AIBU to want a wedding ceremony without making the marriage legal?

[Interaillingmum]

I am a single mum of a DD and my partner of 4 years is a full time single dad of twin DDs.

I earn more than double his salary. He cooks and does other things that I am terrible at! He's not fussed about marriage but I've always wanted to be married since I was a little girl. Im religious and marriage for me means I would like to take vows on our union, have it blessed and celebrate with loved ones. He is willing to do this.

I've been in a relationship that traumatised me in the past. I've built up everything I have now from scratch and even though I have love and stability in my relationship I know that things can change. I would hate to risk that.

If anything happens to me I want my assets to go to my DD without question. Inheritance my DD. If anything were to sour our relationship id want to separate without a lengthy legal battle. I'd want what's his to go to his DDS if anything happened vice versa.

Marriage provides me with no legal protection and would put me in a worse position for protecting my funds and my DDs future but I do want to have the wedding and make a commitment to this man.

Aibu to have our wedding but not follow it up with a legal registry?

Do what you like, of course!

Just stay as you are if you don’t want to be fully married, doing it halfway seems like kids playing dress up as being married..what’s the point? It won’t change the level of commitment to your partner if you have a party

the last three weddings I went to weren’t even on the same day as the legal part. I really didn’t give a fuck. Weddings are self indulgent exhibitionism whether they’re legal or not.

But did they have the legal part in the week or so before or after the big do/party... or just never at all, with no intention to do so?

At the risk of being boring, Christian marriage is not a series of nice words but really serious promises, made before God, if that is your belief system.

....

It is unlikely OP will get the ceremony she wants in any Christian church, because what would the minister be blessing? Not actually being committed?

As you hint at first above the Christian service is the wedding and the legal stuff is the add on. Clearly they are now blended to the point of being indistinguishable but your logic at first is correct and your second statement is wrong. (IMHO)

The Nikkah is the proof of that, a religious wedding doesn't have to be the same.as a "legal" wedding at all. Another proof is that if you are married in a registry office you can still get married.in a church post divorce. So the Church isn't hung up on the legal side ar all. But I agree they are unlikely to perform a marriage ceremony without the register being signed because of the establishment of the church, if that's the right word.

Do people really go to weddings the celebrate the "legal" bit rather than the romantic "promise to commit as lovers" bit?

If it's really the former you might as well have "getting a mortgage" parties or "Power of attorney" parties.

For heaven’s sake just make a will and get married already. It’s not that hard.

Nope. Some do, some don’t. There’s nothing magical about it.

And what of issues like, one of you gets ill or injured; who is your next of kin? Not him obviously. If your daughter is under age, if you die, who will be her guardian? Are there tax advantages to being married? And why would you even want to have a commitment ceremony to someone you obviously don’t trust? Either you’re in or you’re out, OP.

I’ve no idea and I don’t care.

came on to say this! She’s not legally married to Joe although she wasn’t exactly open about that - she had the big “wedding” at Pickle Cottage ( 🤢 ) but it was a blessing/ceremony, not legally binding.

he’s been bankrupt before so I think she’s protecting her assets. She acts daft online, but she’s far f try on it.

Exactly which brings us back to what’s the point?

There's no point pretending to get married without getting married. Just continue as partners. It's silly playing make-believe like this.

Which is not a legal marriage.

If you only care about the legality you can have a civil partnership, yet people still have weddings.

So clearly people do think the other aspects of a marriage are worth having. Moreover do all the wedding magazines focus on the legal aspects? They don't. So further evidence that for many people the non-legal aspects are worthwhile.

I don’t think that’s true - people have weddings instead of civil partnerships because they want to be married.

The other stuff only matters in the context of forming a marriage. Otherwise you aren’t celebrating anything, it’s just performance theatre.

I also think it is completely undermining to the idea of a “ceremonial wedding” if you clearly aren’t committed enough to your relationship to do it properly. Yes marriages end. But you shouldn’t be going into it unless you have every intention of it being forever. Not getting properly married suggests you aren’t actually committed enough to the relationship…hence there is nothing to celebrate.

If someone invited me to a wedding I’d think that they were actually making the step of committing to a marriage, with everything that entails. With the amount of effort and cash it often takes to attend a wedding, I’d be pretty cheesed off if the expectation is that I do all that to witness/celebrate two people NOT getting married.

Isn't it the opposite? The legal aspect of marriage says "We're in a relationship but in case it doesn't work out we need a legal framework to kick in if we split." If you are genuinely committed then everything marriage legally gives you can be achieved through contracts except the tax advantages. (If they still exist.)

Time and time again on.Mumsnet people say marriage is about protection in the event of a split. Not sure I've heard much mention of the other legal reasons. So seems to me marriage, like all.written contracts, is what you need if you don't trust each other. If.there is genuine trust then contracts are needless.

Showing their commitment before God 🤷🤔
I dunno to be honest.

I view it as - “we are committed enough to tie ourselves together financially and become one entity” it’s the ultimate act of trust because if it goes wrong you stand to lose so much more.

So... Are ewe saying in a country where Marriage had no legal status whatsoever, marriage would not exist?

The vows mean nothing, it's all about the legal protections?

Exactly - it doesn’t mean anything. Plus I’m not sure how a god who apparently disapproves of people living in sin would take to a couple saying “hey God, we don’t want to do it properly but is it cool if you bless our fornicating?”

I can't help but think "We trust each other so much that we don't need to put ourselves in a position where we stand to lose even more if we split up." is a better indicator.of trust and love.

If someone asked me before today what the critical bit of a marriage was I'd have said the vows.

@LadIsInPain
"If someone asked me before today what the critical bit of a marriage was I'd have said the vows".
We didn't have vows at our registry office service because I found them utterly cringe 😬
We literally just said the legal words we needed to say.