Not invited to wedding - AIBU?

[Cheesehound]

Help me out Mumsnet hivemind, please. I don’t know what to do/think and what is unreasonable or not. I’m confused basically!

Background - the Bride and I have been close friends for 15+ years. We now live miles apart and have very busy lives and kids etc but have remained close, messaging and calling regularly. She is like a sister to me. She was also one of my bridesmaids when I got married. Last year she asked me to be one of her bridesmaids for her upcoming wedding later this summer and I very happily accepted. I’ve been busy arranging the hen do with the other bridesmaids, who I have never met and live close to the Bride. Bride has been a little vague on wedding day arrangements but I understood it to be a ceremony with celebrant at a stately home followed by a reception after.

Bride messaged me last week to say that she was having a legal ceremony followed by a meal the following day, which was attended by the other bridesmaids and their families, essentially meaning that she is now married and the wedding is now a party later this summer - albeit one where there is a celebrant, wedding and bridesmaid dresses, hair and makeup etc, the full deal that you’d expect of a wedding, except - she is already married…and I wasn’t there! The other bridesmaids didn’t mention it to me in our hen-do chat either.

I’ve gone back through our wedding WhatsApp and there is a small mention of legal arrangements needing to be made - as in one single message about it, not an invite, just a statement of fact. I’ve been really preoccupied with personal stuff lately but was sure I hadn’t missed anything and I haven’t.

I haven’t felt able to say anything as I don’t want to spoil this time for her but AIBU to feel hurt and disappointed that I wasn’t there? I’m paying £ towards a hen-do and the expectation was for my family (DH and 3 young DC) and I to go to the wedding later this year. I could have gone down by myself to be there.

My DH is angry on my behalf and is really not keen about going to the ‘wedding’ as it will be £ and was going to be a bit of a trek with our kids anyway but he was looking forward to it and now it’s well, feeling a bit flat.

What would you do? Would you say anything? AIBU? I don’t want to spoil our friendship but what friendship?!

But the thread is, basically, about the opposite. Someone upset they have been invited to the meaningful part, but not the legal part.

Obviously, if you are signing a legal document that requires your date of legal marriage that is entirely different. But I would guess that occasions you have to do that are minimal. I can't remember ever having to give my date of marriage on any legal document in over 25 years.

Oh, and you don't need to be legally married to live in SFA. You just need to register with your command line HR that are you in a, established long term relationship.

@justteanbiscuits Oh, and you don't need to be legally married to live in SFA. You just need to register with your command line HR that are you in a, established long term relationship.

Well it the rules must have changed since the event I quoted.

@justteanbiscuits you’ve misunderstood. To me the meaningful bit is the legal bit. A religious ceremony means nothing when it comes to actually legally being married. Although I do understand if for different religions you do have to do 2 separate ceremonies. Maybe that needs to be changed, so different religious leaders can legally marry couples.

But in the OP’s case there is no need to do the legal bit separately as the venue is licensed for weddings. I wonder if they have done it this way and told the venue it is just a party to make it cheaper.

It was about 30 years ago if you had a child, but only 6 years ago if you didn't have a child.

But that level of "when did you get married" affects very very few people. Like I say, in over 25 years of marriage, I've never had to legally give my wedding date.

Because of who they want to lead the ceremony? Maybe they want a humanist celebrant and be able to use words of their choosing? Maybe they want someone special to them to lead it? It doesn't actually matter.

Like I say, I've been to many non legal weddings, where the couple have done the legal bit separately, and none of the meaning of it has been lost. They have all been lovely and special and I've cried at every single one still!

What are you talking about? I'm referring only to the FACT that the wedding itself is the LEGAL exchange of vows.

It doesn't matter what sort of celebration people want to have, everyone is free to do exactly as they like but since you've mentioned women specifically then I'll add that it would be a very good idea for women to be extremely clued up on what a wedding actually is so that they stop falling for charming nonsense from the men in their lives who seduce them with 'common law wife', 'child is a bigger commitment' and other assorted bollocks that will not protect them.

MN isn't vile to women at all, it's quite a women-focused site which is why I like it.

I misunderstood. I didn't think the second ceremony included the vows & assumed it was just the bride & groom in full regalia turning up to a venue where the guests hold the party having already been married. I've never attended a split ceremony. It's mostly been church services where the marriage is official when you sign the documents in a room within the church & immediately after the ceremony. This was also the procedure at my own wedding. There was no having to go elsewhere to sign anything. I'm not sure I'd have liked that anyway but nothing against it.

I can't remember how long ago it was, but I can remember the Bride-to-be telling me they couldn't have Married Quarters if they weren't married.

They brought the wedding forward from summer to Christmas week. It was the only wedding I ever attended in the winter.
It was snowing and guests were coming in wellies and changing their footwear in the church porch........

You mean Church of England when you say Church.

