A couple who met while taking part in the RAG charity hitch-hike dressed as a bride and groom have married for real!
Sam and Adrian Bowers were both just 21 when they took on the challenge to hitch-hike from Bath to Paris, choosing to dress as newly-weds to encourage people to pick them up.
Now the couple have married for real and have fond memories of how they got together.
Sam, nee Lloyd, and Adrian both came to Bath in 2004. Sam studied International Management with Modern Languages and Adrian studied Mathematics.
During her second year Sam decided to sign up for the charity hitch-hike to Paris organised by the University’s fundraising group RAG.
Sam & Adrian dressed as bride and groom hitch-hike
The rules of the event say that men and women have to travel together for safety reasons so Sam decided to ask Adrian if he’d be interested in taking on the challenge.
She said: “Adrian was in the same halls of residence as me on the floor above. I didn’t know him very well but we were in the same friendship group and I’d always liked him so I thought I’d ask him to do the hitch with me.
“He was equally excited by the challenge so we set about planning how we could make sure we’d win the prize, which was a weekend in Amsterdam. We realised that nobody would leave a bride and groom at the side of the road so that would be our best way to guarantee we’d get people to pull over in their cars to offer us a lift.”
Sam and Adrian searched the charity shops of Bath trying to find suitable outfits for the trip.
“I found a hideous wedding dress with a high neck and full length puffy sleeves straight from the 80s! My friends helped me adapt it so it looked a bit nicer! Adrian wore a dark suit and tie.
“The plan worked and when we set off on our little adventure, plenty of people pulled over to ask if we were trying to get to the church! We explained what we were doing and, intrigued, most people then offered us the lift – we travelled with a variety of people from stone cutters heading to Stonehenge, the head of IBM and numerous man-in-vans!”
Due to their eye-catching outfits Sam and Adrian made good progress on the hitch and managed to get a lift onto a ferry to cross the channel. With the captain’s blessing they were welcomed onboard and even given a free meal in the restaurant.
Sam & Adrian on their wedding day
But’s Sam’s effort to look her best meant they missed out on a ride that would have taken them straight to Paris.
She said: “We found a man on the ferry who said he would take us into Paris but I went to the bathroom to put on some make-up and when I came back he had gone!
“In the end the security staff took us off the ferry but we were left in a car park and we had to get a several more lifts before we got to Paris.”
By the time the couple made it to the city of love they gave up trying to explain why they were dressed as bride and groom and let people think they were really hitched!
Sam said: “Our French was failing us so we let people think we were married. The market vendors gave us little Eiffel tower keyrings, which I still have on my keys today, and one lovely Swiss couple took us up the Eiffel tower for drinks to celebrate!
“We spent the rest of the day enjoying the sunshine under the Eiffel tower, taking a trip down the Seine, getting to know each other better and then had dinner in a little French restaurant in the evening.”
Sam said the hitchhike brought them much closer together and despite not winning the event they had a great time.
She said: “It was obvious that we liked each other but neither of us wanted to make the first move.
“After being back a few days Adrian made a lovely two-minute compilation video of the trip. He set it to the song ‘You look beautiful tonight’ and it looked like a real wedding video. I still wasn’t sure he like me until the next weekend when it was my birthday and he wrote in my card, “I couldn’t wish to be married to a more lovely, fun girl in the whole world… maybe we should do it again one day.”
Last year Adrian proposed while the couple were on holiday in Mauritius and in March they tied the knot for real in front of delighted family and friends in Maidstone.
Sam said: “It was a fantastic wedding and my dress was a lot nicer than the one I wore the first time! It’s a lovely story and it was really nice to meet someone at university. We’ve both got lots of great memories of being at Bath and we’d like to go back there one day to live.”