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A bride whose fairytale wedding descended into chaos after her sister-in-law hurled black paint all over her dress has given her first full account of the horror ‘revenge’ attack – and revealed the bitter family feud behind it.
Gemma Monk was forced to change dresses at the last minute after her vengeful sister-in-law Antonia ‘Toni’ Eastwood tried to sabotage her big day on May 24, 2024, by dousing her white dress as she prepared to walk down the aisle.
Eastwood carried out the spiteful act after wrongly accusing Gemma of having tripped her up at her own wedding to Gemma’s brother, Ashley the year before.
Gemma, 35, from Herne Bay, Kent, was left in floods of tears while Eastwood fled the wedding venue, Oakwood House, a Victorian mansion in Maidstone.
Gemma, who was marrying her childhood sweetheart Ken Monk, incredibly cleaned herself up, borrowed a dress, gave a police statement – and two hours later said ‘I do’ anyway.
As her attacker was this week given a suspended prison sentence, Gemma told the Daily Mail how Eastwood became so convinced that she had ruined her wedding day, she decided to pay her back in kind.
Speaking exclusively to the Daily Mail from her home in Herne Bay, Gemma, a mother-of-two and mental health worker, said there has been resentment between the couples since then, saying: ‘My brother’s marriage to Toni was a disaster.
‘One of our nephews fell over and cut his head open, another couple caused an almighty row. There were so many things that went wrong.’
The couple then began to blame her, she said.
‘I had always been close to my brother, Ashley, and so all I can think of is that Toni was jealous of that,’ Gemma went on. ‘I believe that he and Toni are delusional and were looking for someone to blame for their wedding day going wrong.
‘My brother was angry that his big day had been ruined somewhat and he messaged me a few days afterwards to say so.’
‘They got married in September 2023. They said nothing to me or Ken on the actual day and to be honest we enjoyed ourselves. We gave them money as a gift and were the first couple to join them on the dance floor.
‘But two months later I was shopping in Sainsbury’s when I got a text from Toni. It was straight out of the blue and it left me reeling.
‘She called me a ‘two-faced bitch’ and accused me of trying to ruin her wedding day. At first she accused me of making snide remarks as she walked past me down the aisle but then accused me of sticking my foot out to try and trip her.
‘I’m about 5ft tall, my legs aren’t long enough to trip her even if I wanted to.
‘The text messages really shocked me, I couldn’t believe what she was accusing me of and why. It was incredible and came out of nowhere.’
Gemma did concede that she hadn’t been entirely supportive of her brother’s marriage.
She went on: ‘There’d been no bad blood between us before the wedding although I didn’t warm to her all that much.
‘The first time I met Toni, she was telling me how she left her husband and children to be with Ashley, who in turn had left his wife and children too. It was like she was bragging about splitting up two families.
‘They were both living in Spain at the time but had moved back to England and lived in Kent. They’d pretty much only been together for nine months before marrying.’
She said that she tried but failed to stop a feud growing: ‘I told Toni and Ashley that they were both ridiculous for accusing me of trying to trip her down the aisle. I’ve since looked back at a wedding video of the day and it shows Toni walking past me without any incident at all.
‘The bust-up between us meant that we didn’t invite either Ashley or Toni to our wedding but we did invite his ex-wife and 14-year old daughter because we’d remained friendly with them at least.’
But she had no idea when she went to her own wedding of Toni’s astonishing revenge plot – which quickly saw her day turn into a literal car crash, or at least cause one.
Gemma went on: ‘I remember my dad had just dropped me off in his Range Rover. We’d got out and he’d walked me to the door which led into what is called the bridal corridor at Oakwood House.
‘It where the bride waits just before walking down the aisle.
‘I’d gone through the door and dad had gone back to park the car. I with my 11-year-old daughter and my niece who were both bridesmaids.
‘I’d taken a few steps when I heard my name shouted. I turned round thinking that I’d caught the train of my dress and had black paint thrown all over me!
‘The paint got into my eyes and my hair. It also splashed onto my bridesmaids.
‘It happened so quickly that for a split second I didn’t know what was happening. Instinctively I chased after Toni and grabbed her by her hair.
‘But I looked up and saw that my father had tried to get out of the car to help me. The vehicle was in reverse and he was half in-half out the car as it crashed into a wall.
‘I let go of Toni to help my dad and she fled with my brother.’
Amazingly from this horrifying situation she still managed to turn around the day and marry in white as planned.
She explained: ‘I’d spent £1,800 on the dress and absolutely loved it.
‘But I’d waited 19 years to marry Ken. We’ve been together since I was 14. Nothing was going to stop me.
‘I had a shower in Oakwood House and they gave me a spare wedding dress to use. The police were called and I gave a statement before walking down the aisle – two hours later than expected.
‘The wedding photographer was brilliant and he carried on as best he could but we only had a small number of photos, far fewer than we hoped.
‘In fact, I don’t have any pictures of what should have been the happiest day of my life at home. There’s none on the mantelpiece, none on the walls.
‘How can I? They would bring back such bad memories.’
‘But we had the ceremony and had the reception afterwards in a nearby pub restaurant although we left early. That night we had a room booked at Leeds Castle but I just couldn’t enjoy it.
‘We’d been saving to go on our honeymoon to the Maldives but I just couldn’t face that either. We hope to go this summer with the children.
She remains shocked by Eastwood’s revenge plot. She said today: ‘It had been a premeditated attack. She and Ashley had actually crouched down behind a wall and were lying in wait for me.
‘They’d not been invited but had obviously found out where the wedding was through other relatives.
‘After the attack they ran off to their car and drove up to Manchester, where they now live. They literally skulked off to the other side of the country there and then.
‘At the time I’d been diagnosed with having a tumour in my stomach. We didn’t know if it was something nasty.
‘It turned out to be benign fortunately but we didn’t know that then. Toni was well aware of what I was going through yet she still did what she did.
‘I later heard through other relatives that she defended her actions by saying it’s what I deserved and was in revenge for spoiling her wedding. But revenge for what? Something that she concocted herself.’
Following the incident brother Ashley said he had disowned his sister, adding ‘we don’t want anything to do with her’.
He admitted there had been ‘disagreements’ in the family prior to the wedding – but he didn’t want to air them publicly.
He said: ‘There’s more to it. But she’s been punished now, she’s suffered more than enough. We want it over and done with.’ He said ‘she’s done what she’s done’ and they now wanted to put it all behind them. He added: ‘I can’t believe it’s taken 18 months to get to this.’
Gemma said Eastwood later boasted what she did to friends and quipped ‘I’m the best decorator around’.
She was this month handed a 10-month sentence, suspended for 12 months, in addition to 160 hours of unpaid work after pleading guilty to two offences of criminal damage.
In addition to a suspended sentence and unpaid work, the defendant was handed a ten-year restraining order.
She was told to pay £5,000 in compensation, with £4,000 going to Mrs Monk and £1,000 to Oakwood House.
Fighting back tears, Gemma delivered her victim impact statement to the court, saying: ‘To have paint thrown over me by my brother’s wife changed my outlook on life and made me question whether I had done something really bad, whether I had done something wrong.
‘This has had a dramatic impact on my life. Even while I was providing this statement at the police station, I got extremely emotional and started crying while talking about the incident.
‘Since the incident, if it wasn’t for my children or my family, I don’t think I would even get out of bed to care for myself. I have lost all my dignity and good habits in life. I have lost who I used to be. This has turned the most special day of my life into the worst memory I will never forget, and neither will my family.’
