Wedding The Bride Forgot Annulled

A judge has annulled a woman's two-month marriage after she said she didn't remember the ceremony.

When she said "I do," Alma Tremmel, 32, was hospitalized in critical condition, on a respirator, and taking powerful drugs for pneumonia and depression, her attorney said.

Tremmel was taking "six or seven different things at the time" - including morphine and Valium - and "any one of those things alone would have been enough to cloud her reasoning skills, let alone in combination," her attorney, James Huff, said Thursday.

Tremmel said she has a vague recollection of a hospital minister at her bedside. But Tremmel said she has since learned that she received last rites several times during her 13-day stay at Bon Secours-Holy Family Hospital in April.

"I just remember flashes of people. I don't really remember much about the entire hospital stay," Tremmel said from her home in Altoona, about 85 miles east of Pittsburgh.

Blair County Judge Hiram Carpenter III granted the annulment Wednesday. The ruling means that, under Pennsylvania law at least, Tremmel was never married to Edward Wert, 35.

Virginia Wert, the groom's mother, said she was present for the ceremony, as was Tremmel's mother, when Tremmel signed the license application in her intensive care room.

"It seemed to me like she knew. She had to point out (something) on the paper" application for the marriage license, Virginia Wert said.

Tremmel, a widowed mother of two, said she had known Wert for years because he had been a friend of her late husband, who died three years ago. Tremmel said she began dating Wert "out of loneliness" and the couple lived together for several months.

Tremmel said the couple had discussed marriage "a few times, but I was very, very leery about it."

Wert didn't hire an attorney and didn't contest the annulment, although he reaffirmed his love for her during court proceedings. Wert, who now lives with his parents, didn't immediately return a call seeking comment Thursday.