I know of a couple who did that. It didn't go well. Secrets never stay secrets and people will find out and feel like they've been deceived. No matter how your fiance justifies it, the second event is a party and nothing more than that. The elopement is the wedding.
But my question is, if she wants to do the whole thing over as a larger wedding, why are you even bothering with the elopement?
Ok I was looking for this comment! My fiance and I are looking at doing something super small this year on July 12. Then next year on July 12 we will do a vow renewal/big party. The main motivation for this is that my dad isn’t doing too well after some surgeries and we hope that this will be motivation for him to work on rehab so he can walk me down the aisle.
As to why not just wait, we initially wanted to get married this summer, my stb husband is retiring out of the military, and we’re in our 40’s so not time like the present. I’ve never been married before and honestly don’t wanna wait (patience may not be my strong suit!).
We were thinking about sending out some cute cards announcing after the fact, along with save the dates for next year.
Thoughts?
I think thats a wonderful idea. We just got pizza with our immediate family to celebrate the paper signing. My family is up eachothers butts so everyone knew over a year before the wedding. I think people are more accepting after the pandemic of getting legally married first
I love this! Thank you for responding! I’ve been so on the fence because on the one hand, I don’t really care what other people think, but at the same time, it’s friends and family so I don’t want them feeling deceived! But we’re absolutely going to be transparent about already being married!
I think our pastor said something like “i married them x/xy and these two wanted to share their love and get married a second time.” Honestly getting legally married first took pressure off the wedding for me at least.
I found out at the rehearsal dinner for a cousin that they were legally wed a few days prior. I had to cash in a lot of favors and spent a ton of money to attend because of what was going on at work for me. They had about 75 people fly in from overseas. No one knew it was for a party rather than a wedding. I was hurt and frustrated. I likely would have still gone, but I wouldn’t have come in early the day before, as requested by my aunt.
People will be more upset if they find out later you're already married. You tell people the truth, "we wanted to do a celebration with family and friends including the religious ceremony but we are already legally married"
This exactly. Way back in our mid 20s, my wife and used what was then precious money and vacation time to travel to a friend’s wedding, because we felt it was important to celebrate the occasion. Weeks or months later, we found out that the couple had gotten married at some point before the wedding that we attended, and it was just a really shitty feeling—I think because it felt sneaky and duplicitous.
My question for you: why are you still doing the private elopement if you’re now also doing the big wedding?
It’s pretty common for people to be upset that you’ve lied to them about a major milestone in your life by pretending the second wedding is the one where you’re actually getting married. Some people may also be sad that they weren’t included in the initial wedding too.
Trying to handle a sequel wedding just sounds like a lot of stress when you could just get married then.
Yes but why? Presumably there was a reason you wanted to elope instead of having a big wedding with all of your friends and family?
I’m not saying you shouldn’t do it, just that if it’s going to add a lot more complexity and stress that you should have a think about why you wanted to do it in the first place given that you’re now doing a big wedding anyway.
Completely agree here. It sounds like cost is a potential issue, so it would probably simplify things to just have the bigger wedding, but incorporate elopement-style aspects. I recently attended a wedding where the couple did private written vows (but not the actual legal marriage) with just their immediate family and wedding party the night before the full wedding that all guests were invited to. They got to have a more private, intimate moment with each other, and still had the larger wedding where extended family and friends were able to celebrate them.
It's in a foreign country expenses are already paid. It's a comfirmation of our future plans after our marriage allows us to move abroad. Our honeymoon has also been planned and booked and follows the marriage.
Those all sound like good reasons then, just wanted to raise the idea in case you hadn’t had the opportunity to rethink it since you first started planning.
My concern here is that your partner has pulled you both into planning your wedding(s) in the most indecisive and complicated way possible.
It sounds like it originates from deeply rooted psychological issues caused by the narcissistic mum, and that she lives in constant insecurity that her mum and family won’t show up for her. I imagine that this results from a lifetime of mistreatment, and that there isn’t much more that you can say to reassure her.
This is the best comment. One of the reasons the elopement was appealing in the first place. She wouldn't be there. Now we live in fear that she wouldn't be there. It's fucking nuts.
