On January 21, 1966, George Harrison married model Pattie Boyd.

The wedding followed a two-year romance, one which had blossomed during the dizzying heights of Beatlemania.

Despite the pair’s status as a celebrity couple, the wedding was decidedly low key.

It took place at a registry office in Surrey, England on a cold’s winters day.

Present were the couples’ families with the addition of Paul McCartney and Beatles manager Brian Epstein who acted as Harrison’s best men.

Out of the country on holiday at the time, fellow Beatles Ringo Starr and John Lennon were unable to attend.

“I bought a Mary Quant pinky-red shot-silk dress,” Boyd recalls in her memoir Wonderful Tonight, “and I wore it with creamy stockings and pointy red shoes. On top, because it was January and cold, I wore a red fox-fur coat, also by [fashion desinger] Mary Quant, that George gave me. She made George a beautiful black Mongolian lamb coat.”

“Not the most glamorous place,” she notes, “It was not the wedding I had dreamt of – I would have loved to be married in church, but Brian didn’t want a big fuss. They all trusted him so implicitly that when he said it should be a quiet register office wedding George agreed. He also said it had to be secret – if the press found out, it would be chaotic.”

Ringo Star, also likely under the instruction of Epstein, married first wife Maureen in a similar fashion, exchanging vowels at a London registry office the previous year, in 1965.

“There was no shortage of pictures of us leaving the register office,” Pattie recalls. “We came out into the street to find dozens of press photographers lined up outside. So much for keeping the whole thing secret.”

Leaving the building and entering an awaiting Rolls-Royce the pair traveled to a reception at their Esher home.

After holding a press conference, the following day, the pair then departed on their Barbados honeymoon on February 8th.

The two would divorce in 1977.

Boyd would then pair up with George Harrison’s close friend Eric Clapton while Harrison would marry Olivia who he remained with until his death in 2001.

George Harrison would write several songs with Boyd in mind, including ‘I Need You’, ‘For You Blue’ and most famously of all ‘Something’ from Abbey Road.