adminstory of Mr Morgan Tsvangirai, the Prime Minister of the Republic of Zimbabwe. Even the best of scriptwriters like J. R. R. Tolkien, writer of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, would not have come up with such an intrinsic plot.
Court cases, bitter litigation ran over two weeks, with the penultimate judgment being passed well after midnight.
It transformed magistrates into night owls, and the accused and complaints into bats, flying, swooping, trying to outsmart each other. First came Locardia Karimatsenga, claiming maintenance to the tune of US$15 000 a month. A civil servant does not earn that in three years, if we are pegging their monthly salaries at US$400. It was thrown out.
Then she was back challenging Tsvangirai’s eligibility to marry. And the ghosts of November last year were unleashed to haunt him. It was thrown out, paving way for Elizabeth Macheka to waltz away with her man. But then comes Ms Nosipho Shilubane, a South African, to claim a man who had promised to marry her in December this year. Throw a pastor into the fray who left the lovebirds a mansion to cuddle up, and even the most prolific Hollywood director has lost the plot now.
But maybe we have to look around the globe and see whether we can get stories to compare with this “wedding-gate”.
No. 10: Russian trigger-happy wedding guest
During wedding reception, the guests were playing Russian roulette. A guest pretended to click the trigger of a pistol and the crowds held their breaths, anticipating a bang. But it did not come. It was fun. Then another wanted to take up the challenge. Bang, and a rubber bullet was discharged into his head at point-blank range.
He was rushed to hospital where he was reportedly battling for his life. Police arrested the owner of the pistol. However, these were lucky, the wedding went on.
No. 9: The fatal Austrian prank
A registrar in Austria cancelled a wedding after the bride, Tina Albrecht (27), jokingly replied: “I don’t” during her wedding to fiancé Dietmar Koch (29) at a castle in Steyr, Upper Austria. Though Tina, a receptionist, quickly corrected herself and said yes, the prevalence of forced marriages in Austria made it mandatory for registrars to cancel weddings on the slightest suspicion. So the wedding had to be cancelled, and the guests sent home.
Under an Austrian law intended to prevent forced marriages if either party replies to the key question in the negative the wedding is cancelled and cannot be rescheduled for a further 10 weeks.
No. 8: The groom who set the reception
hotel on fire
Tatsuhiko Kawata (39) a Japanese man, was billed to wed at a resort hotel in Yamanashi Prefecture. However, this man wanted to wriggle out of the nuptials because he was already had a wife. So he set the hotel on fire and was later arrested on suspicion of arson. No one was injured in the early morning fire and the wedding was put off. “I thought if I set a fire I wouldn’t have to go through with the wedding,” Kawata told police. Kawata and his fiancée had been set to get married before 80 guests. Maybe a “No” would have sufficed.
No. 7: The movie Norbit
Comedian Eddie Murphy (Norbit), who had been forced into a marriage by his giant of a wife Rasputia (played by Murphy himself), meets his childhood lover Kate (Thandie Newton), rekindling his romance.
But then Norbit is disappointed to find out that Kate’s now engaged to Deion Hughes (Cuba Gooding, Jnr.), a sneaky, slick-talking businessman. Rasputia gets wind of Norbit’s new love and fast-tracks Kate’s marriage to Hughes.
Norbit is locked up in the basement to stop him from attending the wedding. Pope Sweet Jesus and Lord Have Mercy delay the wedding vows, singing a very lengthy long song with the choir and then objecting to the marriage to give a sermon on the importance of love. This buys time for Norbit to escape from the basement, stop the wedding and with the help of the townsfolk, drive Rasputia and her brothers out of town for good.
No. 6: The wedding from hell
But Paul Cassidy and bride Vilma had their wedding at St Mary’s Church, in Melton where the page collapsed, then the groom’s mother collapsed and finally a guest received a text saying her father died. A 16-month-old page boy turned blue and collapsed in front of the bride. He was recovering and on his way to hospital when the groom’s 76-year-old mother collapsed as the wedding photographs were being taken.
