A MAGISTRATE and a judge ruled in the last 24 hours that Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai could not go ahead with his wedding on Saturday, but as these pictures show, it seems nobody told him.
Tsvangirai, 60, and fiance Elizabeth Macheka, 35, pushed ahead with their ceremony at the Raintree lodge in Umwinsidale, Harare.
Hundreds of MDC-T supporters were also gathering at Glamis Stadium in Harare for a public celebration with their leader which is only symbolic as the couple cannot legally marry due to the two court rulings.
Harare magistrate Munamato Mutevedzi, in a judgement delivered Friday, said Tsvangirai was customarily married to Locardia Karimatsenga and if he married Macheka he would be committing bigamy, for which he could face criminal charges.
Tsvangirai's lawyers had launched an urgent chamber appeal at the High Court, but it was thrown out by Justice Chinembiri Bhunu early Saturday.
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MDC-T officials said Saturday's ceremony was being held under customary laws, which allow men to have more than one wife - effectively circumventing the court order.
"The Prime Minister will have a customary union wedding which is different from the one that was denied by the courts," a senior officer from Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party told AFP.
Tsvangirai, dressed in a black suit and his bride Elizabeth, in a white wedding gown, arrived minutes apart at Raintree - a plush outdoor wedding venue - where hundreds of guests gathered.
Tsvangirai ended his relationship with Karimatsenga last year, saying the relationship had been "irretrievably damaged" to the point where marriage had become "inconceivable" - only days after paying bride price for her.
Harare magistrate Munamato Mutevedzi on Thursday dismissed another similar challenge by a South African woman, Nosipho Shilubane, who claimed the premier promised to marry her.
Macheka is the daughter of Joseph Macheka, a former mayor of Chitungwiza and member of the central committee of President Robert Mugabe's Zanu PF party.
Tsvangirai's first wife of 31 years, Susan, was killed in a car accident in March 2009.