Wedding guests plunge into a lake

Eighty "smartly dressed" guests at a wedding party in South Africa fell into a lake while posing with the bride and groom for photograph on a wooden deck, it has been reported.

After they tied the knot, Marli van der Walt, 34, and Hoffman, 38, wanted to take a picture with their friends and family, but unfortunately the deck they were standing on came crashing down, plunging the guests into the muddy water.

The bride's sister Alet said: "They had wanted everyone on the decking because it was a lovely backdrop for the pictures, with the mountains behind. As we stood there was some joking about who was so big that they were making the deck creak, when the deck groaned again.

"The next moment the wooden struts decided they'd had enough and broke right behind where the bride and groom were standing."

The wedding party at the Dragon Peaks Mountain Resort near Winterton, in the KwaZulu-Natal province, was attended by a total of 80 guests - including the bride's wheelchair-bound mother, her 88-year-old mother and a newborn baby.

The floundering guests were helped to clamber out of the water by bystanders. And although one man suffered splinters to his leg, the rest of the group was unhurt.

After everyone was back on dry land, the photographer was asked to continue with the wedding portraits.

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