Matthew Bell and Samantha Pynappels were set to marry in June. Samantha Pynappels leaves the service for Matthew Bell / Pic: Nic Gibson Source: The Daily Telegraph IT should have been the happiest time in bride-to-be Samantha Pynappel's life: Her wedding to her childhood sweetheart just weeks away . But yesterday it was nothing but sadness as the heartbroken young woman farewelled her fianc aac Matthew Bell, who died while celebrating his bucks party. Mr Bell suffered fatal head injuries when he fell from a hotel staircase on Saturday night. He was aged just 26. He and Ms Pynappels were out separately that night with their friends, celebrating their upcoming Fiji wedding, when tragedy struck. Mourners were told Mr Bell, 26, was in the prime of his life. He had graduated from university with a degree in civil engineering, was excelling at his job and had formed a life plan which included buying a home and starting a family, soon after his wedding. "So much hope and happiness, taken away so suddenly," Mr Bell's uncle, Reverend Gavin Bell, said. Hundreds of family and friends who filled the Kings School chapel at Parramatta heard how Mr Bell and Ms Pynappels met 10 years ago while they were both at high school in Glen Innes, in country NSW. They fell in love then, and "barely left each others side," Rev Bell said. Mourners heard how the couple left the country and moved to Sydney after school and supported each other in their different study and career endeavours, all the while forming the foundations of a solid future. Mr Bell's distraught parents John and Jenny said their eldest of three children was "admired and loved by many, and taken too soon." A work friend said lives were made richer through knowing Mr Bell. Not very often in life do you get to be associated with an unassuming, polite, gifted man like Matthew. He will be sadly missed by all of us who knew him," Mark McLachlan said. Mr Bell died last Saturday night from massive head injuries after he fell backwards while sliding down a bannister at Jackson's on George, in Sydney's CBD. He and a group of mates, including his younger brother Daniel, hadn't been long at the hotel when the accident happened.