Home from honeymoon...to the house from hell!

However, the makeover was not the job of cowboy tradesmen but that of friend Christian Shaw and pals as payback for a previous wedding prank.

The elaborate stunt at the couple’s home at The Hawthorns, off Garstang Road, Bilsborrow was enough to stop passing traffic.

When Ben and Steph, who have an 18-month-old son Jack, returned from their honeymoon in Edinburgh they discovered their prankster friends had ‘sabotaged’ their home.

For mischievous Ben, 28, it was a case of tables turned having previously helped to transform Christian’s home in Garstang into a giant bale of hay shortly after his own wedding ceremony.

Ben said: “We knew something would happen after I’d been involved with the last one.

“There’s been a few but this is the worse up to now, we’ll need to up the game for next time.”

The couple got married on July 23 at Saint Mary and Michael Catholic Church in Garstang followed by a reception at Mytton Fold Hotel in the Ribble Valley.

Steph added: “We had a wonderful wedding and just want to thank everybody for making it so special but to our friends be afraid, very afraid!”

Steph’s mum Jill Cartmell had spotted the house after driving past on Wednesday night and text Steph to give her a pre-warning.

Beauty therapist Steph, 26, said: “I just thought oh my god what have they done, it was always going to happen, I know what they’re all like.

“They’ve done a good job, a tractor in the garden! It’s a laugh but they are definitely going to be clearing it all up.”

The tricksters, including Tom Cowell and Allen Noblett helped board up the windows, left a tractor in the garden, spread bails of straw in the back garden and a mannequin on the roof.

Christian, 26, is still smarting from when he and wife Sarah returned from their honeymoon in Spain two years ago to find their home, on Grizedale Avenue, Garstang, wrapped in black plastic, like a giant bale of hay. Christian, a farmer and a builder, said: “They wrapped my house up in that black stuff, wrapped all my cars up and most of the furniture I got off lightly.”

The tradition started back in September 2008 when the pals boarded up the windows of Tom and wife Clare’s home in Catterall and put signs up saying ‘Repossession Order’.

Sarah, a nurse who is due to give birth to her first child within days, said: “I think they expected something .

“We were talking about it at the wedding and it’s tradition.

“A lot of people have been stopping and taking pictures.”