A fairytale wedding in Disneyland Paris was called off by the staff when they realized the groom was a 22-year-old trying to marry a 9-year-old.
For many, the idea of a Disneyland wedding is a dream. Many adults, still obsessed with children’s films, would jump at the idea. But, although these people may have the mental age of a child, they are typically over the age of consent.
Hiring Disneyland for a wedding is no small event. The whole thing had been organised beforehand. There was to be a wedding staged in front of the Sleeping Beauty castle. The groom would marry his bride before the gates opened, with a few guests.
However, Disneyland staff quickly noticed that the woman the unnamed Brit was planning to marry was only a 9-year-old girl. They called local police and reported the bizarre act of the 22-year-old man.
Child Bride Was In On The Act
Police moved in and arrested four people, including the mother of the bride and the groom. There were also 100 guests in attendance, who had been shipped in on a coach. But, after the initial investigation, it turned out that the man never intended to marry the 9-year-old girl at Disneyland.
The whole thing had been an elaborate setup for a social media video. “The event turned out to have been staged, the guests themselves were all actors,” the deputy local prosecutor told Agence France-Presse. “So it wasn’t a wedding but the staging of a wedding, which was filmed with around 100 extras. They had privately hired Disneyland Paris, claiming it was a real wedding.”
However, it appears very few people were actually in on the stunt. Disneyland staff and the extras believed that the 9-year-old was about to be married to the 22-year-old man. “I saw the panic of the Disney people, then, through the window, I saw a small child with a wedding dress on. A woman was carrying her in her arms, and that’s when I understood that the child was really young,” one extra told La Parisien.
Two of the people involved in the sham Disneyland Paris debacle are still being held for questioning. There appears to be an issue with fraud and money laundering. However, the girl involved in the Disneyland marriage is unharmed and shows no signs of violence or constraint.