A pastor has married six couples in one go after receiving what she says was a vision from God.
Pastor Tanelle Welft-Dixon, 43, said that God had asked her to marry people who have been 'living in sin' or who couldn't afford to wed, according to local Cape Town news website iol.
The couples all got married on Saturday and enjoyed a joint reception afterwards.
The mass wedding was arranged in just three days and everything was sponsored, from the reception to the limousines that took the couples there, alongside clothing, rings and flowers.
Even the wedding photos were provided: while the pastor was marrying the couples, she received a phone call from a relative on a farm who offered to have the wedding photos taken there.
Pastor Tanelle, from Durban, said: 'Last week I had a vision from God, I saw white wedding tables. This was during my two-week campaign of "praying until something happens"...I asked God to reveal his plans to me, and the message was that I should marry those who have been living together, or who did not have money for a wedding. I announced this in church, and the couples came forth and admitted that they no longer wanted to live in sin.'
One of the couples who had been living together for 35 years said that they had lost all hope of ever getting married. Johanna Julius, 58, and her husband Clark, 55, said: 'Where would we have gotten the money to be spoilt like this in our old age?'
Willem Wence, 54, said that upon hearing the sermon, he immediately asked his common-law wife Trui Diedericks, 47, for her hand in marriage. He said: 'She immediately said yes, because we wanted what's best for our children.'
