Couple weds hours after meeting in person for first time

Two strangers married on Christmas Day after meeting for the first time at an airport in their wedding attire before boarding a plane to Las Vegas.

Sarah Edwards, née Elliott, 34, matched with Paul Edwards, 36, on online and within days decided to get hitched.

They matched on Dec. 15 and exchanged messages and spoke to each other for the first time on Dec. 22. The loved-up couple spoke again on the 23rd had decided to marry - despite never meeting face-to-face. They committed to each other and booked a wedding venue - the Bellagio Hotel and Casino.

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After meeting for the first time at Gatwick Airport on Christmas Eve, the duo boarded a plane in full wedding attire and jetted off to Las Vegas to get married.

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"We instantly clicked - there was an undeniable connection," Sarah Edwards, a nanny who is originally from New Zealand but now lives in Tunbridge, Wells, Kent, said. "I feel like Paul's my best friend already. We're not looking at everything through rose-tinted glasses. We know it will be challenging, but we're willing to work together. I'm usually such a logical person, but all the rules have been thrown out."

"We've both tried to do things the traditional way before and it didn't work out for either of us," she said. "We get on so well and just thought: 'Why not have that commitment to actually making a marriage work from the very start?' I'm not interested in just going on dates looking for things I don't like about that person. I'm committing to making this marriage absolutely work - like they did in the old days."

"It's traditional, older generations might have only met their partner once or twice before getting married," she said. "It's similar, we just hadn't even met before."

Sarah and Paul, who works in broadcasting, met online on dating app Bumble and instantly hit it off.

"I saw his profile, thought he looked nice and loved what he had written about being open and honest," she said. "When we matched, I sent him a message. I thought it was funny that his name was Paul as I currently share a house with two other people called Paul - so I said: 'I've already got two Paul's in my life, why not add a third?'"

"He replied to my message saying: 'Apparently the third Paul is always the best and I don't have a Sarah in my life so I guess that would make you number one,'" she said. "We spoke on the phone on Saturday night for 2.5 hours and then again on Sunday morning for an hour and a half. Sunday evening we were chatting away on the phone and calling each other for three hours."

"I can't remember who brought it up, but one of us said: 'We get on so well - maybe we should get married,'" she said. "The other one went: 'Yeah, maybe we should' and it literally spiraled from there. There was a moment between us where we both thought: 'We totally could do this. How amazing would it be if we got married on our first date?'"

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"By Monday morning - three days after we'd first started talking - we'd agreed to get married," she said. "We both just thought: 'Let's do this."

Sarah Edwards knew the idea was "crazy" but has decided to let her heart rule over her head.

"I know it's totally crazy - hardly any of my friends are supporting me, in fact, a lot of them are disowning me," she said. "I haven't told my family yet. As they're on the other side of the world we don't talk as often as we should."

Paul Edwards, from Chichester, West Sussex, has two daughters aged 13 and 15 from a previous relationship and is also yet to tell his children about his new wife-to-be.

Sarah Edwards has been married before, but it only lasted for six months. She said and her new husband get on so well because they are so alike.

"Paul's personality is exactly like mine. We're both very bubbly, open, honest, we'd do anything for anyone," she said. "He's caring, loyal, silly, a wind-up, playful, intelligent and of course, spontaneous and impulsive. We have so much in common. I've never met anyone whose brain works like mine but his does. Our minds jump all over the place with a million ideas a day. We both have big goals and dreams."

Sarah is adamant the couple will go the distance.

"Our marriage will work because we're completely open and honest about everything in our lives. I have faith," she said. "If we have any problems, we'll talk them through. We can talk about absolutely everything - there's nothing I'd feel uncomfortable discussing with him because I know there's no judgment there.

"Paul was wavering the other day and getting anxious. He said: 'Are we really going to do this?,'" she said. "We talked it through - as a team - and decided we had as good a chance as anyone. By the end of the conversation, we were like: 'We've got this.'"

The pair decided to meet for the first time at Gatwick airport on Christmas Eve, and Paul surprised Sarah with a bunch of flowers.

"I'd only just met him at the airport and he brought flowers and got down on one knee," she said. "He bought the perfect ring, it's got six diamonds on it. He's not a rich man but he knows how to treat someone. He bought me a watch too, I don't know how he knew I needed one."

"The flight was about 11 hours. It was hard, I was freaking out. I didn't have cold feet bus I was scared," she said. "I'd just met this guy in person for the first time but we already had a connection. We talked about this before we met, it's not about what someone looks like it's what they're like on the inside. He's amazingly kind, he's incredible. He really is."

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"He can get on with anyone and I can get on with anyone, it's amazing," she said. "The whole thing is amazing. We got married at the Bellagio, My dress was incredible. It was huge, I've been walking up and down the strip in it. The wedding was amazing, the minister was great - we wanted to write our own vows but we didn't have time."

"The minister was Roland August, the Mobile Minister - he's starred in a Katy Perry Video," she said. He wrote our vows for us, and even though he'd never met us they were very personal and sweet. I'm sure the wedding night will be amazing too. You can have sexual attraction, but at the end of the day they have to be a good person."

"You think you know people, but it doesn't matter how long you've been with someone for, they can surprise you and not in a good way," she said. "I'd been with my ex for three years and he turned out to not be capable of treating me right. You just don't know. So this time I thought: 'Why not take a chance and have a bit of faith?'"

"It's absolutely mental," Paul Edwards said. "If you'd have asked me nine days ago whether I would meet someone, start talking to them and then go running off to Vegas to get married without meeting face-to-face I'd say you were crazy. I don't know what happened, it's so weird as both of radius' on Bumble weren't even that close so I have no idea how we came across each other in the first place."

"Sarah just seemed really lovely, when she first phoned me we spoke for over three hours," he said.