How an 11-day cruise on a Norwegian ship changed Rebecca and Christian's lives
The young people met by chance during a cruise and decided to get married 11 days later. To do this, one of them had to travel 7,000 miles, leave his country and completely change his lifestyle.
PA Real Life reported that Rebecca Clayton, a 27-year-old telecommunications specialist, met Christian Paredes, a 29-year-old Argentine who worked in a gift shop, on the ship. It happened in October 2022.
They broke up on the 11th day after they met, in Southampton, where the cruise ship docked. However, the story did not end there. Rebecca and Christian continued to communicate, and soon the latter left his hometown of Cordoba (Argentina) and travelled to Chesterfield (Derbyshire) to be with his beloved.
By the way, it was from that moment that the relationship of young people became part of the popular reality show 90 Day Fiance UK on Discovery+.
Now, according to UK law, the couple had 90 days to get married. Otherwise, Christian's visa would expire and he would have to return to Argentina.
Rebecca told PA Real Life: "I'm very unlucky in love, I just meet the wrong guys all the time, but from the first moment I met Cristian, we had an instant connection. We already had a lot of problems with my family, who were not happy about our relationship. But we wanted to make it work. I just knew after the cruise that we had to at least try to make it work."
For Rebecca, the trip to Norway was a long-awaited family holiday with her grandparents after being postponed several times due to the Covid pandemic. However, fate had other plans when she bumped into Christian in a souvenir shop on the second day of the voyage.
After the 10-day trip, which Rebecca spent in the souvenir shop, the young people exchanged phone numbers. However, she says it was difficult to keep in touch because Christian was not allowed to use his phone while working.
They met again in January 2023, when the ship arrived in Southampton. A day later, Christian flew home, but they had already made plans to be together.
First of all, it was decided that Christian would move to Chesterfield, which happened in March 2023. And to avoid any disruption, the couple booked a wedding date before he arrived.
Rebecca admits that there was not much romance in it, but there was more than enough paperwork.
How did things develop further? The wedding, scheduled for June, had to be postponed. Rebecca explained: "It's not as easy as it sounds, and we want to make sure we're ready before we take such an important step. I don't want to give too much away, you'll have to watch the show to find out."
For the record, the new series of 90 Day Fiance UK is available to watch on Discovery+ from Sunday 16 July.