here’s something to chill the blood, because nothing is quite so unsettling as a couple who want to make sure the whole world knows just how blissfully happy they are.
The couple concerned go by the names of Lisa Grant and Alex Pelling, and they’re planning to get married.
Good for them, but what’s that got to do with us?
Precious little, as it happens. I’m at a time in my life when weddings don’t come up as often as they once did. There were a couple of summers long ago when every weekend seemed to be taken up with matrimony – Mrs Dee and I got hitched in freezing February for some reason lost in the mists of time, but there were plenty of friends getting hitched and hoping we’d be there and reserving something pricey on the department store list they’d thoughtfully set up.
Nowadays on the rare occasions I find myself at a wedding I usually have little knowledge of either party – mostly it seems to be work colleagues of the other half on second or third time around matches, so at least the list tends to be much less demanding, thank goodness.
But back to Alex and Lisa. Weddings are, as we know, full of stress and expense. Nobody in their right mind would want to do it more than once if they could help it.
Not these two – they’re travelling around the world in a camper van, and in every country they visit they get hitched according to local custom.
I say get hitched, but each ceremony is more like a dress rehearsal. They won’t officially become man and wife until their two year odyssey is over and they’ve decided which of the 30-odd ceremonies was their favourite, at which point they will go back and do it for real.
They reckon the whole grand tour will set them back something like £50,000, which compared to many weddings is a bit of a bargain and at least all that money is being spent on the happy couple, rather than assorted second cousins intent on doing serious damage to the free bar.
So far they’ve worked their way up and down the Americas, with ceremonies as varied as a drive-through affair in Las Vegas, a vampire-themed wedding in Hollywood, and ‘I do’ dates according to local culture and costume in places as far afield as Costa Rica, Colombia, Puerto Rica and Peru. Still on the timetable are India, China, South Africa, Morocco, and Tahiti.
They are together 24 hours a day, seven days a week and live in the van. They arrange the weddings together, share the driving, and take it in turns to make each other breakfast in bed every day. Yes, think about it, think about your partner, if you have one, and then – be honest – shudder.
You have to hand it to them – if they’re still a couple when they get to the end of their marriage marathon they are clearly meant to be together, although I hope their next project does not involve starting a family in as many different countries as they can, to test the childbirth cultures of the nations of the world. Particularly if they stay with the camper van concept.
And I also really hope that I never find myself round at their place when the wedding albums come out – let’s face it, it could take a while.