John Lennon and Yoko Ono were married 55 years ago, on March 20, 1969. The couple were wed in Gibraltar, at the British Consulate Office. The 10-minute ceremony was performed by registrar Cecil Wheeler.
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For several days leading up to the wedding, Lennon and Ono had unsuccessfully tried to arrange their nuptials in a number of other locations. About a week earlier, on March 12, Lennon’s Beatles bandmate Paul McCartney and Linda Eastman got married in London, and John and Yoko then decided they also wanted to tie the knot.
[RELATED: This Beatles Song Forced Chuck Berry’s Publisher to Sue John Lennon]
Lennon and Ono’s Other Attempts to Get Married
Lennon had asked his chauffeur to travel to Southampton, U.K., to find out if it was possible for him and Ono to get married at sea on a ferry to France.
As Lennon explained in a 1980 interview featured in the Beatles Anthology book, “We wanted to get married on a cross-channel ferry. That was the romantic part: when we went to Southampton and then we couldn’t get on because [Yoko] wasn’t English and she couldn’t get the day visa to go across. And they said, ‘Anyway, you can’t get married. The Captain’s not allowed to do it any more.’”
The couple then decided to try and wed in Paris, and chartered a plane flight to the French capital. When they arrived in Paris, Apple employee Peter Brown informed Lennon and Ono they couldn’t get married there either because they hadn’t lived in France for a long enough time.
Brown then advised the couple that they could wed in Gibraltar, because it was a British colony. Lennon and Ono flew to Gibraltar for the ceremony and flew right back to Paris the same day.
The Couple’s Post-Wedding Activities
Five days after the wedding, the couple drove to Amsterdam. There, as part of their honeymoon, they staged a week-long “Bed-in for Peace” protest at the Amsterdam Hilton hotel. Then, on March 31, Lennon and Ono flew to Vienna, where they held a press conference while they were inside a white bag.
Lennon’s Wedding and Honeymoon Inspired Him to Write Beatles Hit
The Lennon-penned Beatles song “The Ballad of John and Yoko” recounts the events of the couple’s wedding and their ensuing honeymoon activities. Lennon recorded the song with McCartney on April 14 and it was released as a single on May 30, 1969.
“The Ballad of John and Yoko” became a No. 1 hit in the U.K., and reached No. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100.
“It was very romantic. It’s all in the song, ‘The Ballad of John and Yoko,’” Lennon said in a 1970 interview with Rolling Stone. “If you want to know how it happened, it’s in there. Gibraltar was like a little sunny dream. I couldn’t find a white suit—I had off-white corduroy trousers and a white jacket. Yoko had all white on.”
Gibraltar Issued a Stamp in 1999 in Honor of the Wedding
In 1999, Gibraltar issued a postage stamp sheet to commemorate the 30th anniversary of Lennon and Ono’s wedding. The stamps feature photos of the famous couple taken while they visited Gibraltar for their nuptials.
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