The paramedic team, which had helped the youngster, returned and she, too, had to be taken to hospital. Minutes later, a guest received a text saying her father had died. But more was to come. At the reception, the couple’s toddler son cut his head after a glass cover fell on him, followed hours later by their daughter cutting her head open.
No. 5: The bride who brought down a plane throwing the bouquet
Isidoro Pensieri, who had gone through her wedding without a hitch in Pisa, brought down a plane during the bouquet-throwing ritual, which is done for luck during marriage. The bride and groom had hired a microlight plane to fly past and throw the bouquet to a line of women guests. However, the flowers were sucked into the plane’s engine causing it to catch fire and explode. The aircraft plunged into a hostel. One passenger on theplane was badly hurt. Isidoro Pensieri suffered multiple fractures and was taken to a hospital in Pisa.
No. 4: The wedding limo that was
carjacked at church
Six bridesmaids in Massachusetts — who had been waiting for their cue to enter the church — jumped out of the car in Massachusetts when a thief smashed a window with a hammer, got in and threatened the driver. After fleeing in their flowing blue gowns, fuchsia bouquets in hand, they made it down the aisle with seconds to spare — though they didn’t tell Jillian Sherlock and Nikhil Pereira what had happened until the ceremony was over.
No. 3: The runaway bride
Jennifer Carol Wilbanks, an American woman, ran away from home on April 26, 2005, in order to avoid her wedding with John Mason, her fiancé, which was scheduled April 30. Her disappearance sparked a nationwide search and intensive media coverage, including some media speculation that Mason had killed her.
She later resurfaced in Mexico. Wilbanks sold rights to her story for US$500 000. Mason cancelled the wedding and later married another woman after suing Wilbanks for emotional stress for dumping him at the altar. Movies spawned, premised on the runaway bride theme.
No. 2: Cowboy-themed wedding that was interrupted by armed cops
Roy and Val Worthington, from Castle Donington in Leicestershire, were in a in a cowboy-themed celebration of renewing their vows with friends and family in a local pub. Police believed the pistols and rifles were real. The merry bandwagon was punctured as police cars with armed officers and a police dog descended on the party. Even a police helicopter hovered above. What a nightmare
No. 1: The Karimatsenga/Tsvangirai saga
This case has no precedent, real or fictitious. It trounces them all. It could be a tale from Mars. It has befuddled even search engine Google. Key in “cancelled wedding”, and from page 1 to 11, it’s the Tsvangirai case.
ame Lorcadia, claiming maintenance to the tune of US$15 000 a month. A civil servant cannot earn that in three years, if we are pegging their monthly salaries at US$400. It was thrown out of court.
Then she was back challenging Tsvangirai’s eligibility to marry. And the ghosts of November last year were unleashed to haunt Tsvangirai.
It was thrown out, paving way for Elizabeth Macheka to waltz away with her man. But then comes Ms Nosipho Shilubane, a South African, to claim a man who had promised to marry her in December this year.
Throw a pastor into the fray who left the lovebirds a mansion to cuddle up, and even the most prolific Hollywood director has lost the plot now.
Ms Shilubane lost the case, but Lorcadia got it right at last, and off the wedding went up in smoke.
This case has resurrected the moribund customary marriage law, reincarnated it into a vicious bulldog.
Instead of concocting Avatars and space shuttles, James Cameron should hop onto the first flight to Zimbabwe for a story that could keep millions enthralled, at a minute fraction of the Avatar budget.
This macabre tale has no end in sight as intriguing court battles beckon, the pendulum swinging like a psychiatric from the Karimatsengas’ to the Tsvangirais’ camp, dizzying heights, soul-sapping depths, bone marrow-chilling breadths. It is a street theatre of the highly emotional and absurd, something whose repeat we may not be seeing very soon on this globe. Just unfathomable!
But novelist Sydney Sheldon puts this aptly, quoting Friedrich Dietrich in his novel, Windmills of the Gods: “We are all victims, Anselmo. Our destinies are decided by a cosmic roll of the dice, the winds of the stars, the vagrant breezes of fortune that blow from the windmills of the gods.”
Online Reporter