Known for playing Sonia Fowler on EastEnders, actress Natalie Cassidy has been engaged to her partner Marc Humphreys for nearly a decade.

She joined the EastEnders cast in 1993 and has been in and out of it – mostly in it – ever since.

However, she recently announced her departure. Not for the first time, but this time it feels final. Read our five theories on how she will leave the show here.

Natalie and Marc’s relationship timeline

Natalie Cassidy and BBC cameraman Marc Humphreys started dating in 2014, and quickly climbed several rungs on the relationship stepladder.

In October 2015, they announced their engagement. On February 13, 2016, Natalie revealed that she was pregnant with her second child – their first together.

She did so on Twitter, with a cool casual air, writing simply: “Evening all… Time to let everybody know that Marc and I are having a baby in the summer. The three musketeers become four.”

Natalie gave birth to Joanie Elizabeth in the summer of 2016, a little sister for Eliza, 14. Natalie Cassidy’s eldest daughter, Eliza, is from her previous relationship with Adam Cottrell. She and Adam separated in 2013 after four years together.

But nowhere along the line have Natalie Cassidy – who’s on Saturday Kitchen this weekend (March 29) – and Marc Humphreys tied the knot. So, why not?

@cameramarc and I introduce Joanie Elizabeth Cassidy-Humphreys… We are all so in love! pic.twitter.com/N22971Fwrz

— Natalie Cassidy (@Nat_Cassidy) August 29, 2016

EastEnders star Natalie Cassidy admits ‘I’m a bit of a snob’

Natalie spoke about the reasons they’ve put off the wedding during a recent episode of the Memory Lane podcast.

“Do you know what?” she told the hosts. “It’s a lot of money. No, I tell you what it is. It’s time and budget. It is because I go: ‘I’ll only do something small. I don’t need to…’

“I will do it small,” she continued. “But I want to be at The Ledbury. Oh, I want a Michelin star meal or… I’m just a bit of a snob, genuinely.

“I’ll want the best flowers and I will want a designer suit,” she added, explaining that as things mount up in her mind, and as all the tiniest details proliferate, the job of organising a whole perfect wedding starts to feel more and more like too big a task.

So it appears that the reason she and Marc haven’t put a ring on it – a wedding ring, that is – is that if they were to make sure every single detail was perfect, it would cost too much. Or it would take too much to organise.

And besides, who needs a marriage certificate when you’ve a smile as wide as Natalie’s?