Emmerdale couple Alicia Harding and David Metcalfe will face one disaster after another as they prepare to get married on Christmas Day.
The loved-up pair are determined to have the perfect ceremony after a difficult year, but with pregnant Priya Sharma (Fiona Wade) still bitter following her split from David (Matthew Wolfenden), not everyone in the village wishes them well.
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Here, Natalie Anderson - who plays Alicia - reveals what fans can expect from the Christmas wedding storyline.
How is Alicia feeling about the future with David as Christmas week begins?
"Alicia is extremely excited about her future. David has done a very, very good job of reassuring Alicia that he wants to be with her. Regardless of everything that's going on with the baby and everything else, David is being really rock solid with her, so she's really excited.
"It's basically everything Alicia has wanted. Obviously she'd never factored in Priya having a baby, but she thinks that they're strong enough to get through that."
How much is Priya's pregnancy actually bothering Alicia?
"It is bothering her, but I think it's something that Alicia has dealt with in her own mind for a long time. She knew for a long time that this could probably happen in her future with somebody else - not necessarily David, but she knew she can't have children. She's known that for a very, very long time so she's dealt with that aspect.
"Obviously it upsets her, because she wishes to God that she could give David a baby, but she can't. That bothers her, but at the same time, she's still got the man that she loves and she's still got Jacob who is the other big love in Alicia's life."
How suspicious is Alicia of Priya's intentions at this point?
"I think Alicia is starting to get a little bit suspicious, just because of a few things that Priya says. Priya starts to say things like, 'Oh, you won't really be bothered with all this, Alicia' and 'David and I have got a lot to talk about'. Alicia starts to think that Priya is trying to push her out. But it's understandable that Priya is going to feel that way and I think Alicia is grown up enough to know what the situation is and to know what's happening."
Has Alicia considered what it's going to be like when the child arrives and starts to grow up?
"I think she has considered it, but I don't think she knows how hard it's going to be, because we don't know how Priya is going to react. Priya is very unpredictable and you never quite know where you are with her.
"Going on her own experiences, I think Alicia is thinking, 'I've managed to work things out with my ex-husband, we both see Jacob, it's fine and we've worked it out, so everybody else can be like that'. I think she's basing it on her own experience, but we don't know that Priya is going to necessarily be that way."
Priya ends up having an outburst at David's stag party. Does Alicia have any idea of this?
"Well, the next day, on the day of the wedding, Alica sees an exchange between Val and Priya and she's very suspicious because all along she is starting to feel a little bit unsettled with Priya. Again it's the fact that's she's unpredictable, and it's getting closer to the wedding so she's starting to feel a little bit nervous.
"It's Val who tells Alicia that there was a moment where Priya said she wanted David back but he told her where to go. This unsettles Alicia to the point where she's on the verge of calling the wedding off. She rings David and says, 'I don't want this all to be about Priya having a meltdown, this is our day so let's just cancel it'. David again does a very good job of talking Alicia round."
What else goes wrong in the lead-up to the wedding?
"I'd say nearly everything goes wrong! It starts off really lovely and then bang, the boiler's broken! So many other things go wrong and the only way I can describe it without giving everything away is if you can imagine David and Alicia as a pair of tennis players. There they are in practice, batting off all the balls that are coming at them very fast. They keep dropping the balls and they can't quite hit them away as swiftly as they'd want to.
"It's literally like a comedy of errors - all these different things that go wrong. I don't want to spoil it for anybody but some of the worst things that could happen, do happen!"
How would Alicia feel if this meant she didn't get married?
"I think she would be devastated. I don't think it would be a question of does David love her, I just think it'd be the disappointment on the day. It wouldn't be a case of, 'Oh my God he doesn't want to marry me', it would be, 'Oh can't we just get anything right? Can't anything go our way?'"
Do you think Priya would really try to ruin everything?
"Yes. I think she's got every reason to. Ultimately it happened to Priya the day before her own wedding. I don't necessarily think it would be about Alicia, I think it would be about David and how much he's hurt her. Essentially he's the one here that has been at fault, in the sense that he's not had the courage to say what he needed to say in the beginning.
"That has led to people being really hurt, so I think if Priya did ruin the wedding, it wouldn't be about getting one over on Alicia, I think it would just be spoiling things for David."
What were these scenes like to film? You must be used to a TV wedding by now!
"I am used to a TV wedding by now, yeah! It was good, it was really lovely to film and it's been great fun. It was very exciting getting ready and playing it all out."
Did you have any involvement in picking the dress?
"I did have a lot of involvement in the dress! I never thought I would wear anything like that personally, then once I got it on, I really liked it. I had a meeting with Sue, our head of costume at Emmerdale, and it turned out that we both had the same idea! We both had very clear ideas about what Alicia would like and what she would want.
"I don't think it's necessarily as flamboyant, shall we say, as maybe once upon a time Alicia might have picked. Being the wedding planner, I think she's learned that sometimes less is more."
How does it compare to her last wedding dress?
"Well, obviously with the last one I was heavily pregnant, so we had to have a different kind of dress. That was something that we envisaged that Gennie would have helped her with, because it was quite '60s and a bit kooky in its design. With this one, I definitely think this is something that Alicia has picked herself and you can imagine that she's picked it."
How would you sum up the past year of storylines?
"Crikey! It's been brilliant and I've enjoyed it so much. I've been very lucky in that one of my ambitions was to be in a rom-com. I'm a massive fan of Jennifer Aniston movies and things like that, and I feel that the way that the David/Alicia storyline has played out has been very rom-com.
"The fact that we get towards the wedding at Christmas, it's just ticked all my boxes. It's everything that I love - we've had high comedy, high drama with the shooting, and romance. It's been absolutely brilliant and I genuinely could not have asked for more. I'm so grateful for the storyline - it's been brilliant."
We've heard that the drama will continue in 2014... What kind of New Year will Alicia have?
"It's very exciting. 2014 is going to be a big year for all of them, really. For Alicia there's going be new elements - new sides of her character to explore, new challenges, and obviously we'll see how she gets on when Priya's baby arrives. There's obviously a lot more to go through with Jacob. And with David, how solid are they - how strong are they?"
How do you rate Alicia and David's chances?
"I think they've got a really good chance, because ultimately - like I've said all along - they are best friends and they know each other implicitly. What we've seen already on screen and what myself and Matthew have tried to play is the honesty of their relationship.
"What we hope will go forward is that they're a very honest couple, and even though sometimes they have to say things that hurt the other person, that's real life. You have to air your views and you have to be able to say what you think without throwing the towel in."
Additional reporting by Daniel Welsh.
Read more Emmerdale spoilers and news
Emmerdale airs Alicia and David's wedding dramas in an hour-long episode on Christmas Day at 6.15pm on ITV.
Digital Spy Soap Scoop video - press play below for gossip on this year's Christmas storylines, including shock violence and an arrest on Coronation Street, a murder plan in EastEnders, an Emmerdale fire and more Roscoe dramas in Hollyoaks.
