Over wedding ceremony

[Biscuitsgalore18]

Hello,

We are getting married in August, lots of our family/friends are having to book accommodation to stay over and as we all know attending weddings can be expensive. We have planned a really lovely event, so that everyone would have a good time with live music, lots of food and a semi-free bar.

The issue is I have mentioned to a few people that we are having a celebrant wedding with a hand fasting, rather than traditional exchanging of rings etc. we had planned to visit the register a few days beforehand to complete the legal paperwork. So we will be legally married. However, people are saying this is fake, that our guests are being cheated out of attending ‘the real wedding’. Basically we are being completely unreasonable and tricking people and I have my parents and brother wanting to attend the registration office to see us ‘actually get married’ which wouldn’t be possible as we have just booked a £50 one where it’s a maximum 4 people, us and 2 witnesses.

Anyway they are suggesting we cancel the celebrant and arrange for a registrar to attend the venue. I am so upset, I have wanted a hand fasting ever since I was about 10 years old and watched Braveheart. I am 42 now!

AIBU for having a celebrant? Is this an unacceptable way to treat our guests?

Why is a religious ceremony more important than a civil one?

It’s your wedding and you should do what you want. But I wouldn’t come if I knew, not if it was going to cost a lot of money. For me the most important part is witnessing the ceremony. I went to one reception after a wedding abroad and it was just soulless. I don’t go to evening dos either FWIW, without the legal but it’s just a party. And I don’t tend to spend £££ on a party. I hope you have a lovely day.

I’m assuming that you live in the UK as I have done for most of the last fifty odd years, so I can only say again, I have never come across anyone who has had such difficulty in organising a wedding where their guests get to see the wedding vows and the celebration afterwards. And no, your post did not explain why you found it so difficult.

My family and friends plus DHs family and friends are not one homogenous group.

It's not your wedding, you've invited them to a celebration of your wedding that will take place a few days before.

Don't the majority of guests only get invited to the reception rather than the ceremony for normal uk weddings anyway? A lot of the time venues don't have the capacity for people who aren't close friends or family.

No, this isn't customary. Usually you invite a number to the ceremony and reception and optionally invite more to the evening party.

Have we established whether the OP actually has any beliefs that pertain to a hand fasting? It seems like she just likes the look of it from watching it on braveheart as a child.

This is the crux of the difference between a wedding of a couple who are religious but not Christian, and this situation.

A Sikh wedding will have standing, significance and recognition within the Sikh community so it is much easier to see that ceremony as the real wedding. In the OPs case it seems like this is just something she fancies doing and her community do not have any beliefs in this regard…so you can see why they don’t really get it or see it as purposeful.

You can’t just tell someone something is meaningful and have them accept it as so. Religious communities having religious weddings will have centuries of culture surrounding their family and wider community to give that ceremony the significance that it does. This does not seem to be the same.

I am still of the opinion that you should crack on with the symbolic ceremony as you wish but parents and siblings should get an invite to the registry office.

But OP is not Sikh, she's borrowing handfasting from my culture, not yours

OP, your wedding, your choice. Re: Braveheart, it was released in 1995. Not that it matters, a teenaged dream is just as precious as a childhood one. Congratulations 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 🌺

It's not compulsory to invite a larger number to the reception, but the venue will be able to accommodate a much higher quantity guests for the after party than for the wedding ceremony itself. That was the case in the venue I worked at , and all the ones I visited when planning my own wedding.

I've been a guest at numerous wedding receptions where the majority of guests have just been to the after party.

But at this wedding you would witness the ceremony: the hand fasting ceremony, vows, the ceremony led by the celebrant.

Nothing like being invited just for the evening do of a Reception.

Anything other than CofE, the 'state church', too. Catholic ceremonies are Christian and also require a registrar. And there are still a restricted number of venues in which marriages can legally take place.

The law surrounding marriages in the UK seems pretty anachronistic having lived for a while in the states, where people can marry in their own front rooms if they like.

People's attitudes surrounding other people's weddings are odd. Yes, first and foremost it's a legal covenant, but few marrying couples simply want to sign a piece of paper. We eloped to Italy and had the sum total of four guests, but still wanted a 'wedding' albeit small and our own style of celebration.

Handfasting isn’t purely a Celtic thing though as previous posters have implied - it also has a long history in Anglo-Saxon England/into early modern England, so much so the church was very interested in legislating it as having control of marriage etc was one of the ways the church controlled the local populace (plus Celtic tribes were also the indigenous people of what would later become England - they didn’t just disappear and their traditions would have been incorporated and assimilated alongside the newer Saxon, Viking, Norman arrivals etc). A similar sort of of ritual has appeared all over the world at different times so it’s clearly a metaphor for commitment that appeals to people in general rather than belonging to one particular group. It also varied (or certainly did in medieval England, I’m sure Scottish posters will know more if there was an established definition under Scottish law) between being a practice signifying betrothal (so more like an engagement) vs the formal wedding ceremony vs a temporary arrangement depending on individual interpretation, time, place etc!

I do think @2024namechange might have a point why people are upset/put out. In a religious ceremony that’s separate from the legal bit many of the guests will have the same mindset that it’s the ‘real’ ceremony so won’t mind. Or will look more favourably on established religious traditions vs something the couple liked in a film. For many of your guests, it’s likely that the ‘culture’ of the ceremony is seeing you exchange vows, sign the register, the any objections bit and seeing you actually legally become married etc. Your family have probably long imagined the moment they’ll watch you go through the same (or very similar) rituals that they did so the handfasting might be a bit of a curve ball for them. That said you’re entitled to have the wedding ceremony you want and people shouldn’t be being rude to you - again, something about weddings seems to bring out people’s interfering nature!

I think the most important part is whichever part feels most important to the couple.

Gay couples spent years celebrating only ‘blessings’, then civil partnerships before we were allowed to actually get married- by your definition non of that was ‘real’… in every way other than a government with its head up it’s arse it was real.

we had a service at the register office to sign the civil partnership papers, but our ‘wedding day’ was a separate day where we had a church service exactly like a wedding with hymns and vows and a sermon etc- we just didn’t sign the book. We had bridesmaids and ushers, speeches, a photographer, musicians, a dj, cake cutting, first dance etc etc.

Everyone turned up and had a great time, and didn’t miss the 3 minutes of registry signing.

Thanks so much for your helpful advice