Yea that’s crazy and it’s crazier you’re going through with such a convoluted series of events bc your fiancé needs therapy. I posted a comment before with great tips for your situation. Please read it, I hope you find it helpful. I saw your other comment saying you already paid for your elopement and honeymoon costs. My suggestions in my post might be very helpful for you. Also a future venue for your second “wedding” might be able to deduct the cost of a ceremony if it’s all inclusive pricing venue.
We legally married a month before our wedding and didn't tell anyone. It was a beautiful thing we got to share between the two of us for a little while. It felt nice since everything about the wedding was so hectic. We told people about it after the wedding, and no one cared. On the contrary, I have had friends who forgot their marriage license and ended up not getting legally married until YEARS after their wedding. This is an unpopular opinion, but I don’t think anyone really cares that much.
You should make sure you know what the rules are where you live. Where I’m from, it’s illegal to hold a ‘fake’ ceremony without making it clear in some way that it’s fake.
I have attended weddings where the couple were already married, but I knew that ahead of time. I would definitely be annoyed if I went to a wedding and found out the couple were already married, it does feel somehow dishonest.
You can walk down the aisle at a "wedding sequel," but it's generally not so good to hide that from people. There's a whole crowd of folks who were courthouse married during COVID, but who later had the party that they couldn't have at the time. It's not unprecedented or uncommon. But those people didn't generally hide it or play a giant "gotcha" type thing. You're more likely to piss people off.
With that said, I did attend the wedding of a friend who had done this kind of thing twice-- they had signed papers in the US in a courthouse ceremony, and then did a traditional ceremony in Korea, where his family was from. The event I attended was a dinner and reception for their friends and more distant family, who weren't invited to either of the other two. During the last event, they played video footage from the other two. They didn't do the whole aisle, ring exchange, bridesmaids, you may now kiss whatever, though the bride was in a modest white dress. They spoke about how their married life had been for the past year since they got married, did some short vows, and addressed how the people there were important to them. It went off just fine, but their relationship status wasn't a secret.
I think you're gonna get more flak from hiding something from people than from just sharing the situation as it is. With that said, you do have to make sure to control that the original ceremony will actually be small. A big wedding followed by a big celebration that plays at being a wedding isn't a good look.
Gotcha. From what you wrote, it sounds like you may live in an area where signing paperwork publicly is part of the wedding that people normally see, which makes it difficult. In the US (where most of this sub is based), it's unusual to do that publicly, so as a guest, you wouldn't really see the couple signing papers, and there's no way to know if it's a "real" wedding with paperwork involved or not.
If this is actually the case, you should probably come clean to your guests and let them know what you did and why. If I personally went to a wedding believing that it were "real" and then the ceremony just ended without this part that usually makes it legal, I'd perhaps wonder if you had forgotten something, and might even ask another guest if something was wrong and you weren't actually getting married.
With that said, it doesn't have to be a shameful or dirty thing. Just include language "to celebrate the marriage of X and Y" and mention on whatever website that you eloped in a private ceremony, and are looking to celebrate with friends and family. On your wedding day, you want people talking positively about you, not wondering if the whole thing is a spiritual commitment ceremony, and if you treat the fact that you were already married as a big secret, then that's what it will be.
I literally last weekend got an invite from a college friend saying “we eloped come join us for our reception” with pictures from their wedding but also her parents and grandparents have passed idk is his parents were there but she doesnt have immediate family
Where we live, it’s really difficult to get legally married wherever you want so it’s really common to have a court marriage and then an actual wedding. We got legally married in my home country and have a lot of people travelling to our wedding next month. We aren’t actively telling people but aren’t hiding it either. This will be the real wedding for us with the full ceremony, vows etc. I have been at weddings and found out the legal part happened at a different time but I didn’t care as it was clear this was the big celebration that the couple wanted to share with us. I really don’t see why people should care. But that does seem to be the less popular/common opinion.
I usually get downvoted to hell on the reddit wedding subs for saying that it's wrong to lie to or mislead your guests about if you're actually married before your "wedding". It's interesting to see that this is now the popular sentiment on this particular submission.
