When the girl arrived Saturday morning, staff realized she was so young she could barely stand in the high heels she was wearing and alerted the police. — A British man has been arrested after it was found that a group of people was planning to stage a fake wedding between the man and the young girl in Disneyland Paris.
French news outlet AFP said that park staff alerted police about a possible child marriage, which would have been illegal.
The man allegedly paid the park 130,000 euros to open the property before regular guests arrived to perform the ceremony.
When the girl arrived Saturday morning, staff realized she was so young she could barely stand in the high heels she was wearing and alerted the police. The girl was also wearing a wedding dress, according to the Independent.
On-site park employees also canceled the event, Le Parisien reported.
“After identifying significant irregularities,” park officials said, without giving details. “Law enforcement was quickly alerted and responded to the scene as quickly as possible. We are fully cooperating with the authorities in their investigation and have also filed a complaint with the relevant authorities.”
Investigators said the girl’s mother told them that she wanted her daughter to feel like a Disney princess for the day.
The “ceremony” was to take place in front of Sleeping Beauty’s castle, The Sunday Times and People magazine reported.
“The event turned out to be a staged event, with the guests themselves extras” to be part of the stunt, deputy prosecutor Alexandre Verney said.
“So it wasn’t a wedding, but a staged wedding filmed with around a hundred extras. They hired Disneyland Paris, pretending it was a real wedding,” Verney told AFP.
The extras were hired online for a Disneyland Paris wedding “rehearsal” with organizers looking for 200 adults and 100 children between the ages of 5 and 15, the Independent reported.
“We all thought we were going to attend a wedding... Everyone was stunned, no one expected it. Disneyland did things very well,” one witness said, according to Le Parisien. “They canceled everything as soon as they realized the bride was a child. We were shocked to see that.”
The fake groom, and the person whom officials believed organized the fake wedding, was 22 and “presumed to be British.”
He told police that the event was a film shoot and he was part of a production company, Le Parisien reported.
He and a 24-year-old Latvian woman were detained for questioning.
They were being held on suspicion of fraud and money laundering, Le Parisien reported.
A 41-year-old Ukrainian woman, who was the girl’s mother, and a 55-year-old Latvian man were also arrested but were released, AFP and Le Parisien reported.
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