Informal marriage celebration

[pinkliquorice]

Me and my partner have been together almost 7 years, have two children together, live together etc.
We pretty much already assume we are a married couple and he has proposed but through talking about it for lots of reasons we are not sure an official wedding is right for us.
We’ve done a bit of research on informal marriages/common law marriages/ Sui iuris marriage but we don’t really understand it.
Can we still have a ‘wedding’ and celebrate and confirm our love for each other without the official wedding ceremony.
Anyone done this or would consider it?
Are there any pros and cons or this as opposed to just actually getting married?

we want to celebrate and confirm our love so we can act and be viewed essentially as a married couple.

Don't you act married now? How different would you act after a mock marriage ceremony?
Don't people view you as 'married' now? If they don't, then a ceremony that isn't a marriage ceremony won't change that. They'll always see you as 'living as married'

Why do other people's opinions on this matter to you so much?

Surely if you and your partner are happy that should be enough.

We had a full on ‘wedding’ with a celebrant and an outdoor ceremony most people didn’t even realise wasn’t a legal marriage (we did that bit down the registry office earlier the same day, obviously you wouldn’t).

You can basically do whatever you want.

My opinion has been influenced by the early death of my bil, in his early 30s. No one expects things like this but, sadly, they can happen. Luckily, my sister was married to him so was able to speak for him when he couldn't, as he wanted.

Posted too soon.

Just to add that I'm not a lawyer but I've heard that Power of Attorney is an option too?? I believe it's more expensive than a basic wedding though.

You either married legally or your not.

You can have all the humanist celebrants you like....you are not legally married, its that simple. You have no legal protection a partner dies.

we want to celebrate and confirm our love so we can act and be viewed essentially as a married couple

By just having a party? I'm sorry but I'd roll my eyes if I got an invite to a not a wedding but we want you to view us as married commitment party. It just isn't a thing and it makes zero sense.

Marriage gives you rights over assets and property in the event of a split. Also it makes you next of kin to your partner. This means you can make decisions for them that they may not be able to. It also means that all their assets will come to you in the event that they die without a will. There are other benefits as well.

Yes there are some legal things you can put in place to replicate most of these rights but they are far more complicated and expensive to both set up and enact that marriage is a much cheaper option.

I really don't understand why you are so anti marriage. You want to be "viewed as a married couple" then just go and get bloody married. If you just have a party with no marriage no one is going to suddenly think of you as married.

If you don’t believe in marriage why would you want to be viewed as a married couple? Makes no sense.

Schnitzel - perfectly put.

I can only give you experience as a friend of someone who went this route (I am married with all the legal bells and whistles and definitely in my case, it’s made a huge difference in terms of simplifying legal stuff, I can’t even imagine what life would be like if we didn’t have those protections).

I have a family friend who did exactly this - twice in fact - had a commitment ceremony instead of a legal marriage. Her partner is divorced (actually they both are) and he doesn’t want to marry again. So they had basically a ‘commitment party’ basically a wedding reception without the wedding. People were like fine, okay that’s nice, and went with it. Then like two years later, she decided it still didn’t feel any different (realistically people know they aren’t married and didn’t treat them as they were), so they decided to do it again. He ‘proposed’ this time with a ‘commitment ring’, she wore a white dress, sent out invitations, had bridesmaids, church blessing, cake, another reception etc. Honestly, it became a bit of a joke and no one took it seriously, but she wanted so much to ‘feel’ different after and to be recognised as basically married. Except they aren’t and everyone knows that and makes fun of them a bit now because of it.

The point is, after two children and 10 years, you are probably as together as you will be. No one will recognise it as more so because you have a party and you may not feel different after either. That no reason not to do it, but it probably won’t change what other people think or how they define your relationship.

we want to celebrate and confirm our love so we can act and be viewed essentially as a married couple.

You will never be viewed as a married couple unless you get married. Your idea of a commitment ceremony sounds ridiculous

Living together relationships end all the time, just like people get divorced - it's weird to hold up divorce figures as a reason not to get married. Why have relationships at all? Large proportions of them do not last forever.

There is less information on the breakup of non-marriages because legally the relationship didn't exist so there is nothing to record.

I don't suppose the breakup of a non-marriage is any less painful/complicated than a divorce especially if children and property involved. If anything I would have thought it would be worse as there is no legal presumption that assets are jointly held.

This is an odd thread so often people want the legality of a marriage without the fuss and performance of a party. This time the OP wants the fuss and performance of a party without the legality of a marriage. That's just a party.

