A BRIDEGROOM was horrified to learn after he had walked down the aisle that he was already married - after a drunken holiday romance he could barely remember.
The husband has had to confess in the Family Court that he spent 28 days partying and drinking in Arizona in 1978 on leave from his job as a cook on the oil rigs.
He can remember the "nice" blonde American woman he met through a penpal newspaper advertisement - but little more.
"He has no recollection of going through any form of ceremony of marriage with her, or of discussing marriage, or of anything referable to marriage," said Justice Sally Brown, who annulled the marriage last month.
Not only that, but the man, who describes himself as an old-fashioned romantic, was already married at the time - to his wife of 14 years.
Yesterday the 67-year-old, who cannot be identified, told The Daily Telegraph "the sky fell in" when he was shown the Arizona marriage licence.
"I looked at the signature and thought it could have been mine or it could not have been," he said.
The man had since divorced his 1966 wife. It was when he married his Hawaiian girlfriend in 2006 and applied to live in Hawaii with her that US immigration authorities broke the bad news.
He said his latest wife, who has become his girlfriend again because their marriage was declared invalid, was very understanding.
"We have been with each other on and off for over 20 years in Australia," he said.
"She's a terrific, a top cook. She looks after me and I take care of her. I couldn't find anything better.
"I'm an old-fashioned guy. I'm loving and I believe that for a marriage to work, it has to be a two-way street. She does the washing, I hang it out on the line."
The Family Court was told he had tried to track down his 1978 wife but could only find out that she had subsequently married again in 1993 in Arizona, which would have been bigamous if she had not already divorced her Australian husband.
"Other than that, no one knows where she is," the man said.
He said, now he was officially single, he planned to marry his Hawaiian girlfriend properly.
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