Sibling’s secret wedding

[IsitanIssue]

Name change for obvious reasons.

Without being too outing, keeping it short as need opinions!

I got engaged, booked the venue, sent out save the dates to our guests. After sending out the save the dates, my sibling became engaged and booked their wedding to take place abroad 2 months after mine.

To avoid drip feeding: This is my first marriage. It is my sibling’s second marriage.* They left their first marriage after having an affair. It’s been less than 5 years since they got married the first time.

We did not go to my sibling’s wedding because it was a few months after ours and on the other side of the world. Unsurprisingly, we were broke after our wedding and did not have time to plan financially to go on their holiday of a lifetime so soon after our own celebrations. Clearly, relations were strained. This has created a HUGE rift in the family, and this sibling shouted at me several times and family members have been furious with us for not attending their wedding.

TWIST: It now turns out that my sibling secretly got married LOCALLY just days before our own wedding. So when we did not go abroad a few months later, we actually did not miss their legal marriage, as this was secretly attended locally to us with parents there. No one else seems to know the wedding abroad was not the legal wedding. Now legally, there was no need to get married in advance locally, as the wedding abroad would have been entirely legal and they are residents there.

AIBU- No reason to feel annoyed, and they are right to resent you.

YANBU- They hid important information about the wedding when shouting at you. That’s annoying.

*They have since broken up!

This is why we eloped without having any family invited or present - far too much drama!
Its done now. Your sister needs to get over herself if the marriage has ended anyway. I wouldn’t be annoyed at any of it to be honest. I would just think the wedding was their business and them kicking off about a now dead marriage was pathetic. Laugh at them/pity them. But don’t waste your energy being annoyed at them, that only hurts you in the long run.

That’s fair and the kind of honest advice I’m looking for. Thanks!

I've got no idea on what grounds they could be annoyed with you OP. You don't sound like you've done anything wrong and they sound bonkers.
And now they've split up?
Oh quelle surprise! 😂

They sound really unreasonable - did they just expect you to magic money out of thin air??
How did you find out about the secret wedding? How long ago did all this happen?

I think the fact they had a secret wedding first is neither here nor there. They shouldn't make a fuss about people not attending a destination wedding either way.

Is the HUGE RIFT still going?

So they knew you wouldn't be able to attend their destination wedding, also knew you would be able to attend their local wedding if you had been invited, but they chose (and your parents - double the duplicity) to not tell you about it or invite you? They are beyond ridiculous. It was shit of them to make a fuss about you not going to the destination wedding in any case, but at least doubly dickish if they deliberately excluded you from their local wedding tbh.

They are of course ridiculous to be annoyed at you for not going, and the rest of the family are even worse. (I'm assuming here there won't be a dripfeed about your own wedding and your expectations at the time or the expense of it for family members.)

However, doing the legal bit here before getting married abroad is very normal - even if it's possible to do the legal bit abroad it can be a right pain in the arse or have to be done in the local language, for example. Just think of it like separate religious and legal ceremonies, which is also very normal. So YABU to judge them for that.

If they've broken up now though surely it's all water under the bridge?

Friends of mine were getting married abroad but had the legal ceremony here a few weeks before. It’s fairly common for the marriage abroad not to be the official wedding, when it comes to weddings abroad.

It sounds like you don’t really get on, anyway. So let her be annoyed. If she really wanted you to attended the abroad marriage, she would have booked it at a time you had time to save up and gone or helped pay for you to be there, or had the whole wedding here or a host of different things.

You did nothing wrong by not going. I would be annoyed people were annoyed about that. But the fact that they had a legal wedding here would be neither here nor there.

But also don’t be too smug about the fact that have split up. I wouldn’t pity her or anything. I would be entirely not bothered either way.

How long ago was all this?

