Tired Of Single Life, Woman Marries Self

Wonders, they say, shall never cease. That is exactly the best way to describe the action of Grace Gelder, an British woman who got so fed up with her single life that she decided to take the bulls by the horns get married: to herself. Grace has thereby set the record of being the first woman in Britain history to marry herself.

In a solemn wedding ceremony which had 50 guests, Grace took the marital vows and committed to herself, ‘the most important person in her life’. She had earlier 'proposed' to herself last November on a park bench, and followed it up with the wedding which is now being considered for a place in the Guinness Book of Records.

Grace Gelder decide to take that action because, according to her, she was fed up being a single woman after six years of building a brilliant relationship with herself, reasoning that creating such a special bond with someone else would be too much work for her.

The newly ‘wedded’ Grace says she was inspired by the Björk song 'Isobel', which includes the line, 'My name's Isobel, married to myself', stating that the lyric of the song struck a chord with her and it was then she decided to walk solo down the aisle.

So to achieve her dream wedding, Grace bought a dress, a ring, rehearsed vows and eventually wed in a farmhouse in rural Devon watched by her sister and friends; she sealed the marriage by giving herself a big kiss on a mirror.

After the wedding, Grace spoke to the UK Guardian:

A few did comment, in a light-hearted way, that it was a bit narcissistic. Obviously, if you have just announced you’re marrying yourself, it is plainly a statement of self-love, and I was under no illusion how self-indulgent that might appear.

But I was completely comfortable with my motivations. I’d been on a journey of personal development using meditation, dance and performance to increase my self-awareness'

Included in this was a Shakti Tantra programme focused on sexuality and how this was bound up with making agreements with yourself and other people.

Sitting on that park bench, it dawned on me that a self-marriage ceremony witnessed by other people would potentially be this massively powerful means of making those agreements stick.

Although the wedding holds no legal ground, Grace is glad she is no longer a 'single' lady.

She added:

It felt like a really big deal saying my vows, which were mostly about me promising to take more risks in matters of the heart.

I really don’t see it as any kind of feminist statement, but creating a wedding of this kind on my own terms felt incredibly empowering.