AIBU to marry secretly now and hold a wedding in 2028?

This will be a party celebrating your 2 year anniversary

It won’t be a wedding

This.
It sort of sounds like you just want a big party and lots of people to give you gifts? Otherwise, either wait, or have a smaller wedding now.

BTW... it doesn't take years to plan a wedding, no matter how elaborate. I got married 6 months after becoming engaged, it was a surprise so we had never even discussed weddings, and we still threw a big do for 200 people.

By the sounds of it, I wouldn’t want them in my presence in any shape or form at any event let alone a party celebrating my marriage.

I don’t think you can frame it as a wedding. You’re having a party years after getting married. Making it an anniversary party

Haven't read the full thread, but if you want a nice wedding then of course save up and do it in 2028 the way you want it. If you want a nice big do and you just can't afford it yet, I wouldn't be doing a small one now instead - your wedding day is a big deal and the point is sharing your commitment with your friends and family. I don't think it matters If you do the legal bit beforehand, and a commitment ceremony at the celebration itself. What's the difference in doing it 3 days before, or 2 years before? It's still not going to be the "actual" wedding, so I dont see why people are so outraged!
You don't even have to tell people do you? even on the "wedding day", you don't need to say you've been married 2 years. You can just say you did the legal bit beforehand. You don't have to say when! So nobody needs to get fucked off, you get the legal protection you want, and you still get the wedding celebration you want. everyone's happy.

Yes, and it'll stop the people who are criticising "it's not a wedding" when they come to the big do you're having in a few years-because it will be!
Other options are seeing a lawyer to get some of the safeguards you'd automatically get as a spouse put down in writing by someone who knows the law/finding out about the new changes they're talking about for unmarried couples.

I was engaged for 7 years too. We planned to marry in April 2020, our wedding was cancelled due to covid. We were offered a date at the registry office in September of the same year, we took it and were only allowed our two witnesses, we did a second church wedding with a reception and all the family in 2023. If you want to do the legal bit and have a proper ceremony later you do that.

Keeping it secret for 2 years and not changing your names or wearing your rings etc is just stupid.

I've got no problem with keeping the legal and practical sides separate, but lying to people for two years is ridiculous, why not just tell people what you are doing, and call it a wedding party instead.

Honestly, just have a low-key wedding now. The 'wedding' really doesn't matter, the marriage does.

It does feel a bit short term thinking.

What will you do for your tenth wedding anniversary? Will it be the real or pretend date? When you get to 25 will it be 25 or 23?

Fine to get married now and celebrate later. I know someone who did just that and still did all the wedding stuff like hen party etc (seems odd to me but didn't seem to bother them or their friends).

But people inherently dislike deception and you are setting up years of lying.

Your reasoning is sound but just be honest about it.

That was a key factor for me as well OP.
At a large party with 200 people I’m hoping I don’t even have to speak to my stepmother and father, but also will not have to put up with the grief I would get if I invited my aunts to something but not her. And I will get to celebrate with my aunts and friends

In my (extensive) experience those couples choosing to have the celebrant led ceremony abroad have their marriage legalised a couple of weeks before or after their celebration abroad when they’re still in a wedding “bubble” and riding on the excitement.
I honestly think once you’ve done the legals, the novelty will wear off and by 2028 you will wonder why you bothered. The shine wil
be gone.
Maybe consider a nice vow renewal in future for a significant anniversary.

I got married in Cuba - all perfectly legal! Just have the wedding you want - why all the fuss!

My parents are a nightmare. A small registry with them as a major percentage of the attendees is a miserable affair.
We also considered eloping and announcing. Partly because of the nightmare family element

So a 2028 shebang is unlikely to ever be a joyous affair then?

Different countries have different rules. A lot go to a registry office here because its easier. If your wedding certificate was in a foreign language you have to pay to get it translated for instance. I got married in USA. Completely legal here and very easy to arrange.
I completely understand wanting a special day but as you do have children now would you not rather spend the money on a fabulous family holiday incorporating a wedding? You can still wear a wedding dress etc and have photos taken. My wedding photos are much better than a lot of UK ones dues to better backgrounds etc.
We had a party back home after. I think lying about being married is the issue.

Whats odd about not necessarily wanting to prioritise spending money and time on celebrating the fact that friends of yours have been married for years and are still married? The reason that people are willing to sacrifice time ad money to attend a wedding is that getting married is a big deal. Still being married, not so much.

Honestly, that sounds pretty sensible. The legal side and the celebration don't have to happen on the same day. Plenty of people do the paperwork first and the big party later.

@Alottatopspin

It would really fuck me off to attend a ‘wedding’ for people who’d been married 2 years already!

Really? That seems like such a non-issue to me.

