To be furious about my wedding

[Itsalltoomuch19]

So got married yesterday and want to point out it was amazing day full of the people I love and care about the most. But one thing caused me hours of stress and I think I should complain.
Our venue doesn’t have an actual marriage license so you get ‘married’ in a barn and I paid £500 for a celebrant to conduct the ceremony we met with her before and told her no one knew we were getting married a fews before and the people from the venue were coming to be witnesses so as no one felt they were not left out and both sets of parents had contributed a lot to this wedding so I didn’t want them being annoyed. An hour before I arrive my DH text me to say the celebrant has told his mum that we got married last week, he mum was upset and then asked my mum if she knew. I think she wanted to find out if my mum had been invited and not her, so now both sets of parents knew and were upset. This is all before I got there so I felt so upset and stressed by it as we didn’t want this to happen and she knew that.
Even the venue were limited and said they have never had a celebrant do this before and they have 3-5 weddings every week for the last 5 years! I really want to email her stating how stressed she made me feel and caused a bit of tension on the day but my DH thinks it’s done now we just need to face our parents today and explain the reasons and leave it

I knew a friend who got married in a private ceremony that only took a few minutes because it was basically a legal thing they decided to do then had a blessing the next year and everyone was invited maybe that's something you could do. Ultimately who you have at your ceremony is your business. My wife said her father wasn't welcome at her our wedding as well. Good luck. Haven't read through all 20 pages of responses so I hope the talk went well.

I knew a friend who got married in a private ceremony that only took a few minutes because it was basically a legal thing they decided to do then had a blessing the next year and everyone was invited maybe that's something you could do. Ultimately who you have at your ceremony is your business.

Were the people at the blessing the year after under the impression that they were attending the actual wedding though?

YANBU but what kind of wedding venue can’t act marry people?! Stupid

*actually

Venues without a license, simple

Congratulations !

We did exactly this last year and had a more than a few wobbles about what to tell people beforehand...
We wanted to have an outdoor humanist ceremony -not legal in England unless you have a "fixed structure" and various other constraints..
(humanism.org.uk/campaigns/human-rights-and-equality/marriage-laws/)
Anyhow - we spent a very long time trying to find an "official" celebrant and registrar who could attend any number of civil ceremony licensed venues near where the outdoor ceremony was going to be held - tried numerous registrar offices and none were available in any way that would work with a lot of family and friends flying in the day before and without creating a 2 tier wedding invite issue
So, we just kind of glossed over it, everyone knew it was a humanist ceremony, the legal issues had been in the news a lot in the months around the wedding, and so if someone directly asked we told them, but not if they didn't ask (and only one person did ask beforehand)
And so we didn't explicitly tell a close family member who had contributed to the "wedding/party" as they didn't ask.

So a few days before we had a £50 ceremony in the only registry office we could find in a decent radius that didn't only offer the abridged version at 9am on a Monday..
It during the week leading up to our wedding, and it was lovely and fun, but it wasn't what we considered to be our wedding, (although legally it was clearly..) and we had two lovely friend with us as witnesses - then we went for a posh curry.
It was "nice" but not personal and in a cupboard sized room. (The thing that perturbed me the most was the registrar and celebrant seemed genuinely upset that we having another ceremony - and that they were missing out on something ..?!)
We did get dressed up, although in retrospect getting my eyebrows waxed an hour before was an error...

Anyway, on the actual day (as far as we are concerned) everyone had a fab time, the very personal ceremony was well received by the guests (lots of whom are v religious so that was a relief) and yes, a few people asked about the "legalities" that day or the few days afterwards, and we told them - including the close family member. They were a bit confused initially (its legal in the country that a lot of my family are from from so they hadn't clicked) but they'd had a great day, and so basically let it slide.
No-one has mentioned it since and we don't feel remotely guilty about it.
We had the wedding we wanted, and so did you.
Yes the celebrant should have been more discreet and pointed people in your direction, but my other big piece of advice is that its done, you're married, happy days !
Don't waste any more of your mental energy on overthinking this - you're probably flipping exhausted as it is
Have a great married life

Sounds lovely neuro, but you weren’t pretending to do something other than what you did. It was a humanist ceremony not a wedding. Very different to allowing your parents to contribute financially to something and lying about what it is.
Especially expecting another person to collude with the lie and even threatening to make an official complaint against them because they won’t (and can’t) be dishonest.

It sounds like your day was lovely and chilled and relaxed. The OP was the opposite - stressed and angry - all because she wouldn’t be honest.

Why not just tell them you let them pay for what they thoguht were their childrens wedding and are shocked that theyre upset when they found out

Venues without a license, simple

So why get "married" there in the first place?!
Don't get it.
If you're going to get married at some venue that can't actually marry you, at least let the attendees know that it's just some after party or pretend wedding, just don't pretend it's the actual thing!

We went to a wedding of my husband’s uni friend. I knew it wasn’t legal as it was in a tent (not sure if law has changed since was over 10 yrs ago) I sat there puzzled and I bet others were. The celebrant announced they had already married the day before for legal reasons and everything went oh, it was really deflating. Better if people had known in advance they were coming to a blessing I think.

