Love is a powerful thing. It can bring people together, it can drive them apart, and it can reunite them once more. At least this is what happened with Kjeld Preisler 82, and Lotte Preisler 75, who remarried 31 years after they got divorced. Their 55-year-old marriage story is rare and beautiful, and certainly worth knowing.
Same Date, Same Church, Same Bride & Groom, 5 Decades Apart
Lotte and Kjeld said, ‘I do,’ on April 3rd in a church in Copenhagen, Denmark, before a sea of empty pews. This happened exactly 55 years after they did the same thing on the same date at the exact same place. On April 3, 1965, the couple — then 20 and 27 years old — got married for the first time. That marriage didn’t survive long.
A Series of Hardships Ended the First Marriage
Kjeld and Lotte had four children together. They both were artists and owned a small pottery business together. Things were good for a while, but then they hit a rough patch. Kjeld was diagnosed with cancer and was bedridden for a long time, while Lotte was trying to run the business and look after the children. Things quickly went south. Kjeld nearly lost the fight to the disease, but he eventually got better. And then another hard blow — their entire home burned to the ground.
They Couldn’t Stay Apart for Long
There’s only so much a family can take, and when the shared pain between Kjeld and Lotte grew too much, they decided to go their separate ways. Being apart, however, turned out to be harder than staying together. In just two years of their separation, they found their way back to one another. It wasn’t all smooth sailing from then on with Lotte’s declining health leaving her in a wheelchair. Still, when the pandemic broke out, the couple decided they didn’t want to leave this world without getting officially married a second time.
And so, Kjeld asked Lotte for her hand in marriage once more. Yet again, she said ‘yes.’ The rest is history.