Married Again (By Royal Consent)

Just six days separated Tonga’s Princess Mele Siuilikutapu from her first wedding anniversary when she was married a second time on October 22—this time to young Tongan noble, Major Kalanivalu-Fotofili.

The couple left soon after the ceremony for a honeymoon in Honolulu and the US. The bride is 22, and the bridegroom 34.

The princess was the centre of a controversy in Tonga when, last October, she married Tongan commoner Siosiua Liava’a secretly in Auckland. The king annulled the marriage two months after, having recalled the princess to Tonga. By June a new husband had been found —the king’s aide-de-camp, who is the bride’s second cousin—and Liava’a is, officially at least, forgotten.

The celebrations for the new wedding, in Nukualofa, started days before the marriage; tapa mats were exchanged according to custom and there was dancing by the bridegroom’s relatives at Fatai, the bride’s residence. Then on October 21 the Registrar of the Supreme Court, ’Unga Hafoka, conducted a formal registration of the marriage, with close relatives attending, at Fatai. A thousand guests were invited to a feast in the afternoon attended by King Taufa’ahau, Queen Mata’aho and Crown Prince Tupouto’a.

The next day the two were married at the royal chapel by the Rev.

J. G. Gooderham, Royal Chaplain, before 300 guests, and a wedding reception was held at the Dateline Hotel.

Princess Siuilikutapu is the eldest daughter of the Tongan Premier, Prince Tu’ipelehake, who is the king’s younger brother. The front page report of the wedding in the official Tonga Chronicle described it as the ‘wedding of the year” but did not mention the princess’ previous marriage.