But even their parents aren't there, just 5 adults and their kids...why are you upset? It's their wedding they can do it the way they want. When picking witnesses for mine we said one from each side but then realised couldn't pick one sibling as others would be upset so ended up with 6 altogether then it was "well can I bring partner" and if we said yes then we would have to say yes to all partners and then their children as no one to mind them. So we stuck to just the 6 siblings and that's what we wanted, I'm sure people moaned but it's our wedding our decision and I do think op is being over sensitive. Me! me! me! 🙄

You'll see I've more than once referred to the fact women have been ACTUALLY hoodwinked into believing they are married when they aren't

It's nothing to do with wanting a proper ceremony and celebration separate to the legal bit of basic vows and signing paperwork

It's pretty vile imo to keep calling people liars and tricksters and fraudsters because they don't have the legal bit at the same time as their big ceremony

A lot of registrars are not predator do legal weddings if there's a Humanist Celebrant doing that bit. Also as I said above, there are more licensed venues than registrars available.

Some Catholic weddings are legal because the priest is given authority. Humanists just want the same. Jewish and Quaker weddings are legal "according to their practices" and it would be easy to make Humanist weddings the same.

Posters seem to understand that people from different religions will have two ceremonies, and are fine with that. Why don't they understand that Humanists are the same? Yes the legal bit is important, but it was more significant for us to stand up in front of friends and family and have them celebrate our relationship.

As for celebrating anniversaries, my DH and I celebrate both. He remembers the legal date and I remember the Humanist date.

I totally disagree!

It’s super easy these days to get a divorce or annulment for a legally recognised marriage! It’s just a legal contract!

Making a promise and commitment to each other in front of friends and family however and celebrating a marriage and lifelong commitment is entirely something else and in my opinion is the real marriage!

It’s interesting that 20 years ago when I got married plenty of people were saying that unless you got married in a church ‘you were not really married’ and that a registry office wedding didn’t really count!

Incidentally I wanted to book my wedding in a bordering council to the one I lived in (literally 0.5 kilometres over the border from the city nearly all of my friends and family lived in, but it ended up being so complicated with additional fees that we just had the registry office wedding in our Council and everyone travelled to the wedding reception after (a few miles away) it also made us decide to have the wedding reception at a different location because we didn’t need to have a ceremony there!

But if your wedding venue is outside your council boundary getting a registrar there can be extremely expensive and potentially risky if they get held up in traffic.

Perhaps that may also have been part of the reason for doing the register office part first?

@envbeckyc it maybe easier to get a divorce but financially being married makes a difference

But even their parents aren't there, just 5 adults and their kids...why are you upset?

We don't know if the parents knew well beforehand and were happy with the arrangement.

I still feel OP's hurt is mainly because she was kept in the dark till the day before while the other bridesmaids were the chosen ones and neither they nor the bride had let on.

Actually when I got married I wasn’t concerned about the financial aspect of it…. I was far more concerned about letting my husband make decisions on my behalf in case of an accident than my Parents because I trusted him more!

I would counter that most people don’t get married for financial reasons as there isn’t anything to be gained from it (in the 1980s my Dad did get a married man’s tax allowance but that’s long gone) perhaps life insurance and pensions, but you can nominate the beneficiaries yourself and you don’t have to be married or related to them.

You can also get a civil partnership (if you are a couple to cover all legal aspects) as both civil partnerships and marriages are recognised as legally binding and provide the same rights and responsibilities, including inheritance, parental responsibility, and pension benefit.

It’s just that rather than getting a divorce you get a dissolution if you separate!

I for example have never had any joint accounts with my husband, we just split household bills between us!

You don't need to be married for that
You can get a civil partnership (they aren't just for same sex) or even set up a cohabitation agreement

Sorry to hear that 😕 😕

You're on some sort of crusade. I don't imagine that most people would give a shiny shit as to whether people have the 'legal bit' at the same time as the celebration or not but what is wrong is to present the celebration as the actual wedding when the legal bit has already been done. Be honest and truthful with your guests/wedding party (in the case of the OP) and it's golden.

Lie about it or do the 'Surprise!, We're already married' thing when your guests think they're attending a wedding then that is abhorrent behaviour.

I'm not trying to change your mind, you won't change mine either so let's leave it there.

No OP, please don't do this.
Its really not good to suppress feelings especially ones of hurt and it's still a while until the events.

If you're as good friends as you say you are then you should be able to say to her that whilst you feel uncomfortable with raising it, you felt hurt when you found out that she'd gotten married already without you there and was there a reason for this as you would have made the trip down if you'd known about it. She's your best friend and you love her.

See what she says

It's not lying

You are the one on a crusade here.

Because no one cares, only if it's religious or civil not if theres a celebrant or not, oh except on mn where the highly judgemental nut jobs act like to have a registry office marriage separate from "the celebration wedding" is the crime of the century 🙄

If they are required to give their wedding date on a legal document, no doubt they would give the actual wedding date, not the date of the sham pageant. Unless they are idiots.

Different religion? I'm not Christian so I assume I am included in that. My wedding day was the day we had our legal ceremony.

For certain things, you have to provide the date you were married and a copy of the marriage certificate and that date is the date of the legal ceremony, not a religious cermony or a party or reception day if they were not on the same day.