Donna Noble is supposed to wed Lance Bennett at Christmastime, but she suddenly vanishes while walking down the aisle. She reappears in the TARDIS console room -- much to the Doctor's bewilderment. He tries to return Donna to the church, but they are attacked by robotic Santas. Finally reuniting Donna with Lance, the Doctor becomes suspicious of their employer, HC Clements, which has ties to Torchwood and a secret laboratory under the Thames. But in an orbiting Webstar, the Empress of the Racnoss awaits the culmination of a plan older than the Earth itself...

As a lifelong fan of the programme, Russell T Davies had been imagining Doctor Who stories ever since his childhood. When he became its executive producer in 2003, he had the opportunity to make some of these ideas come to life on television. Amongst them was a car chase involving the TARDIS: Davies could remember driving along highways with his family, fantasising about catching sight of the TARDIS whizzing past the other vehicles. In 2004, Davies received assurances about its feasibility from visual effects supervisor Dave Houghton. During the early planning stages for Season Twenty-Eight, the sequence was planned for inclusion in Toby Whithouse's School Reunion, with the Doctor rescuing Sarah Jane Smith. However, it was dropped when it was found to derail Whithouse's plot.

Instead, Davies opted to use the concept as the centrepiece of a screwball comedy script he was intending to write himself. Entitled The Runaway Bride, it was expected to be the sixth installment of the 2006 season, positioned after Rise Of The Cybermen / The Age Of Steel. The narrative involved a mysterious bride, who appeared in the TARDIS to confront the Doctor and Rose Tyler. However these plans, too, would change in the wake of the BBC's announcement on June 15th, 2005 concerning the future of Doctor Who. Not only had the show had been renewed for its twenty-ninth season in 2007, but also for a second annual Christmas special in 2006, following 2005's The Christmas Invasion. Davies decided that the holiday episode was a better use of the lighthearted storyline he envisaged for The Runaway Bride; he instead developed Tooth And Claw to replace it in Season Twenty-Eight.

The bride would help establish the importance of the Doctor always travelling with a companion

Its new place in the schedule meant that The Runaway Bride would now chronicle the aftermath of the Doctor's separation from Rose, who had become trapped in a parallel universe in the Season Twenty-Eight finale, Army Of Ghosts / Doomsday. Davies did not want to introduce a new regular character in the Christmas special, preferring to wait until the start of the 2007 season. Instead, he decided that the eponymous bride would herself make a suitable short-term companion, bridging the gap between Rose and her successor, Martha Jones. Like Adam Mitchell in 2005's The Long Game, she would help to demonstrate that not everyone had the mettle to travel in the TARDIS; but she would also help establish the importance of the Doctor always travelling with a companion.

To play the still-anonymous bride, Davies wanted to recruit comedienne Catherine Tate, a widely-recognised actor thanks to the recent success of The Catherine Tate Show on BBC Two. Tate met with Davies, producer Phil Collinson and casting director Andy Pryor in London on January 31st, 2006. Intrigued by the offer to appear in Doctor Who, she asked Davies about the bride's name, and he immediately suggested “Donna”. Tate ultimately agreed to guest-star in The Runaway Bride, and she recorded her appearance in the coda to Doomsday on March 31st, with only essential personnel aware of her involvement.

At this stage, Davies was still finalising the narrative of The Runaway Bride. At one point, the chase along the motorway was related to a satellite navigation system being controlled by the Empress of the Racnoss; this element would eventually be given to Helen Raynor for 2008's The Sontaran Stratagem / The Poison Sky. Davies also envisaged the climax of The Runaway Bride as taking place at the ancient stone monoliths of Stonehenge, on the Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire. He was unable to come up with a satisfactory rationale for Stonehenge's involvement, however, and so the idea was abandoned. In developing the relationship between the Doctor and Donna, Davies thought in terms of the legendary Hollywood pairing of Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn, who had appeared together in classic comedy films such as 1942's Woman Of The Year.

Whereas The Christmas Invasion had been made in a recording block alongside several other episodes, it was decided that The Runaway Bride would be filmed on its own, at the start of the production schedule for Season Twenty-Nine. As such, it comprised the entirety of Block One under director Euros Lyn, who had most recently made the previous year's The Idiot's Lantern and Fear Her. Cast as Sylvia Noble was Jacqueline King, a longtime fan of the programme who had appeared in Doctor Who audio dramas for Big Finish Productions. At this stage, the working assumption was that neither Tate nor King would be involved with the show beyond the Christmas special.

When Catherine Tate joined the production on July 6th, her involvement was still a secret

Filming for The Runaway Bride began with three days in London. July 4th took Lyn to Woolwich, where he captured plate shots of the Thames Flood Barrier and the London skyline. The next day was devoted to footage of Donna's taxi at the Chiswick flyover on the M4 motorway. Tennant and Tate joined the production on July 6th, having been away from Doctor Who for a little more than three months. Their initial work involved the Doctor and Donna's rooftop conversation, recorded at the International Press Centre helipad in Holborn. Tate's involvement in Doctor Who was still a closely-guarded secret, since Doomsday would not air until the 8th. Fortunately, the lofty location helped prevent onlookers from recognising the actress.

