Alice and Mike aren’t psychic, but chose to take out wedding insurance abroad because they were simply being practically minded. Some might consider them lucky, and certainly having wedding insurance abroad was good news. But neither Alice nor Mike would go as far as to suggest that they were lucky…

Paphos Harbour, birthplace of the goddess Aphrodite; the gulls called lazily to one another across the endlessly rolling azure waves lapping against the cotton white brightness of the private yacht on which their wedding was to take place.

The Best Man saw the azure waves better than most. In fact he saw them really close up – from the inside. He fell overboard, which in itself might have been considered slightly amusing. At least, it could have seemed amusing had he not been holding the wedding rings at the time.

The wedding rings are still to this day lying somewhere at the bottom of Paphos Harbour. The more romantically minded souls might consider them a gift to Aphrodite herself. However, neither the Bride nor the Groom were especially inclined to consider the loss of their rings as being any kind of gift.

Although their rings had been purchased using their credit card, the insurance normally associated with credit card purchases didn’t cover them for loss of their rings abroad. Fortunately, their wedding insurance abroad policy did cover them for such eventualities. Perhaps the insurance companies anticipate a few dippings each year.

References to the Best Man being a little wet behind the ears or drinking like a fish were of course the order of the day, although whether he remained a friend of the couple afterwards isn’t known.

But it does demonstrate clearly that you can plan the most perfect wedding imaginable thousands of miles away perfectly easily, and yet still see the whole thing can be nearly ruined thanks to a single shoelace. If you’re planning to get married overseas, make sure you either take out wedding insurance abroad, or Velcro the Best man to the deck.