Married at First Sight UK: Sheffield's Richie Dews' awkward first encounter with new wife Lara's son

But thankfully the 51-year-old musician soon hit it off with 19-year-old Jaden, despite the less than promising start.

Richie tied the knot with Lara, a Canadian-born professional dancer who has been married twice before and has two children, on episode four of series seven of the hit E4 show in which complete strangers are matched by a team of experts and meet for the first time on their wedding day.

Before meeting Richie, Lara told how her children’s approval ‘means everything’ as they would ‘always come first’, meaning the stakes were high when Richie was introduced to Jaden at the wedding reception.

Things did not start well for Sheffield United fan Richie, who is an ex-member of the rock group Dare, started by former Thin Lizzy keyboard player Darren Wharton, and today works as a sales advisor.

“Are you my new dad?” joked Jaden first up, to which a shell-shocked Richie replied ‘potentially’.

Jaden showed his protective side, saying he didn’t want his mum to endure any more ‘heartbreak’, and advised Richie to ‘keep her entertained, take her out’.

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But Richie hit a bum note when he joked: “Put her on a lead once in a while. We’ll see.”

Jaden responded: “I didn’t say take her for a walk. I literally just said keep her entertained.”

Thankfully, things picked up when they got onto the subject of music, with Jaden warming to Richie, describing his rock star background as ‘pretty cool’ and saying it was ‘really, really nice’ to meet his new stepdad.

As for Richie and Lara, he seemed more enthused at first, calling her ‘absolutely gorgeous’ and ‘exactly what I ordered’, before adding: “I’ve never sort of felt quite so comfortable in somebody’s company quite so quickly.”

Lara damned Richie with faint praise, saying: “I don’t know if I saw him on the street if I’d go ‘oh my God, that guy’, but thank God he had hair.”

She also said the fact he was living with his parents in his 50s was a ‘red flag’ and expressed concern that he’d never been in a serious relationship at his age.

By the end of the wedding day, Lara appeared to be warming to Richie, who serenaded her with a song he had written, and she said she was ‘so excited for what the future holds’ after meeting Richie.

Richie said: “This is the start of something that could go on a very long time and hopefully we’ll be able to look back on this day and go ‘it was a great wedding day’.”

Richie and Lara are one of eight couples paired up on the latest series of the reality show, which will be the longest ever, following their fortunes over the course of 30 episodes.

This is not the first time Richie has sought love on TV. Eagle-eyed viewers might have recognised him from his two appearances on the ITV dating show Take Me Out.