Julie's the queen of wedding days

The 55-year-old serial bride, nicknamed Elizabeth Taylor by her friends, has married in each of the last four decades – and is now engaged to 61-year-old Paul Burcher.

"This time it's for keeps," she vows, sporting a sparkling new solitaire diamond ring on her finger. "I've fallen in love too quick a few times.

"But I love Paul to bits and want to settle down for good now.

Kidderminster-born Julie, now living in Ragees Road, Kingswinford, says it's certainly not wedding cake that keeps taking her back to the Register Office – she hates it.

She joked: "It's the frilly frocks, which I never had when I was young.

"I've always worn white to my weddings before but this time it's going to be a red dress. And they've always been from charity shops before, apart from the last one, which I bought for £50 from an advert.

"This time, it will be a designer dress, which Paul will buy, and we plan to marry next year in either Barbados or Mexico, probably on a beach."

Like every little girl, Julie once dreamed of a fairytale wedding – but, so far, none has quite matched up to that. Here, she talks through the saga of her marital career:

Wedding Number One

Julie fell for Leonard Maund when she was 16 and he was the brother of her next-door neighbour in Jubilee Drive, Kidderminster.

He was 19, seemed mature and he started giving her lifts to and from her job in a burger bar in Stourport.

"He was a bit quiet but asked me out," she said. "He lived on a farm in Tenbury Wells, which sounded to me like something from an Enid Blyton book – all homemade jam and collie dogs."

Leonard popped the question and they married at Kidderminster Register Office, then in Church Street, in September 1973.

She wore a dress with bell sleeves bought for £5 from the Sue Ryder charity shop in Horsefair, Kidderminster, and, after the ceremony, they ran through the underpass to have photographs taken outside St Mary's Church before going to Leonard's sister's for sandwiches and cake.

In the evening they held a disco in Tenbury Wells, where their first dance was to Born Too Late and they also bopped to Elton John's Crocodile Rock, but there was no honeymoon.

And life on the farm was not for Julie. "I hated chopping up chickens which ended up on the dinner plate," she said.

Julie and Leonard split up in 1976 when she fell for another man – whom she did not end up marrying – and were divorced in 1979.

Wedding Number Two

Julie had just come through a relationship with Colin Mahoney, father of her son Jason, but he went off to work on oil rigs in Saudi Arabia and didn't come back.

She teamed up with another man but it was not going well – and then Derek Portman crossed her path and, after a whirlwind courtship, she moved in with him.

"He was my protector, and we got closer and closer," she said. They married in 1981 at Dudley Register Office, heading back to his step-sister's in Holly Hall for a reception.

It was the same year that Prince Charles married Princess Diana in her £9,000 frock and sailed off for a honeymoon aboard the Royal Yacht Britannia. But, wearing another £5 charity shop wedding dress, Julie caught the bus back to Kidderminster with Derek, stopping on the way to lay flowers on his mother's grave.

She went on to have four children with Derek – Dean, born in 1984, Lena a year later, Penny in 1987 and Shane in 1992.

But Julie says she and Derek did not exactly see eye to eye and, in 1995, she "did a bunk" with the children to live in a caravan on the Isle of Wight.

Wedding Number Three

Julie vowed she'd stay single after flitting to the Isle of Wight. But it wasn't long before she came across Benny Cooper, who had got to know her sons while out fishing. The sons invited him around to their home – and the fisherman ended up hooking her.

"Benny was a laugh and we used to sing along on karaoke to 1950s and 60s records in the evenings," said Julie.

He proposed and they married in 1997 at an Isle of Wight register office.

Again it was a white wedding, with Julie in another £5 charity shop purchase, this time in chiffon.

But, it was not an auspicious start when both bride and groom ended up in a police cell on their wedding night after they crashed their car.

Nonetheless, in 2000, the couple, who by then had left the Isle of Wight and were living in Leominster, held a church blessing for their marriage, with her in another white dress, loaned by her sister-in-law.

But it was a false start, and within three years they had divorced.

Wedding Number Four

It was Benny – again. He came back into her life, wooed her and she agreed to remarry him. The ceremony took place in 2005 at Kidderminster Register Office.

Julie wore her most expensive wedding outfit to date – a £50 satin gown with lots of crystals, bought from an advert.

But by 2007, the marriage was on the rocks again and they divorced after she moved to Spring Parklands in Dudley.

Wedding Number Five . . . ?

Julie was determined to remain single yet again, but reckoned without running into old friend Paul Burcher at her daughter's home in Dudley in February 2010. They had last seen each other more than 30 years earlier, when he used to work with her second husband, Derek.

"I'd always had a thing for Paul but used to think he wouldn't give me the time of day," said Julie.

"But, after meeting him all those years later, he invited me to go to the pictures and we went to see a space film. It was the first proper date I'd ever been taken on. For my birthday, soon after we met, he bought me a bottle of champagne with chocolates and then, when we were on our way back from a few days in Hereford, he said he needed to go to the Jewellery Quarter in Birmingham.

"We were both admiring the same ring in the window, he proposed, and bought it for me. We got engaged nearly two years ago, and this is the longest courtship I've had. I really want to settle down now."

Paul, who lives in Wombourne on a country estate next to Himley Hall, used to run a successful business, Leisure Care, of Stourport, which distributed video machines and jukeboxes to pubs.

He is currently waiting for the decree absolute to a divorce from his wife of 20 years. Julie and he will then name the date for their wedding. "I know about her background and four previous marriages but I'm prepared to give her a try," he said.

"I love everything about her – years ago I liked her and fancied her and she's not changed much in 37 years. Her previous love life makes no difference to me – what's gone on the past is in the past."