WHEN the spirits appear at a wedding, it’s usually because the bar has opened at the reception.

But for Amethyst Realm’s big day next summer, it will be an altogether different story — as she is planning to marry a ghost.

And the 30-year-old bride-to-be reckons they have already consummated their relationship — on the flight back from a working trip to Australia, where they supposedly met, The Sun reports.

Amethyst, who claims to have had 20 lovers from beyond the grave, recalls the moment they first came face to … . paranormal entity, nine months ago.

She says: “I’d not had a phantom fling for a while and as I was away on business, starting a new relationship was the last thing on my mind.

“Then one day, while I was walking through the bush, enjoying nature, I suddenly felt this incredible energy. A new lover had arrived.”

When it was time to return home, she was heartbroken, as she thought she would have to leave her new love.

She says: “From experience, I knew spirits tend to stay in one place, but something amazing happened.”

On the plane, as she fastened her seatbelt, she felt the presence of her lover and says: “I couldn’t believe it.

“I was happy and excited — so excited that we had to do something about it. So we headed to the plane loo and, well, I am now a member of the Mile High Club.”

Amethyst, who makes a living as a spiritual counsellor, says of her phantom fiance: “I’m so happy to have found him. I know in my heart that he’s the one for me.

“We’re soulmates, meant for each other, and that’ll never change. The fact that he’s a spirit is by the by.”

According to Amethyst her family have embraced her intended, if not literally, and her friends are pleased.

She says: “My family are quite alternative, so anything I do or say doesn’t faze them.

“Most of my friends are happy that I’ve found love. If they think I’m mad, they seem to be keeping it to themselves.”

After nine months, her ghostly lover popped the question last weekend, at the Wookey Hole caves tourist attraction in Somerset.

Amethyst says: “I’d suggested a weekend away and we decided on Weston-super-Mare.

“As soon as we got to the hotel my lover told me he wanted to go to Wookey Hole. It’s nearly an hour from Weston, but he was insistent.”

So they took a trip to the caves, and Amethyst continues: “Halfway through the tour, he told me he wanted to hang back from the group.

“That’s when it happened. There was no going down on one knee — he doesn’t have knees! But for the first time, I heard him speak.”

Amethyst claims that the phrase “Will you marry me?” echoed around the cave. She says: “It’s hard to explain but, until that point, his words were inside my head. But, on that day, the words were outside.

“I could actually hear his voice and it was beautiful. Deep, sexy and real.”

Amethyst, from Bristol, said yes, and was soon planning her big day.

She says the couple are now in the process of choosing a ring, but have not decided what kind it will be.

She says: “I’m hoping it will have an amethyst stone in it, but I’m leaving it to him to decide. After all, he’s the one who proposed. It’s his choice.”

They plan a Pagan “handfasting” ceremony, in which their hands are tied together, symbolising their connection, and Amethyst says: “It’ll be somewhere in the English countryside.

“We haven’t discussed the details yet but I think it will be quite a big do.” Guests may struggle with addressing her new man, as he doesn’t even have a name.

And Amethyst is not even sure he is a phantom fella.

She says his energy is like no other lover’s but that it is more feminine and gentle, adding: “I’m not 100 per cent sure this lover is male.

“But if you’re making love to a spirit, gender doesn’t really come into it. And we don’t actually use names at all when we communicate.

“A medium told me recently that my lover and I had been together in three past lives. I’ve asked him about that but he says it’s not important.”

She adds: “Ghost lovers tend to be more sensual and adept than the average bloke. There’s always more of a connection, because the sex goes beyond physical. It’s like any other kind of sex. The main difference is I just can’t see them.

“I feel them though, their weight against me, their touch, the warmth and energy that just sinks into me.

“Sometimes I get the feeling that I’m being moved. Orgasms I have with my spirit lovers have been way more satisfying than any I’ve had with ordinary men.”

She adds: “I’ve always been able to communicate with spirits. They would make their presence known by moving stuff around the house or stroking me when I least expected it.

“One of the ghosts even used to draw little hearts in the condensation on the windows.”

She took her first ghost lover when she was 18 and still in a relationship with her — real — ex-boyfriend Adam.

She recalls: “Adam had come home early from work. The first I knew was when I heard him charging up the stairs. My ghost lover left when he sensed my panic.

“Adam burst into the bedroom, shouting, ‘Where is he?’ It was hard to deny that I hadn’t been up to something — I was on the bed in my sexiest lingerie.”

Adam, then 20, told her he had seen someone through the bedroom window from the street below.

She continues: “He raced up the stairs in the hope of catching me.

“When he couldn’t see anyone, he looked baffled. There was no way out apart from down the stairs.

“He asked me where he was hiding. That’s when I told him that the man he’d seen through the window — a man I had never actually seen myself — was a ghost.”

Amethyst say she now wants a baby with her spook hubby-to-be. She admits the idea “sounds crazy” but adds: “I looked into it and I don’t think it’s totally out of the question.”

She claims phantom pregnancies — where non-pregnant women suffer signs such as nausea and a swollen abdomen — are actually “ghost babies” trapped in living women.

She thinks some women are able to conceive with a ghost, but are not able to go to term as their bodies cannot cope with the paranormal.

She adds: “I’m sure there’s a way around that — I just haven’t worked it out yet.”

This story first appeared in The Sun and has been republished here with permission.