Everything began with the desire to get married. Fifty years ago, John Lennon and Yoko Ono wanted to say yes to each other. What followed was not only an odyssey through half of Europe, but probably the most spectacular honeymoon in music history. Instead of having fun on a distant island, the freshly baked couple staged a week-long peace happening in an Amsterdam hotel room. The legendary Bed-Ins for Peace were born.
Yoko Ono was rather unwilling to get married, as she had already had two divorces behind her at the age of 36. According to her own statement she had "stumbled into" her marriage with her second husband, the film producer Tony Cox. So the willing John Lennon had to do a lot of convincing. As a compromise, the couple agreed on a quick, uncomplicated wedding. But Lennon's heart's desire to be trusted by a captain on a ship failed: first he did not get tickets for the planned Bahamas cruise at short notice, then due to problems with Yoko's passport not even the minimum solution - a wedding on the ferry from Southhampton to mainland Europe - came about. Even a wedding planned in Amsterdam failed because of the bureaucracy. Finally, on 20 March 1969, a small ceremony was held in Gibraltar. The whole thing is wonderfully breathless in the Beatles song "The Ballad Of John And Yoko" - as is what should follow.
If the wedding was surprisingly intimate and uncelebral - on photos you can see John with a cigarette in one hand, the other one in his trouser pocket staring at him seemingly disinterested - the honeymoon should be a big media event. Yoko, as a Fluxus artist a master of staging, planned an unprecedented happening with John: the couple would rent a suite at the Amsterdam Hilton from 26 March and spend a week in bed there. Nothing out of the ordinary for a newlywed. But the prominent couple wanted to do this in front of the cameras of the world press and answer questions all day long. The action was supposed to be a demonstration for peace, which was henceforth referred to as "Bed-In".
The media were quickly on fire, hoping for pictures of John and Yoko having wild sex. But at least they expected to be able to photograph the couple stark naked as on the cover of their album "Two Virgins". Neither the one nor the other view was fulfilled. The Lennons, rather bourgeois in pyjamas, lay in the hotel bed, surrounded by posters with inscriptions like "Bed Peace", "Hair Peace", "I love Yoko" or "I love John".