Where I’m at religious and humanist weddings are not allowed to take place before the civil wedding (and the religious wedding is not recognised as a legal / civil wedding due to separation of church and state).

So it’s incredibly normal to me to attend weddings of people who had small registry weddings weeks or months in advance.

It’s actually what my DH (or fiancé according to our priest…) and I have done / are doing.

Civil wedding was at the start of 2026, church wedding and actual wedding celebration will be this summer. We consider the summer wedding our „real wedding“, the civil registry one was very simple, short and we didn’t have any guests (not even parents or close family attended)… we don’t even wear our wedding rings yet 🤷‍♀️

But I understand that cultural views and societal practices have shaped our differing opinions…

I don't wish to 'out' myself on here Wededed but if you PM me I can possible give you some advice that may be use to you (I work in the Wedding industry)

You're going to please yourself anyway, OP, why bother asking?

I'm sure nobody will mind being lied to. Especially as you're the only couple on Earth who have ever had children and needed somewhere to live.

We married legally in February with his daughter and my mother as witnesses. We then had a humanist wedding in September where we exchanged rings and did the whole dress and party thing,

If the government actually allowed humanist (and many other religious) weddings to be legally recognised, we would have done it at the same time. It wasn’t a secret. It was still a wedding because we made only the bare legal declarations at the legal ceremony. In fact we don’t even call the legal ceremony a wedding.

We wanted to stand up in front of friends and family to declare our love for each other and that was the wedding, not four people with two registrars in an office.

And by the way, to just get the £46 bare legal ceremony so that we are protected in law, we had to wait a year because they offered only four slots a week at 9am and 9.30am on a Tuesday and Thursday. This was also not at our local register office but in a bigger city 15 miles away because they didn’t offer bare legal ceremonies at the local office which is within walking distance of our house.

Any other legal ceremony would have cost at least £150 for “room hire”.

Don’t tell the OP is not a real wedding just because they may already have a legal ceremony.

I think you could marry legally now, then send out invites for ‘the celebration of your marriage’
and then at the ceremony you can get the person leading it (a cheap friend if not religious, or the priest if in a church) to announce to everyone that this is actually a two year anniversary party! As well as a renewal of vows / marriage blessing if in a church.
i think the people saying they’d only be happy to attend a wedding if they watched the real live legal ceremony are mad. Nearly every wedding I’ve been to abroad the couple have done a civil first at home with just family then a ceremony and party abroad, it’s very normal. My friend also did a paperwork wedding with her husband living abroad then that paperwork got him into the uk so they did their church wedding blessing ‘wedding’ in the uk. None of their guests (who actually like and love them) complained that it wasn’t the ‘real’ legal ceremony and asked for their money back!

I guess your main question is whether to keep it a secret until the event itself or to tell people later, eg you could announce it on the save the dates or celebration invitations …
‘surpise! We tied the knot on 10.10.26, we’d you to celebrate with us with a ceremony to renew our wedding vows in front of all our loved ones / receive a blessing in our church, followed by wedding breakfast and disco at … on 10.10.28‘ - then no one like the entitled Scrooge’s upthread can claim they were hookwinked into spending on travel and hotels 😂

@Wededed

Generally speaking, any marriage which is legal in the country in which it took place is legal elsewhere. Obvs there are exceptions.

"A foreign marriage is generally valid in the UK if it follows these main rules:

Compliance with local law: The marriage must be legal and recognized in the country where it took place.

Capacity to marry: Both partners must have the legal capacity to marry (e.g., they must be at least 18 years old, not already married, and have mental capacity) according to the laws of their permanent home.

Legal in the UK: It is a type of union that is legally allowed in the UK (e.g., it is not a polygamous marriage if you are domiciled in the UK)"

So if you've attended marriages that 'weren't legal' chances are the couple didn't comply with local law since I'm assuming they were of age, not married already, not mentally incapable of consent, and their marriage would be legal in the UK. But chances are those couples were either already married in the UK or married quietly shortly thereafter.

But as far as your situation, do what you want, keep it a secret for two years if you wish. You do you. Just don't lie about it when the time comes for your big wedding. That's what would piss most people off. That you didn't give them the information they'd need to make an informed decision on attending vs not attending. If it was me, I'd shake my head, think "nowt so queer as folk" but since I love a good party I'd probably attend. But I would also think that you weren't expecting much in the way of gifts other than a card and a nice bottle of wine or such.

You are saying the same thing. Normally it's because you have to be in the country for 10 days to 14 days abroad before you can get legally get married in that country and people don't want to go away for this long before the ceremony. It's the same in the UK - you need to give notice (29 days in the UK).

So, to expedite this process they get legally married in the UK and then have the ceremony abroad. Either way the wedding is legal if the legal process is followed - here or abroad.

It doesn't mean they get married in the UK because it is only legal here!