AIBU to think this wedding might not happen!?

[weddingcrasher29]

Name changed as massively outing. My cousin recently got engaged to her DF and they are marrying in September 2018. They've booked the venue, caterers etc. All deposits have been paid by her.

My aunt wants us to book a coach and hotel as they are marrying around 400 miles away in the UK (where cousin is originally from). It would be around £150 for our family.

Here's the AIBU- he's still legally married to someone else. He left his wife for my cousin 14 months ago cousin and DF have a 6 month old baby which was the catalyst and he has very little contact with wife who is doing everything she can to stop contact with their 2.5 year old daughter. It's unlikely she would make the divorce process easy for him to marry the OW and he hasn't even sent the paperwork off to the courts yet as my cousin says he can't afford it. I wouldn't be surprised if he just did a runner but that's another issue and not really my business; she loves him

I don't want to shell out money for a wedding that might not even legally be allowed to happen- that's not unreasonable is it!?!

No that’s not the see gabs that’s just one of the grounds for divorce.

weezol you can’t get divorced within a year of getting married but you can annul in that period in the right circs.

*case not see

"We understand that finalising numbers is important to you while planning your wedding, but to avoid unnecessary stress we'd prefer to wait until the Groom can confirm his place before we confirm our own

Yes. Yes. Please reply with this I would really,really be tempted to in your shoes and would have to seriously sit on my hands not to send that reply!

I see I posted in October. I haven't changed my view, your cousin is a fool.

Who knows whether the wedding will go ahead?

I actually think your post is really unkind.
And the strike through stuff Ian just a way of being extra unkind.

It will cost a lot more than £550 my daughters partner recently went to the solicitors for a divorce and had to give them £1200 before they would do anything my exh divorced me 20years ago and it me £3500

"We understand that finalising numbers is important to you while planning your wedding, but to avoid unnecessary stress we'd prefer to wait until the Groom can confirm his place before we confirm our own

✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️✔️

Sounds like a GoFundMe.

Pay for my "wedding" x2

Really damn classy

It took my DP a little over 7 years to divorce his exW. He cited grounds of unreasonable behaviour and they had already been separated for 2-3 years before we got together but she dragged her heels as much as she could to try to stop us being together. Obviously it didn’t work and her behaviour actually brought us even closer together. That was a few years ago and we don’t have the money to get married (hopefully it’ll happen one day) but are so happy together that it doesn’t matter.
My point is that his divorce took over 7 years because she contested it saying that she believed they’d get back together given time. In the end she agreed to the divorce but only by saying he was the unreasonable party not her (he wrote a letter via his solicitor stating that he didn’t care who was listed as unreasonable as long as he got a divorce from her). So, unless your cousin’s DF’s soon to be exDW agrees with the divorce and helps it to go ahead smoothly then I doubt he’ll be free to legally marry on their first anniversary of the ‘blessing’ let alone this September!

Regarding proposing to someone when still married, my DP’s solicitor said that in law you can’t propose to someone when still married. However, I don’t know whether this is factual law or just his moral opinion as the two seemed to overlap somewhat when he spoke!!

It wouldn't even occur to me to book accommodation/transport etc for this non-event.

I wouldn't even bother putting it on my calendar. Keep the date free for a genuine event, such as doing the grocery shopping.

@addictedtoradley it costs very little to get married. If it is the fancy wedding you can't afford i.e. the party, then clearly your "so happy together that it doesn't matter" relationship is superficial. I hope you don't have children with him as, should the relationship go wrong, you have no legal protection for yourself or them.
There are so many women on Mumsnet who think they have some sort of legal "common law" status. That is a myth. You are not even his next of kin.

We need to know about the 🚌 and 🏢

This happened to my cousin, wedding booked and his wife didn’t have her final divorce paperwork completed, people had booked flights from the USA, date of wedding changed but flights couldn’t be.

I would feign ignorance and make reference to the groom's impending divorce on facebook. People need to be made aware of this sham 'marriage' & who would perform a none religious blessing? Surely even a humanist minister would require both partners to be single before marriage.
Call them out on it op.

I'm surprised the Daily fail hasn't picked up on this story. They might be doing the community a service for once in it's miserable existence.

To be fair, there's nothing whatsoever stopping them having a fake ceremony at any time. A blessing could literally be a wedding 'officiated' by a friend.

It's not a zombie thread - the OP updated.

I wonder if "the real wedding" will ever happen. I bet they'll expect fuss and presents at both. What a twat.

so its not true but one of the grounds for divorce-so it wont be granted then?

I really would say you don’t have the money right now. Apologise and say you will book something closer to the time when you have the money even if it is a separate hotel etc. You and DP can have more fun in a different hotel to the rest of your family anyway :)

Actually Esspee it is that we can not afford to get married at the moment and not just that we can’t afford some fancy wedding. Just for the ceremony it costs between £290-£560 to get married at our local registry office. I am religious and would prefer a church wedding at our local church that I attend weekly but the church and vicar alone is £960 without additional costs such as heating, organist, choir etc. I would love to get married but when you are living on a shoestring every penny counts and food is more important than a wedding.

We do have children together and I am not worried about him upping and leaving us all, like he is not worried about me upping and leaving.

I am his next of kin on all medical records. Not really sure what you meant by saying I am not.

YANBU, your cousin sounds like a deluded idiot tbh (sorry)

That was a few years ago and we don’t have the money to get married (hopefully it’ll happen one day) but are so happy together that it doesn’t matter.

Erm, that's not how it works. Marriage doesn't necessarily matter to happiness, but it matters to legal position.

The stuff that's been said about next of kin isn't necessarily right, it's not true that a blood relative would automatically take precedence over you. But there are lots of situations where being married matters, and your happiness won't have an impact on that. I take on board what you say about finances, and am not assuming that marriage would suit you better either, but you at least need some legal advice if you're in a partnership with someone.

Sorry to hijack your thread OP.

NaiceBiscuits even if it was the prices you said we still couldn’t afford it but the vicar had said it costs more because its a very old village church with high maintenance costs. He said all churches are priced differently though and that XYZ church may be cheaper but this is our local church where we know all the regulars and close family are buried there so it is important to us. Like I said though, unfortunately whether it’s around £500 or £1,000 just for the service itself and forgetting outfits & maybe a little gathering in the village hall afterwards, it’s still a cost we cannot afford at the moment.

My partner has, literally, no blood family whatsoever other than our children (we only have children together not separately) so I would guess that either I am his NOK or our eldest child (lower primary school age). Either way, we have no debt other than bills we pay monthly like utilities and phones. We don’t have overdrafts, credit cards etc and have a joint bank account. The house is a rented house and was solely in my name prior to him moving in and we haven’t changed that as it would’ve cost to add him (our landlords wanted to draw up a completely new joint tenancy) so we didn’t see the point. I’ve honestly never thought that we needed to be married but it is something that we want to do. Perhaps I am being naive and/or stupid and perhaps I will get slated but I honestly don’t see why we would need to get ourselves into a debt that we could ill afford just to be husband and wife in law. We are living on the breadline as it is but as we have no long term debts we are fine. I’m not sure if matters, but if it does we have been living together for 16 years.

I am genuinely interested in finding out what legal advice we need Beetlejizz and how it would help us. If we had property, savings and/or debts then I could understand the need to be married or to have something legally binding but not sure how it would benefit us.