Berlin (AFP) - A German man got his marriage off to a bad start after he drove for two hours down the motorway before realising he had forgotten his new bride at a petrol station.
The hapless husband took off from a highway stop while, unbeknown to him, his wife had gone to the toilet.
He only realised his mistake 200 kilometers (125 miles) down the road.
"My first reaction was: is he stupid?" the 33-year-old bride recalled on private radio station FFH about being left stranded by the side of the Autobahn highway. "I had no money and no telephone with me."
The man thought his new wife was asleep in the back of their mini-bus and kept driving for two hours, listening to music and wondering why the children were acting up, the woman later said.
When he finally realised she was missing, he went to the police, who had already been contacted by the abandoned woman.
The newlyweds, from Brandenburg state near Berlin, were reunited after five hours at the petrol station in central Hesse state, police confirmed to AFP.
The wife told the radio station she didn't hold a grudge. "I'm not angry with my husband," she said. "He didn't mean it."