Marry in haste repent at leisure (or not!)

By Angela Bensemann

Anyone who knows me knows I’m a real planner (and a control freak).  Sometimes some of life’s biggest decisions just happen and can’t be planned.  That’s actually quite a challenge for someone like me but sometimes you just have to go with the flow.

One of my favourite stories goes like this.

Back in the day my boyfriend of one month (I’ll call him the scouser as he’s from Liverpool) decided to come to New Zealand (we’d met in the UK but I was on my way home again).  We weren’t sure how we were going to get on – let’s face it we hardly knew each other.

The scouser left England with a backpack and a six month visitor’s VISA. 

Things were going well so he converted the visitor’s VISA to a working VISA and we set up house. Several months later the scouser popped the question and we decided to marry at some time in the distant future.

We waited till my parents visited us the following week to tell them the news of the coming nuptials but the scouser’s parents were on holiday so they had to wait to find out.

In the meantime the scouser went to re-new his working VISA and was told it had expired, couldn’t be renewed and he had 10 days to leave the country.

“Don’t worry, leave it to me,” I said.  I donned my power suit and accompanied him back to immigration – “but we’re engaged,” I said (hiding the fact I had no ring).  “We don’t care your time is up!” they replied.  “Well what if we get married,” I said. “No guarantees,” they retorted.

Hmmm – now the convenient thing about immigration in Dunedin is it is (or was) in the same building as Births, Deaths and Marriages.

We popped downstairs and asked how soon we could get married (Monday) and to show us the room (think plastic table cloth and dusty plastic flowers).

The deal was done.  Now all that was left was to tell everyone we were getting married in just a few days’ time (not to mention the scuouser’s parents who were still on holiday and had only met me a couple of times).  We managed to get through to them the night before the wedding and to say they were shocked would be an understatement.

Suffice to say it was a bit of a surprise for everyone not least of all the scouser who looked like he was about to throw up in every single wedding photo (the haste with which the marriage took place was not in his game plan).

We took the afternoon off work – headed to the registry office but had to be transferred to the family court room because we had too many people.  Took our two minute vows, crossed the road to the pub for a quick drink, back to a wedding party thrown by a work colleague, night in a posh place, had the morning off and then back to work in the afternoon.

What a whirlwind and there we were – Mr and Ms. Four months later we did it all again but in a white dress and with everyone there.

Sixteen years later we’re still Mr and Ms and we’ve not yet lived to repent in leisure despite the haste in which we got married.