Portuguese emigre Rui Moca and Monique Joubert had planned to wed next year, but when South Africa's biggest city was shrouded in a rare blanket of snow on Tuesday, Joubert's sister called Jacaranda FM to tell them about the couple's dream of a "real" white wedding.

The radio station leapt into action, organising a minister, lawyer, photographer, flowers, cake and limousine, and the couple were married on air in the studio in the early evening - with Moca's family listening in from Europe over the Internet.

"The entire wedding with all the bells and whistles was organised in just three hours," Jacaranda DJ Martin Bester said.

The snowfall was the first in Johannesburg in five years and the heaviest since 1981. Newspapers ran front-page photographs of snow-clad palm trees and a lion sitting disconsolately in its enclosure at Johannesburg zoo with snow gathering in its mane.

The cold snap also disrupted travel in Africa's biggest economy, with drifting snow and sub-zero temperatures shutting the motorway between the main port of Durban and the economic hub of Johannesburg for at least 24 hours. (Reporting by Ed Cropley; Editing by Roger Atwood)

• A Permanent Economic Emergency