I always thought that I would feel different once I was married or that our relationship would change somehow. I don't and it hasn't. I'm not staying because I'm married or because we have children, I'm staying because we are in love. Owning and home together and having children together ties you together in terms of separation complexity just as much as being married. None of my friends have gotten divorced and are just as happy. Marriage isn't automatically a curse on a relationship.

The difference is, I'm automatically protected by law in various areas. I've stopped working to look after the kids, and I put in a 50% deposit on our house and if we divorce then that will be recognised in terms of our assets being equally split. We are automatically each other's NoK, and I can even transfer some of the tax free allowance I'm not using to him to help our family finances.

I do not understand the hesitation to marry personally - plenty of people get divorced these days so it's not like you can't get out of it if you want to, but it's a pragmatic thing to do especially when you have children and / or joint property and finances.

We are not concerned about the legal protection of marriage, what ever that means

I’m sighing along with 2014newme - I’ll be blunt, are you really that ignorant - even though you have brought 2 children into the world - that you are unaware of the legal aspects of marriage. What if you split up? What if one of you dies?

If you have other protections in place then fine, but talking about “common law marriage” which is a complete myth (it doesn’t exist), suggests you have massive gaps in your understanding about the bigger picture of finances, in case life throws shit at you.

Have a party, enjoy, but please educate yourself on the priorities after the champagne cork has popped.

OP let me give you three examples.

I was married no kids. We divorced and the law took care of the divide of assets

I wasn't married to my daughter's father (my choice) the only thing I can ask him for is maintenance, there is no other recourse (it doesn't matter as I earn high and he refuses to pay and lives in a different country.

I am in a relationship now but wouldn't marry because I want my assets to go to my daughter.

You see what people are saying? If you have kids together and you aren't financially independent then really marriage is a way to protect you and your kids legally and financially

I won't ever get married again I don't believe in it and I don't need to but you need to think about this practically not romantically

Genuine question. If you take other legal steps to ape the protections of marriage, can’t they just be unilaterally reversed by either party at any time - wills changed etc? So really no protection at all if a relationship breaks down.

Schnitzel there's also the added complication that if an unmarried couple split but don't get round to changing their wills then they still stand.

The OP says that they intend to put protection in place without getting married but if they haven't got round to it in the last 10 years then chances are they won't in the next 10 years.

It's a free country so you can hold whatever ceremony you like, invite who you like and say what you want. Cultural/religious ceremonies that have no legal validity are nonetheless legally allowed in the UK. No different to if you were having eg a nikah.

What you can't do is make the rest of society see you as married. In particular, the state. Your OP sounds like you don't actually understand the legalities, though you go back a bit on this later on, but take advice from a solicitor if you haven't already. It would be incredibly stupid to make a decision based on research on common law marriages that you don't understand (probably because they don't exist).

Also, not that I advocate looking at stats about separation to make this decision OP, but if you did, married couples are less likely to separate than unmarried cohabitants. Personally I think that's a terrible thing to base your life on though.

I'm not the marrying type, OP so I can understand your lack of enthusiasm for the institution itself.

However, I think you need to be quite honest with yourself about what exactly it is you would want this party to accomplish - if it's just to celebrate with your friends and family, and have a day where the love you share with your partner takes centre stage, then go for it. Sounds great. But if you're hoping that it will somehow make people see or treat you differently, or force them to give your relationship more social status, then you are probably going to be wasting your time.

Also, if you want to do this pseudo wedding, and have everyone get a hotel, dress up nice, travel to be there, etc, just like an actual wedding, then make sure you budget for it like a real wedding - I mean proper catering, alcohol, nice venue, the full works. Think about what you're offering your guests and what you expect in return. Sounds transactional but there you go. You may be thinking "but my relationship deserves the same allowances and effort that everyone would make for a wedding service, what's the difference?" The difference is that our society has an accepted social protocol for celebratingvpeople getting married, whereas it doesn't have that for just being in love. Sorry about that.

A lot of the whole concept of marriage being married just seems off to us

What do you mean by the concept? Modern marriage gives you both the best legal protection. Concepts are not law, mostly outdated and no longer relevant. You aren’t getting married in a 1950s concept you are getting married now. Every marriage is individual.

TBH if someone invited me to this kind of thing I’d take their relationship less seriously.

I think this ^is the issue. People may question how committed you are as you're not committed enough to get married so it does kind of make the commitment ceremony a bit of a farce. They love each other... But not that much.
I would not think this as I love a party and would just see it as that.

2014 marriage has nothing to do with love or how much you love each other, the only benefit to marrying is legal and financial control of assets.

I love my partner but I won't marry him. My assets are for my daughter who isn't his.

Agree with you if you read my post properly