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?!

They’ve basically got the parents to pay for a big fuck off party.

Guests will have arranged annual leave, child care, paid for transport, new outfits, presents.

I would be pretty miffed.

There is a difference between being the center of attention by default and attention seeking behaviour. At events like weddings, milestone birthdays, graduations, or performances, there is an expectation of attention. Guests or attendees arrive with the explicit intention of focusing on the person being celebrated or the one performing. The attention is given willingly, expectedly.

Attention seeking behaviour breaks the social script. It involves manufacturing scenarios to force focus onto oneself when the environment or event does not dictate it.

What they wanted out of it was in my opinion, is attention. To attention seeking behaviour any attention, even negative attention, shock, or anger, serves as validation.

Thinking about the legal aspects - if people attending are aware that it's not an "official" wedding then it's not a problem, but I thought that one of the reasons why there were so many rules about venues being open to the public and set words being used was that it allowed for objections. If the attendees (or worse, even the officiant) weren't aware of this is that actually a legal problem?

as i said I’d be sad i wasn’t at their marriage so that would be the bit that would bother me. And I’d definitely feel it was weird they kept it a secret, but helping them organise a wedding that wasn’t actually a wedding wouldn’t bother me.

I’d see it as i was helping to organise a party to celebrate a marriage and I certainly wouldn’t feel cheated into spending money.

i think my bewilderment is more at posters who consider it a waste of their time/money/annual leave to attend a celebration of a marriage. I generally don’t go to weddings to witness the marriage I go to celebrate the marriage and I don’t see how that changes.

Not really. So long as the legal requirements for your actual, legal wedding are complied with - which albeit does require a level of notification to the public in case of objections, in reality you'd have to be looking pretty hard to find out about someone's legal wedding if the couple didn't tell you themselves - there's certainly no obligation whatsoever to proactively tell your relatives you're getting married or that you have gotten married.

And in terms of having a non legally valid, religious, humanist, weird and wacky, whatever you like ceremony before, after or instead of a legally binding marriage, there's nothing legally wrong with that at all (in the UK anyway, rules may differ elsewhere). It's liberty hall basically, these are private events and any lies you choose to tell your guests about your marital status, excluding people reasonably or unreasonably, sacrificing the soul of your bride to Beelzebub, feeding your guests on a single canape between two between the hours of 12 noon and 6pm in a field 20 miles from the nearest shop, all fine in the eyes of the law - some of these are mortal sins (you can decide which 😂) but not something the court of law, on the Earthly plain anyway can assist with!

I guess there would be an issue if someone pretended to be an official registrar and issued fake certificates of marriage but that would be more defrauding the bride and groom themselves than the family/guests, or if people tried to use a wedding certificate they knew was fake for immigration or whatever that would be illegal but not the fake ceremony itself AFAIK

I heard if something similar but it was because the brides father had brain cancer and she wanted to get married as they didn’t know his prognosis so had a tiny wedding . Her dad is still alive but very ill and she had a second bigger wedding which went very well .

That would be ok if they had told people it was the reception/ celebration party, and not lied and said it was a wedding.

People chose to attend (parents chose to pay money) on the basis it was to see them getting married.

Tbh the outcome is the same imo, you're pretty much always attending for the event not the legalities when you attend these things, but it's awful to lie about it. I've been to ""weddings" where people knew they'd already been married abroad, and they were not much different to a real wedding... but people knew about it.

Hurtful for the parents and close family.
A jaw-dropper for the guests.

Are you a close friend?

Isn't that fraud?
If their parents didn't know, then they fraudulently obtained money for them, how could they consent properly to giving money in those circumstances?

Fraud?! What are you talking about? 🤣

I mean I suppose said parents could report it to the police and see what happens with the prosecution, but do you think thats going to happen?!

I dont for a moment suggest that the parents would go to the police, but if they gave money for the wedding believing the couple were getting married and they found out at the reception that they'd been deceived and they'd already been married two years...then yes that sounds like fraud by false representation.

Why though? Such a weird thing to do

We are doing this. Reason being I want to have the big wedding but my dad has dementia declining fast I want him to witness it before he goes. I still want to have the big wedding at a later date. It honestly wouldn’t bother me if someone did this. They have wanted the private first event without the big pressure. No judgment here

I thought you were going to say they did a pregnancy announcement.
my ex BIL and his wife did this, although it was only a week earlier in a registry office. Something felt a bit off during the ceremony, the registrar didn’t seem very professional. All made sense later on - they weren’t a registrar as they were already married.
Obviously up to them what they do, but it left me feeling a bit meh having spent hundreds on outfit and accommodation.
I felt sorry for their family too as they weren’t at the official wedding.
I think it would have been better if they had been honest and said that they wanted a quiet wedding, but wanted to celebrate with friends and family afterwards.

So I think the question here is … why?

Going against the grain here.
Maybe with parents paying for it they ended up being very controlling. Maybe it was petty revenge. Maybe the b&g wanted a quiet wedding but family kept making it bigger n bigger because 'they're paying for it'. Speak to the b&g n see what happened. There's probably a lot more to this story than you know.

Dd1 and her now dh had a Muslim wedding as his dgm was dying and wanted to see them married (very quick to arrange). No family or friends attended except her dh's and to my dd1's mind she wasn't married. They were due to get married about 18 months later but due to covid actually got married almost 2 and a half years later. Not the same but I don't think many guests knew they were 'married'.

If you're so sure that you're doing the right thing why not be honest with your friends and family?

Yes I wondered if it was that poster gauging reactions from this perspective!

Obviously I’ve heard of people having a low key wedding ceremony - often at an exotic location- then having a party/reception afterwards on a different date. My own sister had a small wedding in Vegas with only my parents and then a ‘home reception’. But doing it on the fly, then staging a fake wedding funded by grooms parents is a new one on me!

My parents want us to do it. My partner is Asian and his dream is to get married in Japan. I checked the legalities and the paperwork is crazy. My parents suggested to elope somewhere in the UK and then book a celebrant in Japan at a temple. Our parents are very encouraging about doing it that way.

But again - the difference is that your parents KNOW about your plans. You are not pulling the wool over their eyes.

Definitely a weird thing to do but can't see how anyone has the right to be upset about it?

Because they've been deceived.

@Bigreddog25

If I was their parent, I would like to know up from before spending money on a "wedding" for people that have been married for two years without telling me.

To a much lesser extent, I might feel a similar way about a gift. As a guest, I probably wouldn't care too much. As a close family member, I might

Feels more like a gotcha than a surprise.