A couple who spent thousands of pounds searching for the cat they lost on the eve of their wedding have been reunited with her exactly four weeks after she went missing.

Alice and Alex Harris had their wedding day overshadowed at Longton Wood near Detling, on June 3 and even cancelled their honeymoon plans after their beloved Honey stowed away in their van and absconded into the woods as they unloaded props.

The couple have spent more than £2,500 and driven more than 720 miles in the last month in their quest to find their missing four-year old tabby.

They spent their honeymoon week staying close to the venue and shaking cat treats for hours in fields in the hope of attracting Honey’s attention.

Alex, 34, said: “We did not want to go away and spend that money on ourselves when we would be missing her.”

Instead the couple followed expert advice they had read online suggesting Honey might venture out when it was quiet.

“We were going out between 10pm and 1am or at 6am for hours hoping she might get brave and move so we walked around hoping we might spot her,” Alex said.

“But it was like looking for a needle in a haystack.”

Despite having full-time jobs to hold down, Alex, who works in marketing, and Alice, who is a civil servant, spent every spare moment back in the rural surroundings of their wedding venue.

“Any time we spent at home we just felt guilty for not being out there trying to find her,” Alex said.

They even put blankets and her litter tray in the woods so she would pick up the scent.

The couple, who had been engaged for two years before tying the knot, even used their honeymoon money to enlist the services of a professional cat detective who arrived with helpers and equipment.

But after searching for a week, and with limited access to the venue, his tactics proved fruitless.

“He told us it was unlikely she would have ventured further afield than the area he was searching,” Alice said. “And with her age and being a female, there was a strong chance she could have been attacked by foxes.”

But Alice and Alex refused to give up hope of finding their beloved moggy alive.

Putting up flyers and posting on social media led to a rollercoaster of highs and lows and countless trips to Maidstone as they were contacted by well-meaning residents thinking they might have spotted the tabby.

“We had a lot of highs and lows,” Alex said. “I had to walk along the carriageway of a motorway to identify a carcass someone thought might be Honey.

“Luckily for us it was just a badger.”

Spookily, the most reliable sighting came almost four weeks to the minute that Honey had first jumped out of the van and was just three quarters of a mile from where she disappeared.

Alex said: “At this point we had been through too much to get our hopes up. It had been such a rollercoaster of emotions.”

After the cat matching Honey’s description was spotted twice in the same area, running between a bean field and a field of cows, the couple called their friends at the Cat Protection League in Swale who agreed to come straight out and lay a trap.

Alice, 30, said: “They brought a trap and wildlife cameras. They put sardines, ham and lots of cat food in a bowl in a cage close to the edge of the field, then they drizzled the sardine juice from the field to the trap to try to lure her in.”

It worked. The following morning Alex got a call to say they thought they had Honey.

“I asked them to send me pictures as I was still quite dubious it was even her,” he said.

The first sign Alice received of the happy news was when her new husband called her at work.

“He never calls me at work,” she said. “I answered and he just said: ‘We’ve got her’.”

The couple, who live in Bromley, drove the 10 miles to Maidstone for the final time to collect their baby.

“It felt like the longest journey ever,” Alice said.

When they got there Honey was still in the cage with a cover over her and Alice said she just whispered her name.

“She started miaowing. She had eaten all the sardines and ham but had not touched the cat food, but when she saw us she just wolfed it down as if she felt safe to eat it.”

While she was happy to be home, the couple say Honey is very skinny and needs a good wash, but she hates baths.

“We’ve been spraying her with some shampoo as we don’t want to upset her with a bath,” Alice said.

Since they got her home she has spent a lot of time sleeping, but Alex said they can tell she is glad to be back.

“Every time she wakes up it’s like she realises she is home and she is safe. She’s not out in the wild anymore.”

And the couple can only imagine the adventures she got up, how she avoided being attacked and where she found food and drink during the typical British weather, which has included thunderstorms and a heatwave during her disappearance.

“Was she miaowing all the time trying to find us or was she having a great adventure?” Alex said. “We’ll never know.”