Girlfriend to a man, mother to two children, and wife to a tree, Ms Kate Cunningham celebrated her first wedding anniversary with her husband last week. Yes, formerly Ms Cunningham, she is now Mrs Elder on account of her ‘husband’s’ species. She had a wedding ceremony with this tree in Litherland's Rimrose Valley Park as a move to raise awareness about a campaign opposing the construction of a new bypass.
As many development projects tend to, this proposed bypass would have uprooted a thriving park in her city. Whenever a tree is uprooted from its ancient home, ancillary lives also get affected. From soil’s microbiota to the animals and bird that depend on it.
The woman had a proper Christian ceremony in which she tied the knot with the Elder tree. She says it was the best decision of her life and has no plans of divorcing her husband, according to a Daily Mirror article.
Her anniversary celebration was attended by two friends. Her boyfriend and children stayed at home. She admits that her 15-year-old son is “a little embarrassed” by this whole situation. Despite his embarrassment, he’d attended the ceremony last year to support his mother.
She is, however, not the first human to wed a tree. In 2018, 60-year-old Karen Cooper married a 100-year-old Ficus in a park in Florida. The reason behind that wedding was also to save the tree from being felled. “When I heard the city was planning to cut it down, I was like, ‘I don’t think so,’” Cooper, who has been living in Fort Myers for nearly 40 years, told ABC News. "I'm just having fun with something very serious.”
Kate, an ocean apart and separated by a year, followed in Karen’s footsteps. However, her primary influence was from a women’s group in Mexico who held communal ceremonies like these to raise awareness against illegal logging. Kate believes every woman should marry a tree because someone’s husband cannot be cut down to make new roads. In fact, she proposes that there should be an annual ‘Marry a Tree Day’ for raising awareness.
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