We get married every five years — I get a new dress and ring each time

Over the course of the last 27 years, Frantzcie and her husband Fednel have had six weddings.

It’s a tradition that started as a light-hearted joke, but has since become an enduring display of love (and a drain on their bank account).

‘On many occasions, like birthdays and Valentine’s Day, I would tell my wife that I would marry her again and again,’ Fednel Wagnac, 56, muses.

‘One time she said, “What’s stopping you?”’

Fednel laughed and said to his wife Frantzcie, 52, that while tying the knot every year would be excessive, they could do it every five years.

‘I said it as a joke, but wifey took it seriously,’ he adds. ‘That’s how it started.’

Frantzcie and Fednel, a radiation therapist, met back in 1996, as Fednel was in a band called The Christian Brothers, with Frantzcie’s brothers.

They’d both moved to New York from Haiti as teenagers, although they didn’t know each other at the time. When Frantzcie began hanging out with the band in her 20s, she immediately caught Fednel’s attention, who said she was the ‘most good looking woman in all the town’.

He asked her out, and the couple soon fell in love, before getting married three years later, in 1999.

A year later, the couple welcomed their daughter Mandy, now 25, and celebrated their first anniversary by expressing their love to each other on a romantic boat trip.

Then they welcomed baby Carlton, now 23, a year later.

The renewal tradition begins…

In 2004, on their fifth wedding anniversary, the couple renewed their vows for the first time whilst on a trip to the Poconos, Pennsylvania.

It’s not a cheap affair either, with Frantzcie getting a new wedding dress and ring each time, and each renewal costing around £3,660 ($5,000).

They don’t need to cater for a whole hoard of wedding guests though, because it’s just their two children that attend.

‘Our weddings happen on our summer vacation with the four of us,’ Fednel explains. ‘My favourite one was our 20th anniversary in Negril, Jamaica.

‘It was so beautiful by the beach, it felt like the very first time.’

The pair call these wedding vow renewals their ‘love celebration’ and say it’s just part of how they keep the magic alive.

‘I love being married to this great man, he’d sacrifice everything for his children, and I love him extra for that,’ Frantzcie, a nurse, says.

‘Five years seems to be a milestone for us and our children love being part of our love celebration.’

Aside from their five-yearly weddings, Frantzcie says they have other ways to keep the spark alive.

She said: ‘We always make sure to create “us time” and don’t take each other for granted. We continue to date each other on no special occasion. It can be just watching a movie or a show with popcorn and ice cream, or some good ginger tea.

‘I open my heart and give freely the very best of me, and I gratefully, appreciatively, respectfully, and humbly receive his love. And he does the same.’

For their 10th anniversary, children Mandy and Carlton were old enough to participate in the vow renewal, so the family did a huge photoshoot at a manor house in Long Island, and all wore matching purple outfits.

On the 15th mark, the family recreated the vow renewal photo shoot, this time all in pink.

What was different about their fifth wedding?

On their 20th anniversary, the pair decided to go for another traditional wedding.

The blushing bride bought herself a new white dress, and unlike the previous vow renewals, the couple hired a pastor to make the wedding official.

As the duo were now more financially stable, they were able to afford to have the wedding in Nigril, Jamaica, with just their two children in attendance.

‘Wearing white again felt surreal,’ Frantczie says. ‘Watching the expression on my husband’s face as I walked towards him him seemed like the very first time.’

‘When my wife was walking towards me, it was amazing,’ Fednel adds.

It was so special that on their 25th anniversary, the couple jetted off to Cancun for a white wedding again, with Fednel purchasing his wife yet another ring, and they are already excitedly planning their 30th.

A lesson in love

For daughter Mandy, her parents’ enduring display of love is inspiring, and has shaped the way she feels about relationships herself.

‘A lot of people these days just want something casual, but I’ve always just wanted to have what my parents have,’ Mandy says. ‘They still call it a date even if they’re just sitting on the sofa watching The Voice, they always win Mr and Mrs at weddings, they’re just so supportive of each other.’

As a result Mandy’s standards when it comes to dating men herself are pretty high, often meaning she’s been disappointed in the past.

‘I’m now in a really great relationship, and I asked him if he would want to get married every five years, and he said “Do we have to wait every five? Why not every three?”‘

But Fednel says the key to his successful marriage is much simpler than lavish weddings.

‘The secret to our long lasting marriage is mutual respect and being best friends,’ he smiles.

‘I make it my business to make her happy by doing the things that she likes, and I get the same in return.’

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