Hi °C | Lo °C The bride wore white but she was a widow before she left the town hall.
By special permission of the French President, Magali Jaskiewicz, a 26-year-old-mother of two from eastern France, has married her dead fiance.
Jonathan George (25), father of her two small daughters, was killed in a road accident almost a year ago, two days after the couple informed the town hall that they planned to become man and wife.
Last weekend, in the village of Dommary-Baroncourt in Lorraine, Magali married Jonathan and became his official widow. During the ceremony, a large portrait of Jonathan was placed beside her on a wooden stand.
"I am not really in the mood to have a wedding reception so we will just drink a cup of coffee and I will thank everyone who has supported me," Magali George said after the civil ceremony.
The bride, relatives and friends and the couple's daughters, Doriane (3), and Kassandra (18 months) then went to place flowers on the groom's grave.
Under article 171 of the French civil code, it is possible for someone to marry a dead fiance but only if there is clear evidence that they planned to marry before the loved one died.
Even then, special permission has to be granted by the President of the Republic. Nicolas Sarkozy duly obliged.
Posthumous marriages are uncommon but there are said to be around 20 such cases in France each year.
Source Irish Independent
