This story below is a case
of a patient, loving and obsessively blind lady who doesn’t mind waiting till
eternity for her man to make up his mind to marry her.This 37yr old beautiful
lady has been jilted 4 times by her 67 year old fiancee and she hasn't given up
as she hopes this time, the wedding would take place..
This is an interesting read below………
The preparations for a
perfect summer wedding had begun. One of London’s most opulent venues had been
booked and the bridal gown - a strapless, ballerina-length silk confection from
Elizabeth Emanuel - stood ready on its mannequin.
A stack of embossed
invitations had been printed and 90 guests had marked the date in their diaries
The wedding of model Susan
Sangster to actor Frank Mughan promised to be a magnificent occasion. The
reception was to be at the Hurlingham Club, a grand neo-classical mansion
beside the Thames at Fulham.
As the big day in August
2008 grew closer, Susan’s excitement increased: she’d waited until she was 37
to marry and was certain Frank - cultured, charming and 24 years her senior -
would be a loving and dependable husband as well as a devoted dad to her son
Luke, then six, from an earlier relationship
But she’s never had a chance
to find out because just as she was poised to address the invitations, Frank
decided he did not want to get married after all - at least not yet. It was all
too much, too soon, he said.
He suggested the wedding be
downgraded to an engagement party. That way the glorious venue - for which they
had paid £5,000 - would not be wasted.
Susan was understandably
bereft. She and Frank had known each other for almost a year; the decision to
tie the knot had not been a hasty one.
But she hid her
disappointment, went along with his plan and steeled herself for the task of
explaining to her family that the nuptials had been deferred.
‘I was acutely embarrassed and in
floods of tears when I told my mum,’ recalls Susan. ‘But she said: “An
engagement is a step forward, so don’t worry.” And Frank had apologised and
reassured me that he loved me.I accepted it was a huge step for him. He was 61
and a bachelor who lived with his mother. This was his first marriage and he’d
also be taking on the role of father to my son. So I was prepared to be
patient. And, as he pointed out, we should do things in the right order,
holding an engagement party first.’
Most women, she concedes,
would be less forgiving. But Frank, she believed, was worth waiting for.
Perversely, she still saw him as solid and dependable, and accepted his
argument that they needed more time to organise the wedding.
I noticed him as he walked in,’ she says,
‘He’s 6ft 4in, well-built and very fit and muscular. When he spoke to me I was
struck by his warm and cultured voice‘I was fascinated by him. He’s an
excellent listener, amusing and emotionally supportive,’ says Susan, who was
still smarting from the break-up of her relationship with Luke’s father, an eye
surgeon. ‘The fact he’d been in movies did entice me. I thought he was a bit of
a catch.’
Frank wasted no time in
suggesting they meet again. The relationship flourished and, although initially
disquieted by the age gap, Susan conceded that Frank looked much younger than his
years.
He met her family, then
whisked her off for a romantic weekend in Paris. An impartial observer could
not have failed to believe he was madly in love with her. From the off, there
was a tacit agreement that marriage would follow. Indeed, he bought her a
diamond engagement ring, and talk turned to weddings.
‘It was an easy conversation - we both
mentioned marrying at various times. In the end we said: “Let’s just do it!” ’
remembers Susan.
She began organising their
wedding. ‘I saw an outfit for Luke. I bought my dress. Then his sister, Sharon,
who’s a member of the Hurlingham Club, helped us get the room there. I thought,
“Wow!” It was the perfect wedding venue.’
But just before the big
event was finalised, Frank began to back-pedal. Hasty adjustments were made and
a lavish engagement party replaced the wedding.
Susan was devastated, but it
was not long before her thoughts turned again to tying the knot. She and Frank
began scouting locations.
‘We were aiming for a
wedding in the summer of 2009, and went to Chiswick House, a beautiful
Palladian mansion that is set in glorious grounds,’ she recalls.
‘Frank was concerned about the expense. He
suggested the two of us just fly to Las Vegas and marry in a little chapel
there. But I was adamant: I wanted all my family to see me married.’
In the end, nature devised
its own impediment to her plans: Susan discovered she was pregnant. She and
Frank were overjoyed and Jake was born in June 2009.
But Frank seemingly seized
the excuse of a new baby to halt the nuptials again. Meanwhile, he divided his
time between Susan’s flat in Chiswick and the home he shared with his mother
Norah, now 90, less than a mile away.
While many women would have
viewed Frank’s absence at his mother’s as evidence of his reluctance to be a
bridegroom, Susan, it seems, was wilfully blind.
She forged ahead with new
wedding plans - this time at her local church, Our Lady of Grace and St Edward
in Chiswick; as Luke was an altar boy there, she decided it was an ideal place
to make her vows.
