Dingwall Wedding
The year was 1994. Me and my mate Chas packed our Big motorbikes with camping gear and headed off from Dunfermline. I rode a Honda Goldwing, Chas strode a Honda CB900. These powerful bikes don’t hang around on the road. There were very few speed cameras in those days and so it didn’t take us that long to complete the 200 mile journey north from Dunfermline to Dingwall. Is was mid-August and bright and warm and so the run "up north" was enjoyable. We only had the clothes we were wearing, camping gear, and a toothbrush (each).
We arrived at Dingwall mid-afternoon after a four-hour journey (takin’ it "easy" on route). We parked the bikes near to the centre of Dingwall in a central car park and began to walk around the town to seek refreshments. But soon we were approached by a male and female couple who attempted to engage with us as we walked along the High Street. The couple looked like they were in their mid-forties and dressed for a wedding, They were.
"Lads, lads..." then man said to me. "Can you help us?" We are from Buckie and we’re here to get married in the Registrars Office down the road very soon. We didn’t want any fuss with family and so have come here to get married on our own. Would you be our witnesses?"
The guy seemed genuine enough and I understood his reasoning and so we agreed to go along with it. We followed them a short distance to Dingwall Registry Office. Inside the Office the four of us were shuffled into a small room were a po-faced and officious-looking old-style lady glared at us in an unwelcoming and irritated way.
The soon-to-be married couple looked the part but Chas and I both had our helmets in hand and our biker gear on. The officious wifey glared at us with disdain. The wifey asked for the addresses and details from the couple and then asked me for my name and address. She was huffing and puffing all the time and was battering away on an old-fashioned typewriter with carbon copies in it. She wasn't happy that the couple had Buckie addresses and I had a Dunfermline address. However she became quite hostile when Chas tried to convey his address as it was all in Welsh. His home address was Aberporth in South Wales and his house address and everything was in the Welsh language. Chas had to very deliberately spell each part of his address to the officious wifey who was really losing patience as she continually kept trying to type the address properly for the official document. Eventually, and grudgingly, the officials completed the ceremony in a perfunctory manner and the four of us were hurriedly gestured out of the Office onto the brightly-lit street outside.
The newly-married groom shook our hands in a grateful and friendly way. "Can't thank you enough guys" he said and presented us both with a giant packet of Embassy Regal and a big box of Matchmakers chocolates. And off they went. End of story. Or that was that we thought.
Until about a week later when I was back in Dunfermline and Chas was back down in Wales. I got a phone call from Chas who sounded concerned. He said that he'd just received a confirmation through the post that he was actually married to the woman from Buckie. There was a complete mix up at the Registrars and they put Chas’ name on the marriage certificate by mistake. And so there he was down in Wales, a legally married man, to someone he didn’t even know.
We arrived at Dingwall mid-afternoon after a four-hour journey (takin’ it "easy" on route). We parked the bikes near to the centre of Dingwall in a central car park and began to walk around the town to seek refreshments. But soon we were approached by a male and female couple who attempted to engage with us as we walked along the High Street. The couple looked like they were in their mid-forties and dressed for a wedding, They were.
"Lads, lads..." then man said to me. "Can you help us?" We are from Buckie and we’re here to get married in the Registrars Office down the road very soon. We didn’t want any fuss with family and so have come here to get married on our own. Would you be our witnesses?"
The guy seemed genuine enough and I understood his reasoning and so we agreed to go along with it. We followed them a short distance to Dingwall Registry Office. Inside the Office the four of us were shuffled into a small room were a po-faced and officious-looking old-style lady glared at us in an unwelcoming and irritated way.
The soon-to-be married couple looked the part but Chas and I both had our helmets in hand and our biker gear on. The officious wifey glared at us with disdain. The wifey asked for the addresses and details from the couple and then asked me for my name and address. She was huffing and puffing all the time and was battering away on an old-fashioned typewriter with carbon copies in it. She wasn't happy that the couple had Buckie addresses and I had a Dunfermline address. However she became quite hostile when Chas tried to convey his address as it was all in Welsh. His home address was Aberporth in South Wales and his house address and everything was in the Welsh language. Chas had to very deliberately spell each part of his address to the officious wifey who was really losing patience as she continually kept trying to type the address properly for the official document. Eventually, and grudgingly, the officials completed the ceremony in a perfunctory manner and the four of us were hurriedly gestured out of the Office onto the brightly-lit street outside.
The newly-married groom shook our hands in a grateful and friendly way. "Can't thank you enough guys" he said and presented us both with a giant packet of Embassy Regal and a big box of Matchmakers chocolates. And off they went. End of story. Or that was that we thought.
Until about a week later when I was back in Dunfermline and Chas was back down in Wales. I got a phone call from Chas who sounded concerned. He said that he'd just received a confirmation through the post that he was actually married to the woman from Buckie. There was a complete mix up at the Registrars and they put Chas’ name on the marriage certificate by mistake. And so there he was down in Wales, a legally married man, to someone he didn’t even know.