Wedding shock for husband-to-be

A BORDEAUX couple's wedding plans could be torn up because the husband-to-be has discovered he is already married - to a man.

Seydou Kouyaté had asked the Foreign Affairs Ministry for his birth certificate so that he could complete the formalities before the big day on June 23 but when it came back it stated that he got married in Yvelines in 2009.

He told Sud Ouest that at first it was a bit of a joke - but now after more than a month of trying to get it straightened out he is despairing that they will have to postpone their wedding.

Fiancée Sandra Rouzeau said she called the mairie in the Yvelines town and found out that the marriage had been between the similarly-named Miss Souadou Kouyaté, from the Republic of Guinea and Mr Facely Mara.

She also tracked down the civil servant who signed the birth certificate with the error and was told that it would be corrected urgently. "That was in March" she said.

However, after being assured it would be fixed quickly they had gone on with planning the wedding and had booked the reception hall, ordered the dress and their families had booked flights.

The couple last week asked Bordeaux mayor Alain Juppé, the Foreign Affairs Minister, to can step in to end the bureaucratic nightmare as they are running out of time to lodge their banns at the city's mairie. It has to be done one month before the wedding date.

Seydou's bid to get his birth certificate changed is now in front of the court in Nantes which deals with such matters, but he has been told that the procureur would not be approving the modification before the end of May.
Photo: lichtmeister - Fotolia.com