KING ZOG’S WEDDING.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 58, Issue 190, 25 May 1938, Page 3

KING ZOG’S WEDDING.

ALBANIAN PAGEANT OF MIDDLE AGES. Tt was in a ceremony lasting six minutes and a half—three and a half of which were occupied in signing the register—that King Zog of Albania married Countess Geraldine Apponyi of Hungary, at Tirana. As no room in the palace was large enough, the ceremony took place in a. temporary annexe built specially for the occasion. This was a long room, with a pillared balcony at one end Sunshine streamed in, lighting up the walls hung with Oriental weapons and ancient Albanian cloaks. There was a profusion of carpets on the floor and the general setting was reminiscent of a film studio. The illusion was heightened by a battery of cameras within a few feet of the royal couple, rows of glaring, naked electric lights, and the exotic dresses and uniforms of those present.

These provided (the correspondent of the “Daily Telegraph and Tost” says) a breath-taking spectacle, particularly in the case of the large Hungarian contingent, who seemed to have stepped straight out of the Middle Ages. The men wore an astonishing garb—wonderful bottle-green dolmans, fur-trimmed high boots, curved scimitars in velvet scabbards, and Hussarlike cloaks of red, blue or green.

The witnesses at the ceremony were Count Ciano and Prince Abid, son of Abdul of Turkey, for King Zog, and Count Charles Apponyi and M. Villani, the Hungarian Minister, for the bride. They now dipped their pens in a large silver inkstand, which unexpectedly bore the inscription, “To Ahmed Zog, President of the Albanian Republic.” It was the gift of an Italian insurance company in the days before Zog mounted the throne. The witnesses signed the register, Count Ciano first. Smilingly the bride and bridegroom watched tho signing, then shook hands with the witnesses. Thus, this briefest and simplest of ceremonies ended.

The couple then walked out amid the bowing throng. There were practicallv no curtseys.