WEDDING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 30 July 1943, Page 2

WEDDING

COOPER—PARSONS. (Specially written for the Times-Age by Sergeant Leodel Coleman, U.S.M.C., Statesboro, Georgia, U.S. Marine Corps Combat Correspondent.) “With this ring I thee wed . . . .” caught in the throat of Gunnery Sergeant James W. Cooper, U.S.M.C., of 1418 Jersey Avenue, Bronx, New York, U.S.A., as he nervously slipped the wedding band on the proper finger of Mrs Miriam Parsons, of London, England, and Masterton, _ New Zealand, when they were married at St. Matthew’s Church, Masterton, last Saturday. As the wedding music filled the church, the bride, together with Major Andre D. Gomez, U.S.M.C., who in the absence of the bride’s father gave her in marriage, moved down the centre .aisle to the altar, where they were met by the groom and his best man, Mr Joe Payton, of Masterton, and Mrs Iris Wolstenholme, the bride’s sister-in-law, the matron of honour. The marriage vows were read before an altar simply decorated with jonquils and narcissi. Archdeacon E. J. Rich officiated at the ceremony.

Only a few friends of the young couple and relatives of the bride were present at the marriage. After the wedding ceremony Mr and Mrs Joe Payton entertained the guests at a reception at their home. The bride before her marriage to Gunnery Sergeant Cooper, had been married, in London, to a member of the Royal Air Force, who was killed m action. Before leaving England to come to New Zealand, she receive from his Majesty the King the Distinguished Flying Cross awarded to her late husband.