Robben Island’s annual mass Valentine’s Day wedding will not go ahead as planned in 2021 and has officially been cancelled. This comes after the Department of Home Affairs temporarily suspended the issuing of marriage certificates under Level 3 lockdown in South Africa.

“Following the recent announcement by the Minister of Home Affairs, Dr Aaron Motsoaledi, on the temporary suspension of applications for IDs, passports and marriage services due to the increasing numbers of Department of Home Affairs (DHA) staff testing positive for COVID-19, the annual historic Robben Island Valentine’s Day weddings are unfortunately cancelled for 2021,” reads a statement from the Museum.

“This year would have marked 21 years of celebrating love on the island. Last year, 19 couples tied the knot with a historic milestone of Mr Frankford Williams and Cindi Mullins, who are visually impaired, officially being the first couple in South African to receive their marriage certificate in braille.”

To date, 327 couples have tied the knot on Robben Island. The first marriage ceremony was held on December 31, 2000 as part of the Millennium Celebrations, and was moved to Valentine’s Day in 2001.

Both the museum and the DHA will continue to engage on the possibility of hosting the weddings at a later stage, should conditions allow with the easing of COVID-19 regulations.

Picture: Facebook / Robben Island Museum

As we bid 2020 goodbye and ring in 2021, with no end in sight yet to the Covid-19 pandemic that has forever changed our world, it’s worth taking a look at how Wrapistry has evolved to help couples – and their loved ones – celebrate their most important moments.

Wrapistry is a local online registry and gift store aimed at making happy couples (and their guests) even happier by creating the ultimate registry experience. They’ve already proven themselves market leaders in the wedding gift registry space and now they’ve evolved, just like the couples they help celebrate do, by creating baby registries to welcome new bundles of joy to the world.

“Weddings are just one part of a couple’s journey together. We want to be a part of every chapter. So, it makes sense for reimagining the baby registry to be our next adventure,” comments CEO, Jed Shein.

Brick-and-mortar shopping has quite rightly developed into the click-and-mortar variety: you order online and have it delivered to your home. Wrapistry uses design and technology combined with exceptional customer service to help couples – and their loved ones – browse through a curated selection of everything that new parents and the new arrival may need. Couples can choose from an amazing range of products. From stylish cots and sleek strollers to everyday essentials (think cutlery sets and vests), Wrapistry has created the ultimate baby registry. Plus, new, beautiful items are added to the online store each week.

Let’s face it, traditional gift registries don’t leave much room for creativity. With Wrapistry, though, couples can ask for what they actually want. They can register for gifts and cash funds – all in one place – so their loved ones have options. And when they really desire a big-ticket item (a baby stroller or bassinet, for example), simply turn on group gifting and give guests the opportunity to contribute what they can. No stress, no hassle and no fuss of keeping tallies of who gave what – Wrapistry does that all for you.

“Creating a gift registry should be one of the most fun experiences,” says co-founders Pat Berman and Linda Shein.

Family and friends may not always be able to celebrate a baby’s arrival in person during a pandemic, and that makes giving them the option of gifting something special that they know the couple chose themselves so much more special. For the couple, the Wrapistry team is on hand to help. The team has learnt much over the years: from the most popular gifts to the average amount people spend. Answer a few questions and they’ll recommend how many gifts to add to the registry, based on price point and category. This way not only will the new parents get a variety of items, but also accommodate different budgets.

Each Wrapistry registry includes:

– The option to play around with photos, background images and customise the welcome message.

– Notifications every time guests shop the registry.

– Free delivery. Plus, the option to choose when to have gifts delivered.

– Free exchanges before closing the registry.

– A 10% registry completion discount.

– Support for the couple and their guests.

Visit wrapistry.shop today to create the perfect registry for the new chapter you’re about to enter as parents.

Picture/s: supplied

A 300-person wedding in Washington State has been linked to dozens of coronavirus cases and the deaths of seven care home residents in the area, none of whom attended the wedding.

A reported seven care home residents, aged between 70 and 90, have died after staff members at the facility attended the November 7 wedding.

At the time the wedding was held, indoor ceremonies in Washington State were limited to 50 people.

In an announcement, the Grant County Health District explained that residents were staying at three care homes in Grant County, Washington, and all seven had underlying health conditions. There were also three other deaths not associated with the Long Term Care Facilities

In a story entirely fitting for 2020, a bride would not let her positive COVID-19 diagnosis stop her from getting married.

California couple Lauren (29) and Patrick Delgado (27) have been engaged since May 2019, and had already downscaled their big day due to the pandemic. They changed their venue and guest list three times, and took it in their stride as they were excited to marry. However, things took a turn for the worse when Lauren tested positive for COVID-19 only five days before their wedding.

