A baffled bride has solved the mystery of the awkward-looking stranger who crashed her wedding four years ago.

Michelle Wylie and her husband, John, registered the presence of their unidentifiable guest only as they looked through photographs of their wedding in the days after the happy occasion.

Who was the tall man in a dark suit, distinguished by the look of quiet mortification on his face? But their family and friends could offer no explanation, nor could hotel staff at the Carlton hotel in Prestwick, where the event took place in November 2021. An appeal on Facebook likewise yielded no clues.

Eventually, with the mystery still niggling, Wylie asked the popular Scottish content creator Dazza to cast the online net wider – and a sheepish Andrew Hillhouse finally stepped forward.

In his explanatory post on Facebook, Hillhouse admitted that he had been “cutting it fine, as I’m known to do” when he pulled up at the wedding venue with five minutes to spare. Spotting a piper and other guests, he followed them into the hotel – “I remember thinking to myself: ‘Cool, this is obviously the right place’” – unaware that he had the address completely wrong and was supposed to be at a ceremony 2 miles away in Ayr.

He was initially unperturbed to find himself surrounded by strangers as the ceremony began – at the marriage he was due to attend, the only person he knew was the bride, Michaela, while his partner, Andrew, was part of the wedding party. It was when an entirely different bride came walking down the aisle that he realised: “OMG that’s not Michaela … I was at the wrong wedding!”

Hillhouse said: “You can’t exactly stand up and walk out of a wedding mid-ceremony, so I just had to commit to this act and spent the next 20 minutes awkwardly sitting there trying to be as inconspicuous as my 6ft 2 ass could be.”

At the end of the ceremony, Hillhouse, who is from Troon, was hoping to make a discreet exit, only to be waylaid by the wedding photographer, who insisted he join other guests for a group shot. He can be spotted looming uncomfortably at the very back of the crowd.

His post continued: “Rushed outside, made some phone calls and made my way to the correct wedding, where I was almost as popular as the actual bride and groom, and spent most of the night retelling that story to people.”

For Michelle Wylie, this amiable resolution brings to a close years of speculation.

She told BBC Scotland: “It would come into my head and I’d be like: ‘Someone must know who this guy is.’ I said a few times to my husband: ‘Are you sure you don’t know this guy, is he maybe from your work?’ We wondered if he was a mad stalker.”

She is now Facebook friends with Hillhouse and the pair have met in person to cement their coincidental bond.

“I could not stop laughing,” said Wylie. “We can’t believe we’ve found out who he is after almost four years.”