London - A couple enjoyed getting married so much they went through the ceremony a second and third time as well, and were planning to tie the knot a fourth time when they were found out. Jimmy and Greta Wardle never divorced, and every time they married, using different names, she wore white and turned up at the church in a luxury car, according to press reports yesterday.
The couple, now 63, first wed in Beamish, north-east England, in 1978, but in 1995 married for a second time in a church in nearby Whitley Bay. Wedding number three was last year at a church 200 yards from the second ceremony. Again they claimed to be single, while relatives and friends thought they were just having their marriage blessed.
By this time Jimmy, a former bus garage worker, and Greta, a retired school cleaner, decided they would call it quits - after just one more wedding. But they were found out when a local reporter thought an elderly couple marrying for the first time would make a nice story.
Ms Mary Longley, the superintendent registrar, said she did not think that police would prosecute for perjury.