Cast and crew then returned to Wales, but not to the Unit Q2 studio facility where Doctor Who had been made since 2004. Alongside its spin-off, Torchwood, the programme had now been granted a dedicated studio home at Upper Boat, near Pontypridd; the venue had previously served as a factory for the manufacture of seat belts. Although Torchwood had been in production at Upper Boat Studios since the start of May, Doctor Who marked its first work there on July 7th and 8th, when the TARDIS sequences for The Runaway Bride were filmed. The closing scene of Season Twenty-Eight was re-recorded at Upper Boat for inclusion in the special; this accommodated the different way that director of photography Rory Taylor preferred to light the TARDIS set, as compared to his Doomsday counterpart, Ernie Vincze.

With the secret of Tate's participation in The Runaway Bride now out in the open, location filming could proceed without the limitations of the previous week. On July 11th, the Atradius Building in Cardiff Bay posed as the headquarters of HC Clements. Elsewhere in Cardiff on the same day, Lyn recorded flashbacks of Donna and Lance's relationship, at the Water Guard Pub and on a street in Riverside. Donna's wedding reception was held at the Baverstock Hotel in Merthyr Tydfil on July 12th and 13th, followed by the abortive ceremony at St John the Baptist Church in Cardiff on the 14th. The crucial car chase sequence was then completed on the A4232 Ely Link Road in Cardiff on July 15th and 16th. The production team was assisted by the police, who enacted a rolling roadblock during the early morning hours. Part of the second day was also spent recording shots inside the hijacked taxi cab, at Cardiff's West Point Industrial Estate.

The exterior of the reception venue was actually the grounds of the New Country House Hotel in Cardiff, where production resumed on July 18th. Bella Emberg reprised her role as Mrs Croot -- introduced in 2006's Love & Monsters -- for an encounter with the Doctor and Donna as they dismounted a bus, but this scene was cut in editing. On nearby streets the same day, Lyn filmed the Doctor, Donna and Lance travelling to HC Clements in Donna's cramped and cautiously-driven Smart car. Tennant's parents, sister-in-law, and two young nieces appeared as extras for this footage. July 19th saw filming shift to Cardiff's Millennium Centre, the site of the secret corridors beneath HC Clements; another Donna/Lance flashback was taped outside the Centre as well. From the 20th to the 22nd, Lyn was concerned with material in the Torchwood lab, actually the Usk Valley Business Park in Pontypool.

On July 24th, Howell's on St Mary Street in Cardiff again posed as Henrik's department store, as it had done since 2005's Rose. On nearby Wharton Street, a fake automated teller machine was erected for the Doctor's diversion. Since it would have been illegal to use counterfeit versions of real pound notes, the cashpoint instead spat out mocked-up money bearing the faces of David Tennant as the Doctor (on the £10 bill, along with lines from The Christmas Invasion) and producer Phil Collinson (on the £20 bill, accompanied by a paraphrase of the Fourth Doctor's speech about being grown up from 1974's Robot).

Lyn's team returned to St Mary Street on July 25th, this time for scenes involving the military during the Webstar's attack. Earlier that day, the TARDIS materialised a few blocks east, on Churchill Way. The 26th saw the sequence outside Donna's parents' home filmed on Princess Avenue in Cardiff. The same day, more TARDIS material was recorded at Upper Boat alongside special effects shots. This work continued to the 27th, which concentrated on elements needed for the TARDIS chase scene. Production of The Runaway Bride should then have ended on July 28th, when footage of the Empress in the Flood Chamber was captured at the impounding station on the Newport Docks.

It was recognised that The Runaway Bride required additional time, so Block 1 was extended by a week

At an early stage, however, it had been recognised that the Christmas special would require additional time, and so Block One had been extended by a week. As a result, cast and crew returned to the impounding station from July 31st to August 2nd. Additional shots for the car chase were also recorded at the Newport Docks on August 1st, while various inserts were filmed at Upper Boat on the 3rd. The same day, a remount of material involving Donna's car was staged at Victoria Park Estate in Cardiff. Executive producer Julie Gardner had objected to the pink colour of the Smart car used on July 18th, but the sequence would ultimately be dropped altogether. Finally, Upper Boat was the venue for additional pick-up shots on October 19th.

In dubbing, Davies added dialogue which indicated that the military was receiving orders from “Mr Saxon”. This name had also been glimpsed on a newspaper in Love & Monsters, and would loom large during the 2007 season. As with Song For Ten in The Christmas Invasion, Murray Gold composed an original song for The Runaway Bride. The Northern Soul-inspired Love Don't Roam could be heard during the wedding reception and was sung by Neil Hannon of The Divine Comedy, who also re-recorded Song For Ten for Doctor Who: Original Television Soundtrack, released by Silva Screen in 2006.

Like The Christmas Invasion, The Runaway Bride was televised on Christmas Day as the lynchpin of the BBC's holiday line-up. Accruing only slightly fewer viewers than its predecessor, it once again rocketed Doctor Who into the week's Top Ten programmes. Ostensibly, this broadcast was supposed to mark the end of Catherine Tate's involvement with Doctor Who. But with the actress having thoroughly enjoyed her time on the programme, it would not be long before those plans would be subject to a monumental change...

• Doctor Who Magazine Special Edition #17, 22nd November 2007, “Christmas Special: The Runaway Bride” by Andrew Pixley, Panini Publishing Ltd.
• Doctor Who: The Complete History #54, 2017, “Story 178: The Runaway Bride”, edited by John Ainsworth, Hachette Partworks Ltd.