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?

Normally on MN with weddings YA almost always BU but in this case YANBU at all.

My sister did something similar - married on the Wednesday, "wedding" on the Saturday. But they were clear from the start. No guest turned up expecting an actual wedding.

We are going to a wedding evening do in June. The date and venue has been changed 3 times and was only finalised last week, it isnt licenced for weddings and all suitable celebrants are unavailable for Saturdays in June (shocker) so they are getting married the day before, but haven't told anyone (my friend is bridesmaid and let it slip). It's the not telling anyone that is the issue here.

They are CFs and they don't deserve your kind generosity.

The legal part is the thing that makes them married, not a party or saying vows in front of people, The legal part is the most important part of a wedding!

this is very odd if you ask me! Why have they changed having the legal ceremony here? It’s doesn’t cost very much.

Curious as to what the registrar did that meant you had to cancel her?! 😳

I'd go so far as to say with no plans for the wedding in place, you're all paying off their loan and I'll be the first to place the bet that the "honeymoon" or holiday never happens!

The mistake you made is sending the "Wedding Gift" in advance I would either have given it to them when you seen them or posted/transferred it no more than 1 week before. They are definitely taking you all for a ride, but I would still attend the " false " wedding celebration to may as well get something for your gift. just make sure if they then have a post ceremony celebration you don't get caught to attend and dish out again.

Deceitful

My son and his wife got married in April 2021, we had the wedding in July 2021. I was pissed.

Oh come on, what makes them married is that they commit themselves to each other. That piece of paper is not about commitment, on the contrary, it's about what to do when you divorce.

That piece of paper is not about commitment, on the contrary, it's about what to do when you divorce.

Or die.

If they are not married, the survivor is often screwed if their partner dies.

What a total sham. Yanbu for being angry at all! I’d wash my hands of it.

It is a bit cheeky but as long as its banging party, I would be OK with it 😄

I got married recently. Due to the nature of DH's work and the finalising of my divorce we got married the moment we could, for the legal and financial protection. This ended up being 5 weeks before our wedding as we had built in a buffer to make sure I was single!

As so many people had travelled from all around the world, we told no-one and celebrated on the day as it meant so much to our guests to be at our wedding. We didn't even tell our children. People get rightly pissed off. We didn't want to tempt fate so rushed it.

This non wedding has a long yerm relatuonahip, one reticent groom, both people late 30s, a huge loan, no legal standing and late attempts to conceive.

My money is on the fact that it will never happen.

Not really - those couples that don’t marry are more likely to separate and kids born to non married parents are more likely to end up with separated parents, hence by definition cohabiting couples are (on average)ultimately could be considered less committed than those who choose to marry .However those differences can be down to differences in characteristics of couples such as socio-economic status and education meaning certain types of people are more likely to marry and certain types to co-habit - so it’s not quite so clear cut.

I think this too. One or other of them, or both, have got cold feet and they don't want to cancel the 'party' so they have come up with this. It's a sham and they will probably never get legally married

I wouldn’t say it’s even a wedding then! A wedding is to celebrate a marriage.

Why is it any more risky than their current status of boyfriend and girlfriend? It would be easier to split after a year if they're not married.

By the way I wouldn't have sent £300 nor would I have expected any money if it were my wedding or party.

They are both keen to have children though, which I would have thought is a bigger commitment than marriage.
Having children is a commitment to the children, not to each other.

sounds like james has no intention of marrying anna but realised time is running out for children.

As an aside, in Scotland a humanist can conduct a legally-binding ceremony.

But, it is odd to have a wedding where you've vague plans to marry "lateŕ" and to ask for money towatds a honeymoon that hasnt been booked or planned before the wedding party.

If theyd put plans in place & booked for the legal part to happen then it wouldnt seem as bad. Weddings are a big life event and a major rite of passage so their choice seems peculiar to me.

So as far as a guest attending the wedding the only thing that is different is the legality of the wedding? I can’t say it would bother me.

Highlighted to me that weddings are just basically shams anyway. Who cares if it's legally binding

I find the idea of celebrating a couple's amazing/true love/soul mate/blah status slightly nauseating when it lacks the key ingredient of legal commitment. It sounds like a couple trying to claim that their non-legal status is somehow better than the common herd.

Me thinks they do protest too much.

It feels such a con. When are they going to admit the truth? I know plenty of people who will wish a couple 'happy anniversary' in 1/5/10 years time. But it will be the anniversary of the day they lied publicly to a lot of people.

I would bet they never actually get round to the real wedding. All the gifted money will get spent on day to day living.

Fuck them off and demand your £300 back.

Cheeky fuckers !

They also haven’t thought it through with legalities etc and marriage having to be registered in UK after