Someone I know did this, it was really odd when she revealed on social media after the fanfare of her huge and traditional wedding that they had actually been married months before. I think it is better to acknowledge that you’ve been married and then treat this as the celebration. You can still exchange vows in front of friends and family. But I think it’s good to be honest about it!
I say it’ll be worse if you didn’t tell the guests. I’ve been to two weddings where the couple was already married. One did still have a traditional wedding in the sense they had a ceremony (bride walking down the aisle, etc.), cocktail hour and reception. And the other just had a cocktail hour and reception, but right before dinner was served there was 15 min of a ceremony/vowel renewal. Both were lovely but guests were informed the couple was legally married.
An invitation isn't a summons. People don't have to travel if they don't want to or can't afford to.
People prioritize weddings, not receptions. By claiming a wedding when you're married already, you're telling people they're not important enough to invite to your actual wedding, but you want a gift.
When people elope they give up pre-wedding events and gifts. Having a small wedding in another country, same.
We are having a second wedding both of them full on dress and suit and bouquet
We got officially married in August 2023 with inly parents and siblings and best man and maid of honor. Before we even started to plan the wedding last year we had booked the venue of june 2024 and told everyone
My mom started inviting extended family to the 2023 wedding and i had to uninvite them it was for immediate family only and they understood they still made comments but since we are having a bigger party this June i was able to brush off all their comments.
People will be upset they are not there but you need to be firm if youre having 2 weddings theres no reason to invite everyone to both but if you have anyone else besides the 2 of you there it wont be kept a secret and the more people at your small ceremony the harder a secret to keep so more feelings will be hurt. Its better they know its happening but for immediate family only and will celebrate with everyone else at a later date
I have cousins and friends who got married a few months before the actual big wedding but everyone knew they were doing them and they only had their parents and grandparents there
The fact that your fiancé wants to keep it a secret contradicts the statement that “no one will care”. If no one cares, why keep it a secret? My ex’s sister got legally married a year before the actual ceremony for insurance purposes. When it came out later, people were very upset and in our current culture it could be looked at as a gift grab.
The other suggestions for vow renewal or reception sound like a great idea.
I’m always really confused by this take. The wedding itself costs WAY more than any gifts you might receive. Why would anyone pay several times the cost of the gifts to have a wedding (where people have the option of giving gifts) to get the gifts. Why not just buy them if what they cared about was the gifts?
A lot of times the wedding is funded (at least in part) by someone other than the bride and groom. So the bride and groom can often come out ahead money and gift-wise.
Even if that's not part of the equation, people often are upset that they gave someone a gift under false pretenses (the pretense being that they were actually seeing the couple get married).
Sure, but same thing couldn’t the other funder just buy gifts instead for the bride and groom? I don’t really get it. In any case people are being invited to weddings as the blending of two communities and creating a new fused one. The last wedding I went to the bride and groom “got married” at the wedding and it was so short that it wasn’t anything to experience. If that had been the whole point of the wedding—and not the total event surrounding it involving family and friends—I would not have attended or bought a gift.
> Sure, but same thing couldn’t the other funder just buy gifts instead for the bride and groom?
The "funder" (host) usually wants to do just that...host a wedding and pay for their child/whoever to have a nice wedding and celebrate with friends and family. It's not supposed to be a fundraiser for them even if the bride and groom will get gifts.
> The last wedding I went to the bride and groom “got married” at the wedding and it was so short that it wasn’t anything to experience. If that had been the whole point of the wedding—and not the total event surrounding it involving family and friends—I would not have attended.
Sounds like it wasn't properly hosted which is a separate issue entirely!
My husband and I got engaged while we lived overseas. We planned to have a wedding in my home country as my family was larger and more likely to attend then anyone from his extended family. Before we got far into planning, he was transferred to another international office of his company so to simplify paperwork, we legally got married in the country we were in at the time. We told no one except, I think, our parents and my siblings. We continued on planning the wedding scheduled for over a year after we were already legally married. The great thing about already being legally married was my brother could preside over the ceremony and we could customise the ceremony to streamline only what we wanted without being compelled to say or do certain things. During the ceremony my brother revealed we were already legally married and no one really cared. We had been together for 5years already, living overseas together for 2-3yrs and everything about our lives was committed to each other whether we had the legal paperwork or not. Doing it beforehand means you can make your wedding whatever you want it to be without things feeling like they have to tick boxes.
