas will be affected, resulting in limited collection and delivery services and of all ordinary mail.

We will add to this blog post as news develops.

As people seeking for alternatives to Royal Mail, thousands have started to use telegrams again for their urgent messages.

For those who are not aware of telegram, it is one of the earliest forms of long distance communication and was first used in 1845. A telegram is message sent by an eletrical telegraph operator using Morse code, or a printing telegraph operator using plain text. The main benefit of using telegram is the ability to individually deliver a message door to door.

So far the majority of recent demand for telegrams has been from banks and employers desperate to ensure that important news reaches customers and staff in writing within a few hours.

The Queen, together with the heads of other European royal families, is a very regular user of telegrams.

Rob van Hoof, a spokesman of Telegramsonline which has The Queen as a customer said: “She is one of our good customers. These strikes are very important to us. They are always of benefit to us,”

Although telegrams are very efficient, the main barrier to the popularity of the service is the cost. Telegramonline, for instance, charges its customers £40 for the first A4 page and £5 for each following page.

By now we guess you understand why The Queen and the banks are using telegrams and not us.

With the modernisation of the postal system, we probably only see postal birds in movies. However, in some special circumstances like the one below, can they really be the best delivery solution?!

This pigeon team (nicknamed Pigeon Express), from the US city of Fort Collins, Colorado are believed to be the last delivery birds in the world. They fly 20 to 40 miles from the top of the Cache La Poudre River down to the base at the bottom to transport images of intrepid white water rafters to be processed.

One Pigeon Express member ready for action

As it takes the pigeons just 20 minutes to fly this distance, it is much quicker than driving down from the river. Therefore, the birds have been trained for this special delivery service and normally fly five times everyday.

There’s only one problem for the pigeons: since the pickup location is high on the mountain, they run the risk of being KIA because of hawks and eagles!

David Costlow, the head pigeon keeper said: ”We lose five on average every year. But we’ve only lost seven digital chips in the last 14 years.”

Amid the current postal strike and with thousands of pigeons out of work since the famous Trafalgar Square banning, could this be the future of express delivery solutions?!

http://www.youtube.com/get_player

Robert Matthams, founder of Shiply.com last night received the annual Shell LiveWIRE Young Entrepreneur of the Year award.

Shell Chairman James Smith handing over the award to Robert Matthams

This award offers entrepreneurs aged between 16 and 30 within the first 18 months of trading the opportunity to stand out from the crowd and receive a cash injection of £10,000 for their business. Ahead of 8 very strong finalists, Robert Matthams was selected as young entrepreneur of the year.

‘It has been very tough’, Robert confessed when he announced the news to us here in Shiply HQ. ‘All other finalists were so talented with brilliant business ideas. I really thought that this was going to be tight.’

As always, let us share the good news with you, our valued members and thank you all very much as without you, we would never have achieved this.

While Britain is facing the postal strikes, one man is doing his best to get the mail through on time.

Ken Holder, 39, spends 12 hours a day cycling about 80km (50 miles) through Plymouth delivering up to 300 letters. Mr. Holder, as the only full time employee of City Cycle Couriers, which he set up after leaving his job in the Fire Service, has to collect, sort and deliver every letter himself.

Ken Holder and his postal bike

He bough the license from Postcomm for £50 in March and as far as he knows, he is the only one-man business to do so. Mr Holder charges 32p for next day delivery service (7p less than Royal Mail first class stamp). So far he has got 15 regular local business customers and since the postal strike was announced, the inquiries have rocketed.

Mr. Holder said: ”Inquiries have certainly grown in recent weeks as more and more companies were becoming concerned. I have had a few smaller businesses start using us in the last week and I’m hoping that we will be able to pick up a few more larger businesses on the back of this.”

When being suggested to buy a van, he resisted: ”A large part of the attraction for customers is that it is just me and my bike and is as environmentally friendly as possible.”

As the latest talks between Royal Mail’s management and the Communication Workers Union to stop the nationwide 24 hour strike planned for Thursday and Friday did not produce any positive resolution, the fear of a real national strike has been widely spread throughout the United Kingdom.

This is most clearly shown by the fact that there have been more and more people searching for alternative couriers as a backup should Royal Mail fail/delay post. The UK’s number one search engine, Google, has seen a staggering increase of 46% in the number of searches for the phrase ”courier” over the past 4 weeks.

Some of you may not seen have any of these before (like us), some might have seen one or two but the point is they are utterly funny so have a good laugh!