They say there’s nothing more stressful than planning a wedding and I’m willing to bet it becomes even more of a nightmare when you’re getting married abroad.
So imagine how one woman felt when she spent £4,000 booking her dream wedding only to find out it had been cancelled because a bawdy couple took an explicit photo as a joke.
33-year-old Suzanne Sparkles was planning on marrying her fiance, Steve Arnold, at the at St Paul’s chapel in Rhodes next May.
Unfortunately though for Ms Sparkles, Matthew and Carly Lunn accidentally ruined their wedding plans by taking a picture of themselves seemingly performing a sex act at the sacred Greek monastery.
The picture quickly went viral but the island’s bishop, Kyrillos of Rhodes, didn’t see the funny side and took the decision to ban all foreign marriages on the island, putting Suzanne’s wedding in jeopardy.
Suzanne told the Mail Online:
I’m absolutely devastated that these idiots have spoilt my dream wedding. We have 52 guests coming from the UK for it and have booked to stay for a week.
We have spent around £40,000 on this wedding. It was booked two years ago, when we got engaged two-and-a-half years ago.
We were originally thinking of getting married in Cyprus but then when I saw the chapel I knew I wanted it there. I’ve been to Rhodes a few times so I know how nice it is there.
There’s still some hope though, the mayor of Rhodes is currently deliberating whether to overturn the ban and he’ll make his decision in the coming weeks.
Suzanne has even pleaded with the mayor asking him not to tar all Brits with the same brush adding, she can’t believe what the couple did and she hopes he can see ‘we are not all like that.’
Matthew and Carly claim they took the picture to demonstrate their ‘unique sense of humour’ and say they’re sorry but add the Greeks have blown everything out of proportion, with Matthew telling The Sun:
It’s been blown out of proportion. We were just pretending and having a laugh. The Greeks have completely over-reacted.
We don’t think we did anything wrong but we regret it and wish we hadn’t bothered – the ban’s madness. This has caused us all sorts of hassle.
Carly claim they had always planned on taking the photo adding they had no idea the photo would go viral.
Giorgos Eleftheriou, president of the Lindos community on the island, condemned the couple in an interview with The Times, saying:
We are Greek and we cherish our traditions and the sanctity of our religious sites. We cannot allow this disgusting behaviour to prevail.
I have hundreds of soon-to-be brides from Britain and all over the world calling me today in tears because of this decision.
Shame on those two for the damage they have done. Would they have done the same in their homeland; in front of a British chapel, a Jewish temple, a Muslim mosque? They would have been beheaded by Muslims!
Let’s hope the mayor of Rhodes is in a forgiving mood!
More of a concept than a journalist, Tom Percival was forged in the bowels of Salford University from which he emerged grasping a Masters in journalism.
Since then his rise has been described by himself as ‘meteoric’ rising to the esteemed rank of Social Editor at UNILAD as well as working at the BBC, Manchester Evening News, and ITV.
He credits his success to three core techniques, name repetition, personality mirroring, and never breaking off a handshake.