Reference Artist: Sylvia Plath

sylvia plath and ted hughes on their wedding day 1956

On June 16, 1956 while her mother was visiting, Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes were secretly married in the Church of Saint George the Martyr in London. Sylvia wore a pink suit and held a pink rose which Ted had given her. The newlyweds spent time that summer in Paris, Madrid and finally Benindorm, Spain on the coast, where "every evening at dusk the lights of the sardine boats dip and shine out at sea like floating stars." They spent their days writing, studying, swimming and enjoying the quiet town. Some of the poems Sylvia wrote during this newlywed summer of writing include "Fiesta Melons", "Alicante Lullaby", "The Goring", "The Beggars", "Spider", "Rhyme", "Dream With Clam Diggers", and "Epitaph For Fire And Flower". There was one alleged episode which darkened the otherwise idyllic days of their summer. Years later Sylvia told a friend that one afternoon as they sat on a hill Ted was overcome by such rage that he started choking her, and she resigned herself to die. The episode made her question her somewhat hasty decision to marry him.