March 20, 1969
John Lennon & Yoko Ono

Ono & Lennon

It seems like the marriage bug bit John Lennon and Yoko Ono, because two days after fellow-Beatle Paul’s and new-wife Linda’s wedding ceremony, they decided they wanted to walk down the aisle too! It would have been Lennon’s second marriage, and Ono’s third.

On his way to visit his Aunt Mimi, Lennon asked his chauffeur Les Anthony to drive them to Southampton to ask if he and Yoko could get married at sea. After finding out it wasn’t possible to do this, he tried to arrange a small ceremony in Paris, France. Unluckily for them, this wasn’t possible either because it was too such of short notice.

Peter Brown suggested they marry in Gibraltar since it was a British protectorate and Lennon was a British citizen, and they married there on March 20, 1969. The wedding was only ten minutes long, and took place within the British Consulate.

After that, they rushed off to Amsterdam, where they could only do what they did best: promote peace. While the press was expecting to see some action in the Presidential Suite at the Hilton Hotel, what they found instead was the couple in bed and in their pajamas. It was there that they held their famous “Bed-In” and continued to have more in different cities, as well as several talks and interviews promoting peace.

All these events even inspired the famous song “The Ballad of John and Yoko”!