MORE than 50 guests attended the wedding reception for a Teignmouth couple in 1978.
Toasts were proclaimed and everybody tucked into the food, drank the wine and danced.
There was only one snag – the happy couple had not actually married because of a mix up with the Register Office.
But rather than disappoint the relatives and friends, they decided to go ahead with the reception regardless.
Two days later they tried again at Newton Abbot Register Office – and this time they were successfully wed.
Raymond Dart, 28, a plasterer and Carol Proctor could not arrange the wedding until her divorce was was made absolute.
They arrange for a special licence, but when Raymond went to to Newton Abbot to sign the forms, he found the office closed in the afternoon.
By Friday it was too late to go ahead with the marriage on Saturday morning and the couple had to decide whether to call off the reception at the Clifton Cellars restaurant on Teignmouth seafront.
‘We decided to go ahead because many of Carol’s relatives were travelling from Birmingham for the weekend,’ Raymond explained.
‘Although we had not been married we enjoyed the reception and everybody had a good time with a fist class spread laid on.’
When Carol first heard about the mix-up she admitted she had hysterics.
‘I was so upset because everything had been arranged and even my grandmother – in her 70s – whom I have not seen for some years, was coming down from Birmingham.
‘It all worked out quite well in the end, but I am relieved that we are definitely married at last,’ she said after the ceremony.
Now they really do have something to smile about.