- HUMOUR: Honey, I smoked the wedding
- By Harriet Alexander
- The Age
- 22/03/2009 Make a Comment
- Contributed by: The Rooster ( 258 articles in 2009 )
AN AUSTRALIAN man was so muddled by years of marijuana dependency that he mistakenly believed he was married to his former flatmate for nearly a decade, threatening to derail his wedding to a new partner.
The man, 38, planned to be married this month, but he was unable to find the papers to prove to the marriage celebrant that he was not still married to his previous partner, which she required because he had listed his marital status as "divorced".
By this time the Births, Deaths and Marriages Registry had been placed on notice that a marriage might have occurred and the celebrant needed to provide proof of his single status before she could perform the ceremony.
It took the Family Court to make a formal declaration that the two people had never been married, and hence could never be divorced, to clear the path for the man to marry. The court heard that the man and his flatmate met through their mothers and lived together for 10 years from 1994, but their relationship was not sexual and was based largely on convenience.
The man could not remember a wedding ceremony taking place, but he had always believed that they had been married early in their relationship and the details must have slipped his mind because he was stoned at the time.
In fact, he told the court he had no "meaningful recollection" of significant portions of the relationship.
The pair fought a lot, and in 2003 the flatmate gave him a document to sign that he believed was their divorce papers. He was under the influence of marijuana at the time, and he signed it.
It was not until he contacted his former flatmate for proof of their divorce that she told him it was actually a Residential Tenancy Agreement.
The flatmate, who is now living in Melbourne, gave evidence confirming that the pair had never been married and therefore had never been divorced, liberating the man and his new bride to be married.
The man, 38, planned to be married this month, but he was unable to find the papers to prove to the marriage celebrant that he was not still married to his previous partner, which she required because he had listed his marital status as "divorced".
By this time the Births, Deaths and Marriages Registry had been placed on notice that a marriage might have occurred and the celebrant needed to provide proof of his single status before she could perform the ceremony.
It took the Family Court to make a formal declaration that the two people had never been married, and hence could never be divorced, to clear the path for the man to marry. The court heard that the man and his flatmate met through their mothers and lived together for 10 years from 1994, but their relationship was not sexual and was based largely on convenience.
The man could not remember a wedding ceremony taking place, but he had always believed that they had been married early in their relationship and the details must have slipped his mind because he was stoned at the time.
In fact, he told the court he had no "meaningful recollection" of significant portions of the relationship.
The pair fought a lot, and in 2003 the flatmate gave him a document to sign that he believed was their divorce papers. He was under the influence of marijuana at the time, and he signed it.
It was not until he contacted his former flatmate for proof of their divorce that she told him it was actually a Residential Tenancy Agreement.
The flatmate, who is now living in Melbourne, gave evidence confirming that the pair had never been married and therefore had never been divorced, liberating the man and his new bride to be married.
Source: https://www.theage.com.au/national/honey-i-smoked-the-wedding-20090321-951d.html
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