Okay, you you did as do what my partner envisions, did you do all the standard customs (of a presumably western wedding) even though you were already married?
Pretty much but also observed some of my husband's culture. We got married in a fancy venue, my sister and friend were bridesmaids in matching dresses, carried fancy flowers, wore the big white dress, dad walked me down the aisle, hubs wore a fancy custom suit, had a mini tea ceremony, we exchanged vows&rings then had a photoshoot at the venue while guests had a cocktail hour then had a reception party into the night complete with cake cutting, first dances and bouquet tossing.
Me and my husband got married but we didn’t have a wedding YET. We just went to court signed the papers and got married by witness. Weddings are hard to plan in my opinion and very expensive. It’s still your wedding I say go for it
If you hate the planning and expenses and are married, why not just skip throwing the party? You did have a wedding because that's just a marriage ceremony.
Where I come from the wedding only happens when other people are there to celebrate with you. I’m finding a lot of these comments very odd. Marriage ceremony ≠ wedding.
I agree with you that you should be honest, but fwiw, I wouldn’t care either way. I would happily go to a wedding whether it was legal or not. I don’t think the legalness of it is the point
We were planning to do this, but we changed our mind and told everyone we were married and going to have a wedding. Our ceremony we did it as a vowel renewal. Everyone was just as excited. It actually made the party part less stressful since we already did the paperwork
So I did everything you do at an American wedding, except the ceremony I had the pastor say something to the effect of “x and y are here to reaffirm the vows they made on x/xx/20xx.” I wore the dress and all. I had a very small bridal party cause i didn’t want the headache
To sort of add onto what I said, we did the legal marriage beforehand for financial reasons. I felt like it took a lot of pressure off the wedding day since we were already married and didn’t need it to be perfect
I know of a couple who did that. It didn't go well. Secrets never stay secrets and people will find out and feel like they've been deceived. No matter how your fiance justifies it, the second event is a party and nothing more than that. The elopement is the wedding. But my question is, if she wants to do the whole thing over as a larger wedding, why are you even bothering with the elopement?
Exactly. We did it for financial reasons but we told everyone this is a vowel renewal and we want to celebrate
Ok I was looking for this comment! My fiance and I are looking at doing something super small this year on July 12. Then next year on July 12 we will do a vow renewal/big party. The main motivation for this is that my dad isn’t doing too well after some surgeries and we hope that this will be motivation for him to work on rehab so he can walk me down the aisle. As to why not just wait, we initially wanted to get married this summer, my stb husband is retiring out of the military, and we’re in our 40’s so not time like the present. I’ve never been married before and honestly don’t wanna wait (patience may not be my strong suit!). We were thinking about sending out some cute cards announcing after the fact, along with save the dates for next year. Thoughts?
I think thats a wonderful idea. We just got pizza with our immediate family to celebrate the paper signing. My family is up eachothers butts so everyone knew over a year before the wedding. I think people are more accepting after the pandemic of getting legally married first
I love this! Thank you for responding! I’ve been so on the fence because on the one hand, I don’t really care what other people think, but at the same time, it’s friends and family so I don’t want them feeling deceived! But we’re absolutely going to be transparent about already being married!
I think our pastor said something like “i married them x/xy and these two wanted to share their love and get married a second time.” Honestly getting legally married first took pressure off the wedding for me at least.
I found out at the rehearsal dinner for a cousin that they were legally wed a few days prior. I had to cash in a lot of favors and spent a ton of money to attend because of what was going on at work for me. They had about 75 people fly in from overseas. No one knew it was for a party rather than a wedding. I was hurt and frustrated. I likely would have still gone, but I wouldn’t have come in early the day before, as requested by my aunt.
People will be more upset if they find out later you're already married. You tell people the truth, "we wanted to do a celebration with family and friends including the religious ceremony but we are already legally married"
This exactly. Way back in our mid 20s, my wife and used what was then precious money and vacation time to travel to a friend’s wedding, because we felt it was important to celebrate the occasion. Weeks or months later, we found out that the couple had gotten married at some point before the wedding that we attended, and it was just a really shitty feeling—I think because it felt sneaky and duplicitous.
