Couple who said ‘I do’ find out by chance they didn’t

A Dublin couple who spent thousands on a dream wedding in a romantic village in northern Italy discovered two years later that they were not married at all, a court has heard.

Secretary Eimear Byrne told a judge in the Circuit Civil Court of her horror when she realised if “God forbid” anything had happened to either of them, they would not have been considered next of kin.

Judge Jacqueline Linnane, awarding Eimear and her husband Glenn Richardson €36,000 damages, said the couple were very fortunate to discover by chance that they were not married.