A TRIPLE WEDDING.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 3855, 9 October 1928, Page 1

A TRIPLE WEDDING.

TRIPLETS BECOME WIVES. Boom, a little town near Antwerp, celebrated in worthy manner a few weeks ago an event the like of. which is extremely rare. Triplet sisters —Josephine, Phil'pmene, and Maria Baeymans —who lmd just reached their majority, were married, and no princess’s wedding was ever surrounded with more ceremony and gaiety. The triplets are daughters of working class people, and have nine brothers and'sisters living. Six others have died. On a recent morning they walked over roads on which silver sand had been sprinkled to the Town Hall. Through the gaily-decorated streets they were accompanied by their grooms and members of the four families—the husbands are not related. A picturesque procession of children followed the wedding party through row's of cheering spectators. The civil marriage ceremony over, the Mayor of Boom, in a happy little speech, presented the -town’s congratulations and marriage gifts. Then appeared more triplets, the unmarried daughters of a docker of Eecheren, who had come to offer flowers to the wedded trio.

Mines. Magnus, Van Linden, and Troch, whom Josephine, Philomene, and Maria had now become, then led their husbands away to the decorated and overcrowded church, where the nuptial blessing was given in the course of a solemn mass. At 2 o’clock there was a wedding breakfast, during which the couples were the recipients of all sorts of presents. Afterwards the public joined in the rejoicing, and, special permission having been granted by the authorities, there was music and dancing for the rest of the clay and all the night. ■So much alike are the triplets that during their courting days each had been mistaken for one of her sisters.