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?

Can you cancel the cheque??

I wouldn't have sent off my wedding gift a few weeks before the wedding.

Unless i had been notified of a deadline that the honeymoon had to be paid for by.

Yeah it’s definitely not a normal thing to do. They’re misleading their guests. People go all out for weddings whereas if they had labelled it as “engagement party” or something similar, they probably wouldn’t have gotten the response they wanted? (E.G a huge £300 gift from just one of the guests alone) I’d be pissed tbf. Very pissed. If they commit legally a few months ahead, no ones going to want to acknowledge that as you have all celebrated rather prematurely. Unusual…

My cousin's humanist ceremony is definitely NOT a legal marriage ceremony. The couple have been completely open about that. They said on the invitations that they were going to have the legal ceremony in their local registry office a few days before the "wedding".

As far as I am aware, no one was unhappy about that, because the "wedding" was to celebrate the marriage ceremony that would already have taken place.

Hmm, my first husband and I did the opposite.

We had the registry office wedding with a handful of people and had planned to the church and reception bit after we graduated Uni.

Well, we never got around to it. We were married and there always seemed to be something more important to spend the money on. Flat, car, holidays. Next thing you know, it’s five years in and we’re getting divorced 🤷‍♀️

They’ll probably end up never getting around to the honeymoon nor the wedding because they’ve already ‘done it’.

I wouldn't feel strongly about this. The vows are the important part.

Current polling is 19% unreasonable, 81% reasonable.

Assume the poll is representative of Mumsnet users and Mumsnet users are representative of wedding guests generally.

If you invite 100 guests to a party you call a wedding, but don't actually get married, you can expect 81 of your guests to think you are unreasonable.

I don't think it would be a very happy affair. Especially if your guests only found out on the day.

Like many people do these days, we had the small registry office( only us and witnesses) legal bit followed by a bigger humanist ceremony the day after, my sibling did the whole married legally abroad (only them & witnesses)followed by a wedding party back home…..many of our older relatives were a bit bemused by both of our weddings and certainly there were some grumbles ,so I think your cousin risks really annoying a lot of relatives….totally understand why people would feel a bit cheated by splashing out on wedding expenses to attend a non wedding with no plan in place for a legal ceremony.

My friend, who is a humanist celebrant, would make it absolutely clear that she is not legally marrying someone in this kind of ceremony. I don't think she would be happy to discover that most guests imagined the 'legal' bit had already been done. Why not spend the small sums required for the registry wedding first? The fact they don't plan to tell their guests means they know it's dishonest.

Some weddings are done before the legal ceremony and so in that sense they’re a sham too and the couple could end up never getting married for all anyone knows. When my brother got married at the town hall we weren’t allowed to mention they’d already had the wedding as it’s against some rule or something. I think it’s weird that they haven’t booked to actually get married, after all it’s only about a 15 minute affair and they don’t even have to dress up. It sounds like they’re doing so they can have a wedding but not a marriage. But I couldn’t get worked up, it’s their life and no one is forced to attend their wedding

A friend told me about a wedding she went to, they split up two weeks later on the day they got back from the honeymoon. I think that was a bigger farce.

How judgemental. How does it affect her?

I used to work with someone who invited people to her baby's Christening. Once in the church the vicar announced that before the Christening he was just going to conduct a wedding and the proud parents walked down the aisle together. No one seemed bothered that they'd been "conned."

I would ask for my money back as it was a wedding gift and no wedding will be taking place dow the foreseeable future and you're not giving them money just to host a party.

Is this the new faking cancer?

Go to the party if you feel like it. They prob won’t marry. They’ll be the family cringe forever tho.

More like a fancy engagement party, Wonder why are they delaying the legal ceremony until their "honeymoon". Effectively you are funding their wedding. £300 down

https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/family/living-together-marriage-and-civil-partnership/living-together-and-marriage-legal-differences/

Send this to the couple, they'll be up the creek without a paddle if they separate or die before having a legal ceremony l.

But that’s not really the same thing? Cost for attending a christening tends to be less than a wedding (token gift, less likely to travel so far, no hotel stay booked etc with the anticipation of drinking at a reception) - the guests in your scenario got to attend a wedding without that rigmarole and presumably got the christening they were invited to and expecting to attend. They were the opposite of conned in that they got two lovely events (and that sounds genuinely lovely) for the price of one! For the guests in your colleague’s scenario to feel conned it would be more like going to a christening only to be told on arrival that they were going to wait until the baby was old enough to decide what religion they wanted to follow so they were just going to attend a standard church service but they were still keeping the presents.

In the OPs case people are going to considerable effort (time and money etc) to attend what they think is a wedding when the legal aspect (which a lot of people do see as part and parcel of getting married) might never actually happen. I don’t think it would bother me too much personally, but I can see why it might others and it’s certainly unusual.

Shame you've already passed £300 over for a non wedding
Cheeky Fuckery of the highest order !

A close family member did this, people flew in from abroad, parents stumped up for the whole marquee, catering, cars, bride and bridesmaids traditional dresses, flowers.booze..the works. No legal bit was booked for 'tax reasons'. What a con

Actually the bride and groom were from opposite ends of the country so plenty of people had an expensive journey and hotel stay.

They were conned in that the event wasn't what it was supposed to be, also some people didn't attend due to cost with distance and hotels and they might have if they knew it was a wedding so they missed out. Don't know if anyone complained about it but it could easily have caused an issue to people who like to make an issue about what other people do rather than just feel happy for them.

No one was "conned". They were invited to a christening. They got a christening and a wedding too.

There is no similarly between your former colleague's wedding and child's christening and my cousin's sham wedding.

If it was someone I was close to and also knew the reason why they werent getting married yet then I might, just might get on board with this.

Otherwise, my thought is 'self-indulgent claptrap'. Is anyone that interested in other people's declarations of love, commitment etc when it isnt backed up by the legal bit?

If I found out later that some people had been told and some hadnt then I would feel very insulted. Good enough to provide backdrop to someone's fantasy party but not good enough to know the truth.

Con artists

You sent them £300?????? You are incredibly generous (and sadly, incredibly ripped off by this selfish pair of CFs)
Jesus, I think I'll divorce current spouse and look for another. Didn't realise it was so lucrative!