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CRANBROOK, B.C. — Double weddings to most of us mean two brides and two grooms, but not for some Mormon fundamentalists like Winston Blackmore.

For them, it can sometimes mean two brides and a groom married in quick succession along with a string of others.

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Often enough, too often, those soon-to-be sister wives are already sisters.

The reality of polygamy in Mormon fundamentalist communities like Bountiful, B.C. — as opposed to the reality TV version — is unfolding in a B.C. Supreme Court trial where 60-year-old Blackmore and James Oler, 53, stand accused of having illegally taken multiple wives.

Nearly half of the 24 women listed on Blackmore’s indictment are related to at least one of their sister-wives. On three occasions, sisters were married on the same day to the former bishop of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

There are even two of Winston’s wives who are wife and wife. Within six months of Canada legalizing same-sex marriage, two of Blackmore’s wives took out a marriage licence and married each other. The two young women had married Blackmore within a month of each other in 1999 and had been sharing the same home.