CHARLOTTE Brontë married her sweetheart this afternoon – watched by a huge crowd of well-wishers in Haworth churchyard.

The BBC re-enacted the 1800s wedding of Charlotte, the only surviving Brontë sister, to her clergyman father’s assistant Arthur Bell Nicholls.

A crew filmed the ceremony inside Haworth Parish Church with a costumed wedding party made up of professional actors and Brontë Parsonage Museum staff.

Brontë enthusiasts and local local people, invited along by the museum, gathered in the churchyard to cheer the happy couple and throw confetti.

The event was filmed by BBC Bristol as part of a series due to be shown in 2016 to mark the 200th anniversary of Charlotte’s birth.

Living Like A Brontë will be part of a year-long BBC season focusing on classic literature in a bid to get more people in the UK reading.

During today’s ceremony Rebecca Yorke, the parsonage museum’s marketing officer, played bridesmaid Ellen Nussey, Charlotte Brontë’s best friend.

She said: “The ceremony was really moving. The two people playing Charlotte and Arthur were really well cast and it felt very real, being in the Brontë Chapel.

“When we were in the church we could hear the rain hammering down, so it was amazing that so many people were outside to greet us.

“I’d had lots of enquiries so I knew a lot of people were interested in going. We had responses from people all over the world.”

Ann Dinsdale, a Brontë historian and collections manager at the parsonage museum, said she was surprised how touching the event was.

She said: “We spent a week with a crew filming around Haworth and got used to them, but was quite moving to see the actual ceremony."

Ann said the replica dress was created from descriptions of the real dress, and the design of the real wedding bonnet and veil which were in the museum’s collection.

She added: “The real dress didn’t survive. Arthur Bell Nicholls kept it for many years but left instructions that it should be burned after his death."

Charlotte married Arthur Bell Nicholls after publication of her novel Jane Eyre and the death of sisters Anne and Emily.

Filming is being carried out with support from staff at the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth.

Living Like a Brontë will be screened next spring as two 60-minute episodes.

Journalist and broadcaster, Martha Kearney; columnist and author, Lucy Mangan; and novelist, Helen Oyeyemi, are travelling to the parsonage, home of the Brontë sisters, to discover the stories behind their classic novels Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey.

A BBC spokesman said: “With help from a range of experts, each presenter will explore one of the Brontës in detail.

“By re-living the sisters’ daily routines, visiting the key places in their world and immersing themselves in their letters and diaries, and through the sisters’ interactions with each other, they’ll discover what it was that served as their sources of inspiration.”

The BBC Get Reading season will also include Brontës At The BBC, showcasing excerpts from the many TV adaptations of Brontë works, and To Walk Invisible, a new drama about the Brontë sisters written by Last Tango In Halifax and Happy Valley creator, Sally Wainwright.