Is it possible to get married in secret? Anyone done it?

[stubbyfingers]

Or do we have to bring/lynch witnesses?

We went to Vegas.

marriage and honeymoon in one.. and they supply witnesses!

To be fair, we told people we are planning to marry while we were there, but not where / when / how (we didn't know outselves!)

Was perfect!!!

I can witness for anyone who is planning on getting secretly married in Cambridge

We only told two couples who were our closest friends at the time, and they came down for the ceremony.

Phoned our parents after the wedding to tell them and they were fine about it.

Having just read through this thread it has given me the courage to go and just get married .
My partner and i have been together for years and there are problems with both sets of parents. We have both been married before and so have done the big day .
We spoke about going away and now i can think about planning it .
We have two delightful older teenagers who i'm sure will gladly be our witness , so i need to plan a day out for us all and then we shall just get wed.
Some of the stories are beautiful , very romantic to be married in secret.

racmac that sounds fab

I would love to go to NY or LV but leaving DC's behind is not an option and I don't fancy the flights with two toddlers. Should have done it pre children!

I got married in secret and it was fantastic. I never wanted a big wedding and nor did DH, he proposed and everyone (his mum mainly) started talking about the type of wedding we would have - but I didn't want the sort of wedding my MIL wanted for us - my own mum and dad got married in a regestry office so they didn't care how or what we did. I started talking about going abroad for our wedding and before I knew it MIL had told her family and was getting excited about everyone going abroad for our wedding, I felt really bad because she is a very nice lady but for me the idea of getting married in front of everyone we knew was a nightmare.

I told MIL that we wanted to be on our own and she was quite upset and couldn't really understand why we would want to do it so I promised her a big party afterwards. I booked the regestry office in Cornwall and we booked a really posh spa/hotel. MIL was threatening to turn up with her sisters so we told them we were getting married in a different regestry office from the actual one we chose as it would have ruined it for us if they had turned up.

We didn't have any witnesses but we went for a meal the night before the wedding and the people who owned the resturant were really nice and asked why we were in Cornwall and when we told them they offered to be our witnesses. We picked them up on our way the the regestery office and had an amazing time.

MIL was wonderful and never held a grudge (not openly at least!). It was a fantastic time for us - we had a party when we got back for family and friends.

Ours was almost in secret

We had two close friends for witnesses, but they also run a restaurant where we had already arranged a meal (took over the whole restaurant!) a few weeks later to celebrate.

So we turned up at the register office with these two friends (who it turned out had also been married in secret - this was way before we knew them - so they loved the idea of being in on our secret!) and 4 month old DD, who didn't really know what was going on :D

The day after the wedding we sent out the invitations to the meal at the restaurant to "celebrate our marriage" as we set off on a week's honeymoon.

It was fab, no one had the first idea we had been planning it (we hadn't even announced the engagement) and we did it all with no fuss and still had a fab party to celebrate

DH would have been quite happy to pull two folks of the street to be witnesses, but given the area of town the register office is in I did point out to him that our odds were fairly high of only being able to find a tramp, a druggie or an alkie!

stubbyfingers we sure did booked it this afternoon

We get married in secret just us and 2 witnesses (still undecided about the dc's) On......drumroll please

Wednesday 22nd July this year whic incidentally is also DP's 30th birthday.

When we were in the registry office booking that whole day was free so far so he said let's do it then. His best friend won't be suspicious of being asked to put on a shirt and meet us before hand and we will tell hime the real reason when we get there.

we did it in secret but did lynch witnesses (dh's friends who lived round the corner and who we knew happened to be free that afternoon!)

dd was a baby and in my arms the whole time, was lovely and I am SO pleased we did it this way

Havent read all the thread but my friend ran off to gretna and married her hubby, really upset there whole family more his side i think...tbh i think they wanted to contrl things

good luck to you btw
and enjoy

we got married in secret - just us and DCs.
The register office said witnesses could be anyone because the formal identifying stuff is done earlier - witnesses are just to check you are not drunk/ don't have your arm twisted.

We had a limo - the driver and a photographer acted as witnesses. (DCs were too young.)

Whole thing was amazing. Abslolutely fabulous...definitely the best wedding I've ever been to . We were so relaxed and able to concentrate solely on us - each other and our little family. I thought I might feel sad that no-one saw me in my wedding dress - but I didn't, because DH saw me and it was for his benefit after all!

No-one was offended because absolutely no-one was invited. Once you invite a couple of people I think you can get into a sticky situation! DCs felt extra special.

I would go for it...but it's not so hot on the pressies front...!

If any of you elopees are in the Greater Manchester area, can I be a witness pleeeeeeease?

Ineedacleaner Brilliant! Will you go for a meal or anything to celebrate?

thereferee that sounds lovely and you're right about inviting just a couple of people.

lolatheshowgirl you never know...

Yeah we will go for a meal or something afterwards.
I can see a few friends joining us because after we are going to tell our mums and a few of our closest friends so some of them might end up coming for a drink or something.

I am soooooo excited.

We're doing it this summer

Wot Congratulations! Tell us more! How are you going to do it? Are you telling anyone or just gonna grab some strangers to witness?

DH has told his brother, so that is one witness sorted. We have yet to decide on the other. We going to register the bans (sp?) in a couple of weeks at the local registry office and then get it done in July hopefully. It's been a long time coming - we got engaged in 2005.

really??!!! 6 years! That's so funny. How did your families react?