A RUNAWAY BRIDE

Southland Times, Issue 17697, 8 July 1914, Page 5

A RUNAWAY BRIDE

DISAPPEARS AFTER CEREMONY. BRIDEGROOM LEFT LAMENTING. (Per United Press Association). WELLINGTON, July 7. An unusual denouncement Is said to have followed a wedding celebration in Wellington to-day. A young lady arrived in town from a distant part of the dominion a few days ago and stayed with her relatives at a hotel. The bridegroom and his friends were at another hostelry and it is related that the young lady had expressed her unwillingness to go to the altar with the gentleman, but the latter’s suit was favourably viewed by her parents and rather than disappoint them she decided to go on with the ceremony. At the church there was a fashionable attendance of friends and relatives of the couple, including some prominent personages, one of whom gave the bride away. All apparently was going well; but a little later, after the bride had driven in a motor car to the groom's hotel, consternation was caused by the discovery that the lady was missing. A search was made, hut, like Genevieve of old, the bride seemed to have vanished completely. Subsequently it was said that a motor car had been seen dashing away from the hotel with the bride and someone believed to be a male relative in it. The supposition is that the lady, though unable to muster up enough courage to declare the wedding "off” before the event, had sought her relative’s aid to escape afterwards, leaving the groom lamenting and Wie wedding guests dumbfounded. The movements of the runaway car are wrapped in mystery.