‘We went to meet the priest,
Father Dwyer, to discuss dates,’ Susan recalls. ‘In all we met him three times.
But Frank found a reason why every date he put forward was unsuitable.
‘First he wanted it to coincide with my
birthday, then his. Finally, he said his mum was ill.
‘I said, quite reasonably I thought: “How
do you know she’ll be ill on that date?” and he said it was because her health
was generally poor.But she’d seemed quite hale and hearty at our engagement
party. ‘I began to think there was absolutely no substance to his excuses.’
A more cynical person would
doubtless have come to that conclusion sooner, but Susan insists Frank was, in
every other way, an emotionally supportive and loving partner. He just seemed
to have antipathy toward weddings.
Once again, she felt, ‘humiliated
and embarrassed’ by his dithering. In the end, the date that had been
earmarked for their wedding became Jake’s christening.
‘It
was a farce, really,’ says Susan. ‘I’d said to my family: “We’re looking at
this date.” Then it was changed to another date, then another. Then it wasn’t a
wedding at all but a christening.
‘I was mortified by his constant
shilly-shallying. He’d even emailed the priest directly with his excuses. Still
- gullible as it now seems - I was prepared to keep indulging him.’
His excuses had started to wear me down,’
Susan admits. ‘My friends all told me I could do better.
After all, Frank didn’t even have a home of
his own. They urged me to get rid of him, although my mother, who knows he is
devoted to the children, has always been kindly disposed towards him and
persuaded me to give him another chance.’
Hope triumphed over reason
again, and within eight months the wedding plans were revived for a third time.
Neither Susan nor Frank was
flush with cash. Indeed, Susan had sold her Elizabeth Emanuel wedding dress
because they were short of money and a low-budget affair seemed to fit the
bill.‘Frank suggested we get married at a little church in Notting Hill - St
Francis of Assisi - where his father is buried,’ says Susan. ‘He said: “Let’s
just make it a small affair - our families and a handful of friends - and do it
around your birthday.” ’
She duly bought a wedding
dress in a charity shop for £80 - a corseted cream number - and prepared for a
pared-down, but intimate, event.
‘I
even wrote to retail companies offering to work for for a couple of weeks in return for something
- a bridesmaid’s dress, shoes, jewellery - for the wedding,’ she says.
But once again, unsurprisingly, Frank let her
down.
On the day of their final appointment with
the priest, he cancelled.
He
said his mother was unwell, and I accept she was,’ says Susan. ‘But she was
elderly. She was often unwell.’
This time, Susan’s patience
had worn thin. In February this year she relocated to Bedford near her mother
and siblings, and refused to sleep with Frank until he made a commitment.
He was angry, although my
friends all congratulated me on seeing sense at last,’ she says.
But this April, she softened
again, and gave him one final chance in circumstances that would be comical if
they weren’t so pitiful.
She suggested he write to
Don’t Tell The Bride, the BBC show in which the groom organises every detail of
a surprise wedding in exchange for £12,000. It seemed an unorthodox but perfect
solution to their troubles: Susan would get the wedding she wanted and the TV
company would foot the bill. She even succeeded in persuading Frank to write to
the BBC, putting forward a cogent case.
All that remained was to
film an amateur video for the show in which the happy couple would speak about
their hopes and aspirations for the big day. A date was duly arranged for Frank
to go to Susan’s home in Bedford and make the film.
Susan dressed with care, put
on make-up and set up her camera. Then she waited. And waited.
But Frank did not show up
‘Against my better judgment
I agreed to write to Don’t Tell The Bride and I wasn’t unwilling to make the
video,’ he protests. ‘But I just said to Susan: “Can’t we do it later?” ’
His response seems to sum it
all up: endless procrastination.
He goes on: ‘I’ve said to her a dozen
times: “Why don’t we fly to Las Vegas and get married quietly there?” But she
wants a big, white catwalk wedding, and I’m not a wealthy man. I teach drama. I
can’t afford it.
Does he, nonetheless,
concede that he has let her down lamentably? ‘I may have wriggled out of
getting married on a couple of occasions,’ he admits.
So we are left with an
implacable would-be bride who says she won’t sleep with Frank until he commits,
and a recalcitrant groom who protests, even now, that he adores her.
Will Susan ever get eternal
bachelor Frank, 67 this month, down the aisle?
‘I’ve never said I won’t
marry her,’ he protests. But that hardly seems an unequivocal declaration of
his commitment to do so, does it?
Unbelievably, it would seem
Susan may give him a fifth chance. ‘I know I’m naïve, but I believe I’ll get
him to church one day,’ she insists.
We’ll just have to hope the
delay will not prove interminable. Otherwise, having had four non-weddings,
Susan might just get the funeral.
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