Fabiola is a true “wedding lover”, and that’s why she made it her job. But this passion follows her into her daily life, and her husband had no choice but to go along with it: she has already married him three times, and intends to continue.
“I would like to get married as many times as possible, 25 times, 35 times… But my husband doesn’t agree, so I try to be more reasonable.” On the one hand, there are those who impatiently dream of their wedding, of this princess dress that they will only wear once, the happiest day of their life. And on the other, there is Fabiola. At 36, she has already been married three times (to the same man!) and is already planning the fourth ceremony.
The first two times were in 2014: first the civil marriage, then the religious marriage a few months later. Two ceremonies to organize, with guests, service providers… and the dose of stress that goes with it. Then, to celebrate their tenth wedding anniversary, Fabiola and her husband decided to renew their vows for the first time. “I wanted something much simpler. It was really for us, not for others. It became the happiest day of my life“, the young woman tells us. For this wedding, the couple decided to celebrate their love only as a couple, without guests, without caterers, without pressure, and far from home, in Croatia. “My husband did it to please me, but afterwards, he said to me, ‘You were right, it was one of the most beautiful moments I’ve ever experienced’. And so, we’re doing it again for our 15th anniversary, and this time, with everyone.”
Four marriages may seem like a lot, but not for Fabiola. Since her husband “will never accept” to marry him 25 times, she decided to settle for… eight. “Elizabeth Taylor was married eight times, I told myself that I had to at least match her! My goal is to keep the same man, even if I often threaten him by saying ‘With or without you, I will marry eight times’. But it’s already a lot of work to organize a marriage, so if I can take the burden of having to find the husband off my shoulders…”jokes the wedding planner. Although she is “obsessed with marriage” to the point of having made it her profession, Fabiola explains to us that this approach goes well beyond her love for white dresses.
It is above all a way of “tell yourself that the feelings are still there, continue to solidify them” on a positive note: “We’ve had ups and downs, and life has hit us hard. It’s often said that couples bond through hardship, but we wanted to take the opposite approach to that.” So, saying “Yes!” again and again is above all the opportunity to “don’t forget why (they) chose each other” and to continue to choose oneself despite the passage of time. “I choose him again, even if he upsets me. He chooses me again despite faults that were not there at the beginning. I don’t know if I would love this man all my life, but we make the choice to come together as much as possible, to start fresh, like a new lease of life each time.”
For Fabiola and her husband, these successive marriages are also a mirror of their love life, a form of “balance sheet” of the couple they have become over time, which brings a new level of promise. It is no longer just a matter of swearing love and fidelity, but of readjusting their expectations to everyday reality: “I married him for the first time at 24, but I never wore my wedding ring because I didn’t love him anymore. So my husband gave me another one for our vow renewal, where he had the inscription ‘A laugh a day’ engraved. He said to me, ‘I’ll give it to you, but in return, you have to make me laugh at least once a day.’ And we didn’t have the maturity of the thing at the time.” In short, their marriages reflect each time a little more the evolution of their relationship, and “It’s an incredible thing.” that Fabiola “wish everyone”.
