34 Curious Wedding Statistics & Facts Everyone Should Know

JRR Tolkien initially fell in love with his future wife at 16 years old. His guardian, a catholic priest ordered him to not have any contact until he was 21. He obeyed. He met her under a railroad viaduct and she broke up her engagement, converted to Catholicism, and married Tolkien.

27. King Harald of Norway vowed to remain unmarried for life unless he could marry his true love, the daughter of a cloth merchant. She became the Queen of Norway and they are still married (as of June 2020).

28. In 1904 a Swedish sailor named Carl Emil Pettersson was shipwrecked on an island in Papua New Guinea that was inhabited by cannibals. The king’s daughter fell in love with him. They married and he eventually became the king of the island.

29. Musician Jerry Lee Lewis courted so much controversy by marrying his 13-year-old cousin at the age of 22 that he went from playing $10,000 concert halls to $250 dollar a night dive bars.

30. At 52, Rolling Stones bassist Bill Wyman married 18-year-old Mandy Smith but divorced after a year. Bill's 30-year-old son then Stephen married Mandy's mother, age 46. If Bill and Mandy had remained married, Stephen would have been his father's father-in-law and his own grandpa.

In 18th century Europe, the public consummation of a Royal wedding wasn't uncommon. On the wedding night of the royal couple, select guests escorted them to the bedding ceremony and watched the couple get into bed together.

32. Jerry Seinfeld met his wife while she was engaged to another man. She married the other guy in June 1998, went on a three-week honeymoon, came back and moved in with Seinfeld, divorced her husband by October, and was engaged to Seinfeld before the year was out in November 1998.

33. When Pocahontas married John Rolfe, the uproar in the British court had nothing to do with race. It was because a princess had married a commoner.

34. Charlie Chaplin was into young girls. He fired an underaged girl from his movie after she refused to abort his child and narrowly escaped a sex scandal by marrying her in secret.