AN apparently fit and healthy man collapsed and died just a month after his wedding.

Stewart Gardner was on holiday with friends in France when he died aged just 37.

His wife Karen has spoken of her shock at losing her husband so quickly after their wedding.

The couple had been together eight years when they tied the knot on Saturday, May 17.

Four weeks later, friends and family gathered to say their goodbyes to Mr Gardner.

“After the honeymoon in St Lucia we spent two weeks choosing wedding photos, writing thank-you cards and trying to get over the wedding before we went to France with friends,” said Mrs Gardner.

“Everything else was, ‘When we get back from France’.

“We said, ‘August we will spend as our time, it will be our month for ourselves.’”

But on Wednesday, June 18, halfway through their stay in France, Mr Gardner collapsed and died from a blockage in his main coronary artery.

“He was very fit, he never smoked, he was a social drinker, he exercised, he was really healthy, it was totally out of the blue,” said 36-year-old Mrs Gardner.

Mr Gardner was born in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, and after studying at the University of Northumbria got a job as a computer programmer with QinetiQ, moved to Malvern and later worked for engineering firm Goodrich.

The couple met over the internet and after six months of chatting and writing letters, Mrs Gardner travelled from her home in Torquay, Devon, to Malvern to meet him.

“He was quite shy when I first met him and he would analyse people and situations really well,” she said.

“He ended up being really cheeky and really funny, he was very chilled. I never saw him lose his temper.

“Whatever he did he would always give 100 per cent to.”

For seven years they travelled up and down the M5 motorway at weekends to see each other, and in November 2006 Mrs Gardner proposed.

Her proposal was accepted and the couple began planning their wedding, which was held in Torquay.

In January they moved into their house in Warndon Villages, Worcester.

Together the couple tried different adventure sports, including white-water rafting and rally driving. They were supposed to do a skydive in August, something Mrs Gardner plans to do and raise money for CRY, a charity which raises awareness of sudden cardiac death.

Mr Gardner was cremated at Worcester Crematorium on July 4. His ashes will be scattered in Yorkshire, Worcester and Torquay.