People can wed snakes, dolphins and even dead humans

The day of August 10, 2003 was marked with the first-ever space wedding. Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malanchenko married US citizen Ekaterina Dmitriyeva. It was a very unusual wedding ceremony indeed: the groom was staying on Earth’s orbit, while the bride was spending that moment on the surface of our planet. It goes without saying that such a wedding became an outstanding social event in the whole world. However, there is quite a number of other wedding ceremonies, which may seem even more astonishing.

Photo: People can wed snakes, dolphins and even dead humans

Two trees got married in India in the spring of 2007. Residents of the village of Orissa held the matrimonial service for two sacred trees named as Banyan and Pipal. As it turned out, the event was organized to draw people’s attention to the problem of deforestation. A tree wedding in that region of India is considered to be an ancient tradition. Childless families used to marry trees hoping that the ritual would help them conceive a baby.

Another unusual ceremony was held in the fall of 2006 in London’s Harrods. Two dogs – Timmy and Muffin – got married in the most famous department store in the world. The four-legged newlyweds, the Bichon Frise and the Shih Tzu, were dressed appropriately. They exchanged kisses and enjoyed their wedding cake. Afterwards, the two little dogs were whisked off by horse-drawn carriage. The dog wedding was held within the framework of the special campaign called “Anything is Possible.” The campaign was organized to demonstrate limitless possibilities of the huge store with 330 various departments.

History knows several examples of bizarre weddings between human beings and animals. A 41-year-old woman named as Sharon Tendler and a 35-year-old dolphin Cindy initiated conjugal ties in 2005 at the dolphinarium of the Israeli city of Eilat. The ceremony was held in strict compliance with all traditional rules of human-to-human weddings. When the ceremony ended, the guests pushed the newly-made wife into the pool, to hug and kiss her husband.

Another weird story took place in the summer of 2006 in India. A woman married a snake there. The bride, Bimbala Das (30), was wearing a festive sari. The groom was replaced with a copper figurine, though. “We have our own special communication, although snakes cannot talk, of course. When I put a jar of milk near the anthill, where the cobra lives, he always crawled out to drink it. The snake never bit me at that,” the woman said.

Local people approved Bimbala’s wedding with the reptile, which is considered to be a holy creature in India. They think that such a union will bring them luck and protect them against misfortune. The woman’s mother sticks to the same opinion . “ I am very happy . Bimbala was sick, and we could not afford her treatment. She recovered when she started bringing milk to the snake. I think that was the moment when she developed affection to the reptile,” the woman’s mother said.

Probably the gloomiest wedding ceremony took place in February of 2004 in France, when a woman married a dead man. The man she loved had died in a car accident two years before their wedding. However, the woman was so madly in love with the man that she wanted to take his name and be referred to as his wife even if the man was dead. “I wanted to be above death. I am proud that now I use the name of my beloved. He will be beside me forever,” the woman said.

The woman had to obtain special permission from the French president: marrying the dead is obviously considered illegal in France. The woman’s case became an exception, though. The court was convinced that the woman was a mentally balanced individual, who was simply driven by true love.

A much brighter ceremony was held in 2001 in Quebec, Canada. The couple exchanged rings in the hotel of ice. Glasses for champagne were also made of ice. The newlyweds said that it was probably the most beautiful wedding ever. “It was simply magic. Everything was sparkling and glistening. Besides, snow and ice symbolize the purity of marriage for us,” they said.

Sometimes a wedding may end with a fierce fight between the bride and the groom. This is exactly what happened at the wedding of two professional boxers from St.Petersburg, Russia. Nikolay Kibkalo and Natalia Karpovich continued their wedding ceremony on a boxing ring. The two exchanged quite juicy punches, which did not make a surprise to their guests.

Translated by Dmitry Sudakov
Pravda.ru