My Big Fat Moonie Wedding
C4 Weds 5 December at 10pm
More4 Mon 14 January 2008 at 9pm
Anna and Forrest's wedding
On 1 July 1982 in New York’s Madison Square Garden, more than 4,000 people from all over the world took part in a mass wedding to partners picked by Reverend Moon. This bizarre scene, in which all the couples wore identical tuxedos and wedding dresses, shocked the world, but the stunt served its purpose in creating huge publicity for the religious cult and for Rev Moon, its leader and self-proclaimed messiah.
Once the furore died down, how did those couples fare? A quarter of a century later, this documentary tracks down some of the people who participated in the mass wedding to ask them how they felt at the time and what has happened to them since. How did they get drawn into such a weird set-up? What attracted them to the charismatic preacher with his claims of unique matchmaking powers and plans for a Moonie master race? Did they have doubts on the day? Was there any real basis at all for their relationships?
Anna from Holland and Forrest from California, have stayed together and had a child. They remain married, for their son’s sake, in a loveless but honest relationship. ‘We tolerate each other,’ says Forrest, but their shared memories of the Madison Square Garden event are strong.
Caroline Barnes from Manchester was paired up with a Norwegian she couldn’t stand and immediately foresaw a life ahead of ‘anger and frustration’. She left him and today lives alone in Arizona, saying: ‘I’m grateful I got out when I did.’
Canadian Gordon Neufeld says that his Moonie bride was the woman of his dreams – ‘a skinny, lively English girl’ – and that the cult enabled him to get beyond his shyness about approaching women. The marriage did not last, though, and after losing his wife, Gordon left the Moonies but still hopes to find a new partner.
Read more about the power of cults.
