Wedding without marriage

[DelythBeautyQueen]

My cousin who lives in North East England was supposed to be getting married next month.

Attending won't be cheap, but we were looking forward to celebrating Anna's and James' special day.

They will have all the trappings of an extravagant wedding. They are not wealthy and have taken out a large loan to pay for for it.

The bride and groom asked guests to give them money for their honeymoon in the Caribbean instead of gifts. We were happy to do that and sent them £300 a few weeks ago.

They originally intended to have the legal marriage ceremony in their local registry office a day or two before the wedding celebration and a non-legal humanist ceremony on the day. I know this is a fairly common thing nowadays and had no problem with it.

I found out last night Anna and James have decided to have the legal ceremony while on honeymoon, not before the "wedding". I wouldn't see this as too much of a problem if they were going straight on honeymoon from the wedding, but they are not.

It turns out that they haven't even booked the honeymoon yet and intend to go "sometime next year".

The "wedding" next month will go ahead exactly as planned. The bride and groom do not intend to tell guests that they won't actually be married. The only reason I know is because my aunt is very upset and told her sister (my mum).

I know that a few members of the family are stretching financially to attend this "wedding" for a couple that will not be married at the end of it and probably won't be married for as much as 18 months after it.

Am I being unreasonable for being angry about this. That we have been deceived into attending a sham wedding?

This sounds like one of them wants marriage and the other doesn't, and this bait and switch has been set up to "get married" but really avoid it. It's embarrassing and humiliating, but clever, because once it's done the person who wants to get married is not only left with nothing, but will be unable to publicly say they want to get married--because there was this public ceremony. I'm betting the woman wants it and he's avoiding it, which is why the aunt is so.upset. if I were the person wanting marriage, I'd cancel this ceremony and announce why.

Just a reminder that marriages conducted by a humanist celebrant are legal in Scotland. In England they are not. Don’t know about Wales or NI.

OP has already clarified a few times that this is in England and it is not a legal ceremony. Her post you quoted is accurate, you do need to have a legally-recognised ceremony - it just so happens that in Scotland celebrants can do those.

Thank you for the reminder.

As I have said a few times, my cousin's wedding ceremony is not a legal ceremony. Neither bride nor groom have said it is.

On the wedding invitations they stated that they would have the legal ceremony in their local registry office a few days before the "wedding" (in England).

They have apparently decided since then to postpone their legal ceremony until next year when they go on their "honeymoon".

The "wedding" will go ahead as originally planned, but they will no more "married" after it that before. They do not intend to tell their guests that this is the new plan.

Thank you. I didn't see your post before I posted mine.

@DelythBeautyQueen so you are not going to talk to your cousin to get the whole story?

Of course I will.

But when you say "married" you mean they had an actual wedding where they became legally married?

And you are saying that because you recognise that being legally married means something different from informally committing to someone?

Because if you see the distinction then I don't know why you're disagreeing with OP to say the legal status is unimportant!

Great, the anger that you are feeling from the 3rd hand conversation that you have heard is the bit that is disrespectful.

she may need your support not your judgement.

Do you know why they aren’t doing it a few days before still? I wouldn’t have an issue with that.

Nothing about this situation is great. I think you might have misunderstood the point.

My cousin may very well need support and if she does, she can be confident that it will be forthcoming. From me and others.

The source of the information is her mother and her mother's sister (my mother). So the information is reliable and their concern in no way disrespectful.

My anger is less at my cousin, because I doubt this farce was her idea. But I am angry that they or anyone would hold an extravagant event that has the appearance of a traditional wedding with no intention of actually getting married. Especially as it looks like they don't want to be honest about it.

Some posters have suggested I should refuse to attend or that I should ask my cousin to return the contribution we've made to their honeymoon. I have never suggested that I will do either of those things.

As I have made clear in a previous post, we intend to go to the "wedding". It will still be an opportunity to meet and catch up with family. I'm sure it will be an enjoyable occasion if not a wedding and we have already paid (non-refundable) for accommodation.

Unless they decide not to go on "honeymoon" to get legally married, I won't be asking for our £300 to be refunded.

My point in starting this thread was ask if I am being unreasonable to be angry that guests are being misled into thinking they are attending a wedding at the end of which the couple will not be married and will have no immediate plan to be married.

The vast majority of responses suggest I am not unreasonable.

I don't think you are being unreasonable at all.

I think lots of people would think this particular situation quite farcical, this one, not any in Scotland where the rules are obviously different according the many posts here or where others have actually got legally married in another small ceremony close to the date of the big wedding.

