By Claire Elliot

MOST women can't wait to get married but Sian Ajose called a halt to her big day - to set up her own pole-dancing business.

The 34-year-old spent all the hard-earned cash she and her fiancé had scraped together for their wedding fund to set up the studio in Aberdeen.

The big day was all but planned when she made the risky move to postpone it - but thankfully her husband-to-be backed her decision all the way.

Sian said: "You just have to take a leap of faith and hope that the landing is okay.

"The money from the wedding fund was the only money available, that's all I had.

"I had been trying to raise the business from my living room for a year but I knew I needed a studio setting to do it properly.

"So when the opportunity came along I knew I had to take it. There was nothing else I could do."

Sian's shrewd business decision has now earned her a place in the running for Emerging Entrepreneur of the Year Award.

What's more, despite calling a halt to her wedding she is now a happily married to Yomi Ajose, 29, who runs his own leaflet distribution business.

Sian said: “He supported me and still does. We were always going to get married.

"It was never going to be a big flashy wedding but we'd have a great life together."

Yomi said he knew the studio had been her ambition from the day they met and did not want to stand in her way.

“I have always wanted her to succeed,” he said.

“I told her that we could have a honeymoon anytime and we could re-visit our vows when we are in a better financial position to do so. The studio is an opportunity that can't be missed.”

The couple were together two years when they finally tied the knot in an old theatre house in Dunfermline, Fife, earlier this year.

That was just two months after Sian had made the £1,000 from the wedding fund back through her business.

The couple, however, had to forfeit any honeymoon plans, as Sian had to be back in the studio the Monday after the ceremony.

Sian, who started pole-dancing in clubs in Edinburgh to raise money to be an instructor in windsurfing and scuba-diving rescue, now teaches pole-dancing exercises to almost 80 people a week.

She said: "I love it. It's been hard work but it's worth it.

"I had to make all the money back to get married.

"Sometimes you have to work really hard if you really want something."

And since opening Soul-Pole in the city's Union Street, she has seen the popularity in pole-dancing soar.

Her clients range from 16 to 45 and include everyone from lawyers and doctors to mothers, secretaries and even engineers.

Sian said: "It's very popular and it's a great way to keep fit..

"One thing I'm trying to make clear is that we are a fitness club with the aim to build strength, muscle tone, and self confidence and it's just so much fun. I love it."

Sian will find out next Thursday (October 22) if she has been crowned Emerging Entrepreneur of the Year at the Grampian Awards for Business Enterprise in Aberdeen.