That Pepita Diamand has taken the failure of her company hard should come as little surprise. In addition to the hundreds of customers who have bombarded her with e-mails expressing their anger, some of her friends, too, have been affected by the demise of Wrapit. She had recommended the service to them.

She has tried to defend the company - doing so on a Facebook group set up to denigrate it and going so far as to give couples her own e-mail address and offering to deal with their problems personally - but to no avail. Wrapit's troubles were too great, going far beyond good intentions.

It is all a long way from the early days of the company, set up by the former fashion journalist in 2000 with Peter Gelardi, a colleague from her previous job at World Telecom. Inspired by a summer attending friends' weddings, Ms Diamand, 36, who eloped to Niagara Falls for her own marriage (she has since divorced), decided to open an upmarket wedding list site.

For years, the business had great public relations and won awards for its customer service. Ms Diamand was chosen as one of Management Today magazine's 35 women under 35 to watch in 2006. Now, however, the Canadian-born entrepreneur, who came to Britain originally to study for a degree at St Andrews, is having to contend with blows even on that front. Taking a holiday in Corsica in July, her first in three years, as Wrapit imploded may have been merely bad timing, but it looks very bad to those angry customers. So, too, did acting as sponsor for the Wrapit Wedding Industry Awards at Claridge's in February. Perhaps in the end nice finishing touches are not enough.

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