Seems as though your cousin is trying to save face with a big excessive wedding that is just a big, expensive party that she can't actually afford without a loan and she's not been very upfront about it.

No. According to my aunt, they have decided that they would like a private ceremony in the Caribbean. Apparently, the country they plan to go to conducts ceremonies that are legally recognised in the UK.

Like you, I would have no issue with them marrying a few days ahead of the wedding celebration. That seems a fairly common thing, especially when the wedding is being held in a venue that isn't licensed for marriage ceremonies.

It just seems ridiculous and dishonest to be "celebrating" something that hasn't happened and might not happen.

Whether the change of plan it is due to a romantic notion on the part of the bride and groom, or because one of them has cold feet, I don't know.

I doubt it was my cousin's idea to postpone. She was so excited about being married and keen to start a family that it would be a remarkable turnaround to decide to wait what could be as much as 18 months. I understand her fiance is keen to start a family too, although he has always been less excited to be married.

At the moment, I don't want to ask, because she doesn't know I know. When she is ready, I'm sure she will tell me.

YANBU

i agree a marriage is a legally binding contract, not just 2 people saying I love you in front of friends and family.

it dose sound like the groom may have cold feet, if that’s the case your cousin should make sure she’s covered if they do have children, in that if they break up she’s not left holding the baby with no financial support.

My DH and I almost had to have a non legal wedding. He (being a typical ADHD person) didn’t sort his divorce out when he said he had. We were a month away from the wedding when he confessed and only because I pushed him. We’d both been separated from our ex spouses a long time but neither of us got around to the divorce part. I got mine done, it was finalised about 6 months before the wedding. But because DH didn’t sort his out when he said he would we were cutting it pretty fine. Luckily it came through in time but we did discuss doing the wedding and secretly getting married at a later date. I felt there was no way I could tell our families, 99% of our guests were travelling to the wedding, both sets of parents and sibling were coming from overseas. I was mortified and angry at DH and thought we’d just do the ceremony without telling anyone the full story, because I was embarrassed too. As we didn’t get married in the uk and used a celebrant none of our families would have known whether it was legal or not.

I really don't understand why you are bothered about this. They will still be getting married. The legal bit just won't have been done. I got married in a field by a humanist celebrant and "legally married" a few days afterwards. The celebrant marriage was as far as we were concerned the marriage date and that's the day we celebrate as our wedding anniversary. That's the date all our friends and family came to see us married. For all intents and purposes we were married on that date and had a proper ceremony. It's only because of England's restrictive marriage laws that we couldn't make our humanist ceremony legal and had to marry again for the paperwork and legal status. I'm not sure why friends and family would be bothered about that, I certainly wouldn't be.

I really don't understand why you are bothered about this. They will still be getting married.

If you read all OP's posts it sounds like the issue is that that's what is in doubt... they're leaving it up to 18 months and sounds like at least one of them is having second thoughts about committing to it. So it's not like it's booked and imminent - they're essentially saying they will have a wedding at some point in the future - so similar to an engagement party.

I wouldn't go to your 'celebration'. It's certainly not a wedding if you won't do the 'legal bit' for another 9 months.

I wonder why they don’t just go on the honeymoon after the wedding party then!

Take a guess ...

I'd be very worried for her and consider her fairly foolish-likely to be pregnant soon but no Legal protector if he just ups and leaves after a bit.

It really doesn’t! It’s just a farce if they pretend to get married in front of guests who have gone out their way to attend, buy a gift etc but they aren’t married. They can be committed without the pretence of a pretend wedding!

last wedding we went to between hen day/stag day wedding outfits , gifts cost approx £1000.

id be mighty oussed off to have spent that amount of money to go to a pretend wedding!

There’s nothing wrong with what they are doing providing they tell everyone the situation. It is the deception that is wrong. It shows that they think there is something sly about the arrangements otherwise why don’t they come clean.

Makes this CF seem like much less of a CF to be fair!

personally if it is a party you’d be sorry to miss, an opportunity to see family etc then I’d just go and enjoy it! That’s what weddings are as well, an opportunity to see family and to make memories.

I would ask for my gift back and regift it when they actually get married - they’re taking the piss and when people fined out - which they will - it’s all going to kick off!

That’s a bit reductionist.

Gay couples have been having ‘weddings’ for a long time before we were allowed to get civil partnered or married.

No, they weren’t ‘marriages’ in the legal sense, but in every other sense they were- the motivation to do it, and the commitment and love they represented were just as real as those of straight couples.