“Everything that could go wrong did go wrong,” Lauren told NBC News. “”I was really saddened because everything we had planned was already getting cancelled.”

Since their marriage license was scheduled to expire the day after their wedding, the pair decided to go ahead with their big day while Lauren quarantined at her mother’s house.

Their November 21 wedding was so impromptu that Lauren didn’t even have enough time to pick up her wedding dress, and instead just wore a white dress straight from her closet.

Patrick stood outside the home as Lauren said her vows from her second floor bedroom window. Their 10 guests, who had all tested negative, wore face masks and stood socially distanced outside Lauren’s window or watched from their parked cars to enjoy the 45-minute ceremony.

In place of holding hands, the pair held each end of a flower-decorated ribbon as they exchanged their vows.

“It was the most 2020 wedding I have ever shot during Covid-19,” said Jessica Jackson, the wedding photographer.

Marriage has been a time-honoured tradition for centuries. While normally considered to be between two consenting adults, it seems marriage has a loose definition in today’s world.

It’s not only humans tying the knot with each other. Over the years, people have fallen in love with inanimate objects and decided to take the next step in their relationship by getting married. Here are a few of the unexpected things people have tied the knot with.

The Eiffel Tower

Erika La Tour Eiffel must have a thing for the tall, strong and silent type because she said ‘I do’ to the iconic Eiffel Tower. The bride is known as an “objectum sexual”, a person who falls in love with inanimate objects. Before the Eiffel Tower, she was in love with Lance, a bow that lead her to become a world champion in archery.

If you’d like to know more about Erika, there is a whole documentary called “The Woman Who Married the Eiffel Tower,” that tracks her life and her love story with this iconic landmark.

Amanda Large Teague from Ireland claimed to have tied the knot with the ghost of a 300-year-old Haitian pirate she met while meditating for the first time. She is convinced the pirate was that of Jack Teague, who some believe to be the pirate who inspired the character of Captain Jack Sparrow in the ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ franchise.

After months of communicating, the pair married aboard a boat on the Atlantic Ocean in 2016. Unfortunately, the pair did not last, and went their separate ways in 2018.

A smartphone

It seems this guy saw the movie “Her” one too many times. Back in 2016, Aaron Chervenak from Los Angeles travelled to The Little Vegas Chapel in Nevada to say ‘I do’ to his cellphone.

His marriage, while not legally recognised, was done to make a point about society’s growing obsession and reliance on smartphones.

A sex-doll

Kazakhstani Bodybuilder Yuri Tolochko recently married his sex-doll girlfriend Margo after proposing back in December 2019. The pair were meant to marry sooner, but were forced to postpone due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In an interview, Tolochko claimed to have paid for Margo to have plastic surgery, as she “began to develop a complex” after receiving criticism over her looks following their engagement announcement.

“She has changed a lot. At first it was hard to accept, but I got used to it later on. It was at a real clinic with real doctors,” he said. 

 

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A post shared by OddJack / Юрий Толочко (@yurii_tolochko)

A tree

Back in 2018, mother of two Kate Cunningham said ‘I do’ to an elder tree at Rimsose Valley Country Park in order to bring attention to how green spaces in the area were being destroyed.

The Daily Mail reports that she changed her last name by deed poll to ‘Elder’ after the species of the tree she married.

The marriage idea began as a way to prevent the local government from building a bypass road that would run through the Valley.

Despite Daft Punk’s famous lyric, it seems that many newlyweds aren’t ‘up all night to get lucky’.

A recent campaign by Compare.bet/en-au/ surveyed 980 couples across 44 countries with the highest populations to find out if they consummated their marriage on the night they tied the knot. They then created a map showing the top 10 countries most likely to consummate their marriage on their wedding night, and the bottom 10 countries who didn’t find the time to make it ‘official’.

The results are in:

The newlyweds most interested in getting jiggy straight after they tied the knot were from Finland, with a whopping 89% saying they consummated their marriage on their wedding night.

Following closely behind was Egypt, with 88% of couples saying they had sex on their first night being married, whilst 12% didn’t.

In third place was unsurprisingly the hot-blooded Brazilians, with 87% doing the deed on their first night as man and wife. South Africans ranked pretty high, with 82% consummating the marriage on wedding night.

Japan and Russia had the second and third lowest percentage of consummating couples. And it was bad news for the Australians, who came trailing in last place, with only 36% getting laid on their wedding night, compared to 64% of couples who didn’t mark the occasion.

Picture: Unsplash

It turns out not even a wedding day can stop this committed sportsman from playing for his team. Soon after tying the knot, Queensland Lions football player Luke Borean quickly traded in this tux for his goalkeeper gloves to win a 4-1 victory over Peninsula Power on the very same day.