I don't understand either your annoyance or theirs. Avoiding this kind of time-consuming nonsense if why DH and I didn't have a 'secret' wedding, we had an actual secret wedding, with two friends as witnesses, that we didn't tell anyone else about for several years. One of siblings is planning similar, and the only one of us who did the traditional 'invite guests and wine and dine them' stuff says it was a headwreck and we were right to do it our way, and which had the added bonus of coasting under £500, including a good lunch with the witnesses.

It's usual to do the legal bit in the uk because all sorts of issues if you legally marry in a different country

Will take your point on board and really did not want to drip feed but was trying to make sure my OP wasn’t ‘TLDR’

We are all from the same exact ‘mixed’ marrying countries background so I am 100% familiar with the legalities of wedding abroad and here. It really was not necessary as I was in the exact same position. Also, doing it directly before our wedding rather than a bit closer to their wedding was a shock.

Was this a recent wedding that ended very quickly, or was it years ago? If the former, it suspect that there were problems in the relationship and you are being used as a scape goat ie. if the wedding had been perfect, the relationship would have lasted but because Isinissue didn't go to the wedding she clearly didn't support me so THAT's why the marriage failed. I've had similar after refusal to turn my life upside down to help a sibling out of problems of their own creation.

For those asking, the real wedding date came out during divorce proceedings as you need to be honest around those things.

Is it not good then that they kept it on the downlow?

Like clearly shit went down but I don't know why you're so caught up about the legal bit of their marriage. It's normal in lots of cultures and faiths to deal with the legal bit separately to the religious, emotional bit.

Yes, as a family we’ve not recovered.

Fair point. This does not apply to our culture, but I’m definitely taking on board that some people feel the legal bit can be handled differently by different couples. No judgement.

@IsitanIssue Sorry there has been a huge rift in the family, but it doesn't sound like you did anything wrong. Understandable that you couldn't afford a destination wedding so soon after your own one. But that was very nasty not to invite you to the one locally because you had turned down the one abroad.

Try not to let it get to you now. It's done and can't be undone by your sister. I would be mad too, but it's not worth it now. Try to let it go and enjoy your own married life

What exactly is it you've 'not recovered' from, though? It all sounds like a complete storm in a teacup on both sides.

I genuinely don't see why you seem to feel so vindicated by the fact that their legal wedding wasn't on the overseas trip you skipped.

Other than shouting at you, what is it you feel they did wrong? Choosing a wedding date two months after yours after you'd sent out 'save the date' cards? (How long should they have waited?) Getting married abroad? Not having the legal wedding during the trip? The marriage not lasting?

Also, just to add- the ‘secret’ legal wedding isn’t the issue. It’s more that we were shouted at and had relationships damaged for not attending their wedding (when they were actually already married)! We feel that if we and family had known the legal bit was sorted months in advance the fall out would have been less traumatic.

An invitation is not a summons. Never did get why anyone would waste so much money on a party tbh

Sorry it’s just we feel that if we and family had known the legal part was sorted months before there would have been less heated debate and the fall out. At least some family members might have backed off a bit.

EDIT: In terms of recovery we have family who fell out with us permanently. They’re civil at best when relationship was once warm.

A friend married quietly before their ‘wedding’ so that the legal docs were in the more convenient language for UK life.

I think you need to focus on the real issue, which is damaged relationships, and work on fixing them.

I’d go with ‘I was so disappointed to miss the wedding- we just didn’t have annual leave and money to cover it so soon after our own’.

I’d repeat that whenever anyone raises it- whoever raises it- because of course you didn’t need to miss it, with it having happened locally.

And carry on with relationships as though nothing awful has happened. It will blow over. It’s possibly more tense because there was guilt about hiding the legal marriage from you, and having close to your own. Nothing like feeling guilty to make you angry with someone else.

X10 given it didn’t last.

I’m not sure I’d attend a wedding where the relationship came about as an affair on principle to be honest. Affairs make a mockery of marriage so I wouldn’t want to sit and listen to them making vows when they’d so obviously dishonoured the vows in their previous marriage and caused so much hurt.

Your sister sounds like a lot of drama.