Getting married tomorrow / elopement

[Glitterbells9]

& no one knows 🤣 we’ve been together ages, telling a few adults and 2 children in the morning… Im all churned up inside.

Non traditional, we are arriving together, registry office to make ‘us’ official.

If anyone has done a ‘surprise’ wedding how did you announce it? On social media?

Congratulations in advance, hope you have a long and happy marriage,!🥂🍾💐🎉
I would let the people who are really close to you (parents/best friends/siblings/delete as applicable 😂) know personally, by a phone call or, at least, an individual text message before making a ‘general announcement’ of social media.

Yay! Congratulations!

No advice, but I’m following as I may do the same :)

I hope it goes off wonderfully, have you got witnesses?
We did this so long ago there was no social media. We rang from a call box!
Be prepared some people might not be happy.

Oooh!, how exciting

And social media seems the perfect way

Yes great idea to let them know first xx

Yes just 3 adults 2 of which are witnesses (who dont know it yet 🤣)

Ive pre warned my closest friends ‘if we do ever get married prepare for a secret tell you after kind of wedding’ over the last year or so.

Il have family on both sides that are put out but, day to day they arent an active part of our support system.

We’ve almost finished our house renovation and we need a new car more than ‘one day’ with alot of false ‘happy family’ pretence going on.

If I could do it with no witnesses I would have 🤣 or if our children were old enough to do it.

Xx

I feel like I need to explain its what we wanted, I feel we need to apologise if anyone is offended… and to say a marriage isnt about one day. But at the same time I just want to keep it simple… 🫣totally over thinking it!

We got married with four family members present, two of whom acted as witnesses. Then we all went out for a lovely lunch.

We did this. Except told no one at all until after. Told the dc on the way!

Spoke to some people over the phone (grandparents, aunts, uncles), some in person later that day (closest friends, siblings, parents) and some via text (cousins, friends, collegues).

Not one person was anything other than happy for us. Some people genuinely didn't believe us but all were happy. I did get asked how we kept it a secret quite a few times in the following couple of weeks.

I wouldn't even attempt to explain, justify your decision. Have a fantastic day tomorrow, i know you'll be bursting to talk about it! Congratulations

I think keeping it simple and fuss free is lovely and refreshing.
We did pretty much the same (we're old mind you!) Adult children slightly put out after but not massively and not surprised, knowing me. Can't bear attention and fuss. It's just a day as you so rightly say!
Hope it all goes smoothly for you.

Some close friends of ours did this and they sent a card in the post that said “we got married!”. They told close family face to face or via phone or FaceTime first though.

I think it’s just lovely. Have a great day.

We were young, didn't tell people until we got back from holiday. Had strangers as witnesses.

My father was upset, only daughter and all that but it was the best thing for us.

Don’t tell anyone! Certainly don’t apologise! We didn’t tell anyone (other than our witnesses)for years afterwards, chiefly because we had a roll call of major life events in succession shortly afterwards (had a baby, international move, two job moves, a succession of surgeries etc etc) and, though it gradually trickled out over time, mostly because we forgot people didn’t know, we were amused to discover recently that, over 12 years later, one very old friend we’ve reconnected with didn’t know and was all ‘WHAT? You got MARRIED.’?’😀

Seriously, you don’t owe anyone an ‘apology’ for not inviting them, or for having the type of wedding you wanted! No one turned a hair in either of our families.

Congrats!! Sounds brilliant. I knew a couple who did this. Didn't tell anyone until afterwards. Travelled to Brighton, got married, stopped by a charity shop to buy a dress on the way and got two strangers to witness. Lol everyone was annoyed, but all was eventually forgiven. There was no way they could afford to wed and accommodate such huge family on each side. Still married 30 years later.

You might already be aware of this but (in England and Wales at least) you can have up to four witnesses so if you want all 3 of your guests to be witnesses too then that's an option.

Also, anyone who is old enough to understand can be a witness there's minimum age.

Oh, and congratulations! I hope you have a lovely day.

Your marriage is so much more important than your wedding. Congratulations. Enjoy tomorrow but have a long and happy and lucky marriage.

Congratulations. Enjoy the day and best wishes for many happy years together. 🥰

how lovely, sounds like a perfect plan.
i do love wedding announcement cards the kind with a nice photo or three 😉

My brother did this! He just rang and said they'd got married in Gretna! They'd been together 35 years!

Pleased for them!

I know someone who got married in his lunch break and didn't tell anyone even when he returned to the office.

You don't need to tell anyone anything.

You can drip feed as and when you want.

We never told anyone after 25 years together. People sometimes ask, did we ever marry? we just say - oh yes years ago on the quiet.

Nobody really needs to know.

Oh I wish I had done this!!! Congratulations 🥂

We did this, many many years ago.

Partly out of a sense of wanting to get married without having a wedding, partly as we'd both been married before, partly because an elderly family member would have been too unwell to participate in any way (and would have been very sad if we'd done a big production thing).

We got married with two witnesses "off the street" (someone we asked went and got her sister 😁 ) at 9:30am, and then told people from the Eurostar on the way to Paris. No social media back then.

It was lovely. And even those who minded a bit got over it.

That sounds perfect! How was it received by the wider family? Xx

Thank you 🫶🏼

Yes Id imagine everyone will be happy at least to our faces 🤣❤️xx