Bob, Norma Clark discover after 48 years they’re not legally married

At least no one can say they didn’t give co-habitation a shot. Because after nearly 50 years of living together, Bob and Norma Clark finally made it legal.

The problem is they thought they’d already taken care of that little detail almost half a century ago.

When the couple from Redlands, California started collecting the paperwork to put toward the preparation of their respective wills, they requested a copy of their marriage certificate from the San Mateo County Hall of Records.

But, as the Redlands Daily Facts reports, the pair learned the county had no record of their marriage. In fact, the Clarks had never been issued a marriage licence at all after their 1964 church wedding.

According to NBC, the pastor who married them never returned the licence to the county records office.

In bureaucracy speak, that roughly translates into: Whoops!

[ More Daily Buzz: Taking out the trash, Canadian-style ]

"They went back to the year 1956, but no record of our marriage could be found," Bob told the paper. "So we called the church we were married in and asked if they had a copy. They said, `Oh, yes, we have a copy.' So we called the (records office) back and asked if we could record it now."'

To do so, however, would first require the Clarks to register their wedding with the county. And according to their rules, this would also require the presence of two witnesses who attended their original 1964 nuptials.

Thankfully, Norma’s excellent gene pool meant that her brother and sister, both spry and healthy and by sheer happenstance about to come to Redlands for a visit, were able to stand in as their new/old witnesses.

During the original event, Norma’s sister served as maid of honour, while her brother walked down the aisle as junior usher.

So on Nov. 21, Norma finally made an honest man out of Bob and took him as her lawfully wedded husband. And Bob appeared to relish the chance to marry his lifelong sweetheart once more.

"I got her a nice bouquet, and it was just a hoot," Bob said. "There were about 35 people there who were asking us why we were there. We told them that we've been married...and we brought along a book of all our pictures and showed them (off)."

If we had a Bob and Norma Clark story for every 10 celebrity divorce stories, perhaps the state of modern marriage wouldn’t seem so dire.

If you have a story idea that would make a great Daily Buzz article please email us at ydailybuzz@yahoo.ca.

Want the latest buzz before it goes viral?
Follow @ydailybuzz on Twitter!