Can’t quite believe wedding last night

[annoyedatlandlord]

Edited by MNHQ (at request of the OP).

Still reeling from a wedding last night and just need to talk about it.

The grrom and his fiancée threw a traditional wedding in a beautiful location, said their vows in front of all their family and friends, very moving movement.

At the wedding breakfast they sat at their own top table alone and the “groom” stood up announce to the room they had prepared a video for everyone, which had a little surprise in it.

Video starts with photos of their first date, memories from getting together, meeting each other’s families, getting engaged. Next set of photos is the “bride and groom” dressed up at a pretty location - I thought oh lovely they decided to have some professional photos done at some point.

Next photo is them at an alter, then her throwing a bouquet. Text comes on the screen saying they actually got married 2 years ago…surprise!

Stunned silence in the room while everyone processed this. One of each of their friends had attended but other than that they’d kept the secret for 2 years…even from their parents.

Groom's parents paid for this “wedding” we were all at and gave them lots of practical help in the run up. I felt awful for them - they put on a brave face and obviously didn’t want to make a scene but I can’t help but think they must be very hurt?

I have never known anything like this at a wedding before. Thoughts?!

well there sure are some weird people around.

People think they are celebrities these days and do weird stuff.

If this was my friends, I would roll my eyes, think it strange and move on. If it was my children, I would be heartbroken and also embarrassed.

There was a post similar to this recently asking if they should disclose to their guests they got married two years ago! General consensus was no, people would be pissed off they had spent money on their ‘wedding’ etc

Absolute arseholes. I would have made an early exit (and attempted gift retrieval tbh).

This wouldn’t bother me at all. I’d think it funny and I would enjoy the day for what it is. If people sat there po-faced then that says more about them than anything else.
i wouldn’t have a wedding like that myself but I wouldn’t mind if someone else did it.

Would you still be saying 'Meh'if you were the parents who had paid for this wedding, thinking it was the real deal? I don't think so.

Both sets of parents must be extremely hurt and humiliated.

When my DC get married (if they do) I’ll be paying for the party to celebrate their wedding. When that happens, in relation to their actual marriage, is a bit academic.

separately I would be sad to not be at their marriage but if that is what they chose to do I hope I’d respect it and regardless I’d want to give them the money to celebrate in whatever style they chose.

aside from parents, I find it a bit weird that a normal guests would feel cheated and thus resentful that they’d paid for clothes/hotels/presents/travel.

We did not want to pay a lot of money for a legal ceremony and the cheapest legal ceremony was £48 for two witnesses to be held in an office. Despite us living round the corner from a register office, the only way to have the cheapest ceremony was on a Tuesday at either 9am or 9.30am in the nearest big town.

All other options would have meant hiring a room for hundreds of pounds, when we literally wanted the bare legal minimum.

We had to wait a year to have our legal ceremony because the basic legal ceremonies were booked up a year in advance immediately they were released.

We found the venue, we knew that we could book our legal ceremony for February so we asked the venue which dates it had following that date. They had been booked up months in advance and they do other events as well, so they only do about ten weddings a year. We could choose a date in June which clashed with a major work event, or a date in September, and we chose September.

I hope that explains it.

What a shitty thing to do to their parents

This is ridiculous. I’ve been to a few ‘weddings’ where the legal bit had quietly taken place a few days in advance because of the location, but everyone knew that was the case! The poor parents being suckered into paying for it but not worthy of being let in on the secret. Huge Main Character Energy as someone above says.

Absolute narcissists

Well that’s one way to kill the mood! Why bother tell people at all then🤷🏼‍♀️

Would it bother you not to be told about your child's marriage for 2 years? With some of that time spent helping them prepare for a wedding that wasn't actually a wedding.
Id personally look down on any friend that was happy to treat their parents like that, so I dont blame the other guests for not being impressed.

So these parents found out at the same time as their offsprings' work friends etc? Having paid a lot of money towards this?

I would be so hurt in their place.

Yeah this - it's pretty obvious (in the UK anyway) if you are or aren't witnessing a legal ceremony, the exact ceremony may vary slightly but the proper forms of words will always be there if it's legally valid, plus the signing of the register plus official registrars are usually pretty distinctively so, in fact they usually formally introduce themselves as authorized to perform official marriage ceremonies. I've been to several unofficial/ non legally binding ceremonies, either religious ones from non-Christian faiths or ones done by non-registrar celebrants or even by friends/family of the couple - I'm sure they were meaningful and important to the bride and groom but I've never once been under the impression it was the 'real' ie legally binding ceremony I was watching, without having to be explicitly told that, I've always assumed they would just sort the legalities out before/after. It doesn't matter to me, I don't really understand the mindset of you've somehow been 'conned' as a guest if you attend this kind of ceremony, why does it matter, if you're attending what the couple consider to be their wedding / exchange of vows and attendant party I don't see the problem, either you're happy to spend money and time celebrating that with them or you're not, why does it matter when they sign the legal forms?

The part that is odd is the making the video and being all 'surprise!' about it, also OP says the bride was dressed up and threw a bouquet - to who? If none of her family and friends were there? That does suggest that they actually consider the first day to be their actual wedding and this subsequent day to be a vow renewal or after-party of some kind. I don't think there's anything inherently wrong about doing that and I'd still dress up etc without resentment for a friend who wanted to throw that kind of party and treat it as a second wedding (and indeed have done so, was a lovely day and didn't matter in the slightest they'd done it all once already) but I don't really get why it would be presented as a nice surprise for the guests in that way? Why not just either keep entirely quiet about the first wedding, or tell people beforehand?

I don't understand this. If they didn't want people to know for the last 2 years why did they want to tell them now? Just to see the look on their faces?

How cruel. Especially to their own families.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5540421-aibu-to-marry-secretly-now-and-hold-a-wedding-in-2028?utm_campaign=thread&utm_medium=app_share

This thread reads like the one done a few weeks ago from a different perspective

I’d be absolutely fascinated what was the driver/thought process/ rationale behind it. And also what reaction they’d thought they would get when they showed the film. People must have chatted to them afterwards. I was wondering if they’d done it secretly but then regretted it/realised they should have done it with family- but then why show the wedding film.

To be honest, it doesn't matter. Dick move to tell everyone but up to them and it's about them.

I agree, and the stunned silence says it all really.

Their poor parents - being treated like crap

Plenty of people seperate the official ceremony and the party. It's not that crazy. The secrecy is unnecessarily dramatic though.

Well that was cruel.

I had to really stretch financially to attend friends' weddings back in the day. If I found out I'd sacrificed my annual holiday budget to attend some sham wedding party I would be super-pissed off.

I went to a wedding years ago where the bride and groom announced during the reception that they’d actually got married in Las Vegas about ten yers prior. I think they showed a photo of them outside the chapel with a wedding certificate of something. To be honest, I can’t remember of their parents knew or not, I don’t think they did. Yes it was a bit weird!