Being married by the Archbishop of Canterbury is a dream many couples might aspire to.

But Justin Welby sparked panic when he momentarily lost one of the rings as he officiated at the marriage of his senior aide Ailsa Anderson last Saturday.

After a frantic search the ring was found underneath a nearby seat after Welby said he had only been given one ring. In fact both rings had been placed on his service sheet but one had bounced off and rolled away.

Perhaps a little out of practice, the Archbishop was conducting his first wedding since he married his daughter Katharine at Canterbury Cathedral in 2014.

'Simon's two sons Adam and Tomek gave him away. Justin was officiating,' the bride Mrs Anderson-Cole told the Sunday Telegraph.

'They put the two wedding rings on the order of service for Justin and he looked down and said 'is there only one ring?'. And we said "no, there's two" and we looked around for a little while, and saw it had rolled under a chair.'

First the Archbishop blamed the two best men but later realised it was his mistake. Mrs Anderson-Cole said the Archbishop had agreed to take the wedding after the couple got engaged at Christmas, but only because 'he wanted to make to a speech at the reception'.

The bride's son Henry, 12, gave her away while her daughter Charlotte, 7, was a bridesmaid. The groom, journalist Simon Cole, has two sons Tomek, 25, an estate agent, and Adam, 27, a cameraman for Sky News, who served as his best men.

'It was absolutely gorgeous - we couldn't have wished for a better day,' said Mrs Anderson-Cole. 'It was a lovely warm speech. He's been so kind to us.

'It was just so beautiful, it was all candlelit. I cried all the way through the rehearsal,' she added.

'My ring is firmly on my finger and hasn't come off since Saturday.'