It also involves deceiving them over quite a period of time, given that often venues for these sorts of celebrations in August are going to be booked up a year or more in advance. So for the whole time of planning, the parents have been under the illusion it’s a wedding they’re coming to.

I can’t see how any rational person could think that lying about it was a good idea

I think you prob should have made it absolutely clear that this was confidential and have told the celebrant to say. I thing - she wouldn’t have to lie, just not mention it, there’s no reason that anyone else would.
I think that you should definitely contact her and tell her how upset you are so that at least she will keep her mouth shut for other brides!
Just tell your parents that you did the 15 min legal bit, but YESTERDAY was your dream wedding.
I didn’t tell anyone about mine - I just went and got married and told them the next day, because I didn’t want all the fuss. They were upset but then first grandchild came along and they’re all well over it now.

I wouldn't, I'd just explain your reasonings to both sets of parents, put down the phone and enjoy the aftermath of your wedding!

Tubs- OP returned earlier and by then realised she’d look like a vindictive dick for complaining based on the fact that a person doing their job won’t lie.

You haven’t done anything wrong OP, in fact, you have every right to complain about the celebrant.
Whether you are married or not, is your personal information, and therefore the celebrant has breached GDPR by sharing this with people other than yourselves.
Anyway, congratulations and I’m sorry to hear that your parents and in laws are sad, they should be able to put all of this behind them and respect your decision. It shouldn’t matter who paid what.

I'd be really annoyed too. But I'd be happy to explain to my family that it was ticking a 'legal' box and as far as you were concerned you weren't married until you'd said 'the words' in front of your family and loved ones.
There's no mention that you celebrated the legal part yourselves (had you gone so I might have felt differently), but just ticked the legal box and got on with that day.
It's a bit like buying insurance for a car - legally you have to have it before the fun part kicks in, but unless you then get a car it's just an expensive piece of paper!

Though marriage itself is waaaay better than getting a new car

‘Whether you are married or not, is your personal information, and therefore the celebrant has breached GDPR by sharing this with people other than yourselves.’

Christ it’s depressing to see this level of ignorance. Marriage is a personal decision but it’s actually a matter of public record.

And far from breaching GDPR, the celebrant would actually have been in the wrong for deceiving or indeed in any way trying to pass the event off as a wedding.

(I’ve noticed that for some people, GDPR legislation has been like a toddler learning a new word. They excitedly Chuck it about at every opportunity without a clue what they’re talking about )

YABU IMHO

Why ask your parents and MIL FIL to pay for a fancy pretty venue and food, drinks etc and tell them lies?

I think it is worst because you had both sets of parents pay for something that you deceived them about

Why are you on MN the morning after your pretend wedding?

So in these "pretend" weddings (when the legal marriage has already happened) do they do the whole ceremony like giving away the bride, exchanging rings, vows, signing pretend register?

Or is it like a blessing that acknowledges that the marriage has happened already?

Maybe I’m just showing my decrepitude but I don’t see why you’d pay someone £500 to perform a non-wedding. Sounds like a great job if you can get it though.

Even if she hadn’t told your parents they’d have surely worked it out when she didn’t pronounce you husband and wife and when there was no register to be signed

SubisYodrethwhenLarping

I’ve been to a number of these type of celebrations as well as actual weddings.

Sometimes the couple want to have a lot of the features of a wedding service - eg often they say vows to each other and there’s sometimes a certificate they can have to mark the ceremony. But no one pretends it’s an actual wedding- indeed the celebrant isn’t allowed to. Often they will start by saying that the occasion is to ‘celebrate the marriage of...’ or ‘to mark the marriage of...’
Also the invitations have said something similar eg ‘you are invited to celebrate the wedding of....’
There are pretty basic differences because you cannot marry two people without being registered to do so and there are specific wordings to legal marriage.

It’s a pretty stupid idea to want to pass off a celebration as the actual wedding when you’re already husband and wife (which the OP now seems to have acknowledged)

I wouldn’t mind at all how my own kids choose to marry, or to celebrate the marriage, it’s up to them. I’d be pretty shocked if they tried to deceive me about it though. Just be honest.

Ok there’s no need to be rude AccioCats. I was trying to be supportive of the OP as they are getting a lot of stick during what should be one of their happiest periods in life.
And yes it is contextual, at my place of work that would be seen as a GDPR breach. It is up to the OP to look into what the celebrant can and cannot do.

She wasn’t rude. She pointed out you’re wrong @Freshlinen.

So comparing me to a toddler that has just learnt a new word isn’t patronising?
Ok I am wrong, I apologise - but there are many politer ways to tell someone that without being rude. I’m off 👋🏼

at my place of work that would be seen as a GDPR breach

I think someone at your place of work needs to check out what the GDPR actually says.

The fake wedding cannot be a GDPR breach, as the real wedding is a matter of public record.
Hence there have to be at least 2 official witnesses.
The real wedding date and real wedding venue will be on your real marriage certificate.
If you intend to lie about it, then it might be better to have the legal ceremony at the register office on the same day as any other celebration. This would avoid future confusion with relatives, over anniversaries, etc