A bride-to-be was devastated after fraudsters tricked her into paying them more than £4,000 shortly before her wedding.

Danielle Kemal was making the final preparations for her big day when she paid what she thought was Bearsted-based caterers Souffle To You £4,290, having received account details over email.

But when the firm said it hadn’t received the money three days before her and husband Kai’s wedding at the Orangery in Maidstone, she realised she’d paid it to a fraudulent account.

“Someone had hacked the caterer’s email account,” said mum-of-two Mrs Kemal, 31.

“I was devastated – running around crying my eyes out.

“The police said all we can do is report it to Action Fraud. They said ‘just try to enjoy the wedding’. I said: ‘a wedding with no food? I’ve got 120 people for a meal with no food, and more people in the evening’.”

She ended up having to pay for the catering again, although was charged only £2,250.

“They met us in the middle,” added Mrs Kemal, of Mill Lane, Blue Bell Hill.

“But people had to pay for their drinks, which did spoil it – every time someone went to the bar it was a constant reminder because I thought ‘oh I didn’t want anybody to pay for their drinks.’”

Mrs Kemal says she eventually managed to enjoy the big day, but the excitement surrounding it was inevitably marred.

She received what she believed to be the correct account details on an email and went to a branch of Lloyds Bank to pay the money into the account.

She said: “Lloyds won’t tell me if it’s investigating.

“They just said the money has gone – they said fraudsters ship it to offshore accounts, then it disappears.”

Action Fraud has been informed of the matter but Mrs Kemal is not holding out hope.

“The girl said a lot of them don’t get investigated,” she said. “No wonder there’s so much fraud.”

Karen Evenden, owner of Souffle To You, said the company had since carried out an internal investigation and nothing untoward had been found with its computer system or email account, and no other clients had received suspect emails from her company.

She said what had happened had been "devastating", but that she had been determined to make sure the celebrations went ahead after working with Danielle for 18 months.

"We assured the couple that their wedding would go ahead and provided the catering for cost price to ensure our suppliers and staff were paid," she added. "No profit was made by us."

A spokesman for Lloyds said: "Lloyds Banking Group takes its commitment to fraud prevention seriously. We are looking into this situation, but due to customer confidentiality we cannot provide any further information at this stage. If we are contacted by the relevant authorities regarding this matter, we will of course co-operate fully with any investigation."