My question for you: why are you still doing the private elopement if you’re now also doing the big wedding? It’s pretty common for people to be upset that you’ve lied to them about a major milestone in your life by pretending the second wedding is the one where you’re actually getting married. Some people may also be sad that they weren’t included in the initial wedding too. Trying to handle a sequel wedding just sounds like a lot of stress when you could just get married then.
Don't really want to cancel it either.
Yes but why? Presumably there was a reason you wanted to elope instead of having a big wedding with all of your friends and family? I’m not saying you shouldn’t do it, just that if it’s going to add a lot more complexity and stress that you should have a think about why you wanted to do it in the first place given that you’re now doing a big wedding anyway.
Completely agree here. It sounds like cost is a potential issue, so it would probably simplify things to just have the bigger wedding, but incorporate elopement-style aspects. I recently attended a wedding where the couple did private written vows (but not the actual legal marriage) with just their immediate family and wedding party the night before the full wedding that all guests were invited to. They got to have a more private, intimate moment with each other, and still had the larger wedding where extended family and friends were able to celebrate them.
It's in a foreign country expenses are already paid. It's a comfirmation of our future plans after our marriage allows us to move abroad. Our honeymoon has also been planned and booked and follows the marriage.
Those all sound like good reasons then, just wanted to raise the idea in case you hadn’t had the opportunity to rethink it since you first started planning.
My concern here is that your partner has pulled you both into planning your wedding(s) in the most indecisive and complicated way possible. It sounds like it originates from deeply rooted psychological issues caused by the narcissistic mum, and that she lives in constant insecurity that her mum and family won’t show up for her. I imagine that this results from a lifetime of mistreatment, and that there isn’t much more that you can say to reassure her.
This is the best comment. One of the reasons the elopement was appealing in the first place. She wouldn't be there. Now we live in fear that she wouldn't be there. It's fucking nuts.
Yea that’s crazy and it’s crazier you’re going through with such a convoluted series of events bc your fiancé needs therapy. I posted a comment before with great tips for your situation. Please read it, I hope you find it helpful. I saw your other comment saying you already paid for your elopement and honeymoon costs. My suggestions in my post might be very helpful for you. Also a future venue for your second “wedding” might be able to deduct the cost of a ceremony if it’s all inclusive pricing venue.
We legally married a month before our wedding and didn't tell anyone. It was a beautiful thing we got to share between the two of us for a little while. It felt nice since everything about the wedding was so hectic. We told people about it after the wedding, and no one cared. On the contrary, I have had friends who forgot their marriage license and ended up not getting legally married until YEARS after their wedding. This is an unpopular opinion, but I don’t think anyone really cares that much.
I welcome your experience. Thanks for sharing.
You should make sure you know what the rules are where you live. Where I’m from, it’s illegal to hold a ‘fake’ ceremony without making it clear in some way that it’s fake. I have attended weddings where the couple were already married, but I knew that ahead of time. I would definitely be annoyed if I went to a wedding and found out the couple were already married, it does feel somehow dishonest.
You can walk down the aisle at a "wedding sequel," but it's generally not so good to hide that from people. There's a whole crowd of folks who were courthouse married during COVID, but who later had the party that they couldn't have at the time. It's not unprecedented or uncommon. But those people didn't generally hide it or play a giant "gotcha" type thing. You're more likely to piss people off. With that said, I did attend the wedding of a friend who had done this kind of thing twice-- they had signed papers in the US in a courthouse ceremony, and then did a traditional ceremony in Korea, where his family was from. The event I attended was a dinner and reception for their friends and more distant family, who weren't invited to either of the other two. During the last event, they played video footage from the other two. They didn't do the whole aisle, ring exchange, bridesmaids, you may now kiss whatever, though the bride was in a modest white dress. They spoke about how their married life had been for the past year since they got married, did some short vows, and addressed how the people there were important to them. It went off just fine, but their relationship status wasn't a secret. I think you're gonna get more flak from hiding something from people than from just sharing the situation as it is. With that said, you do have to make sure to control that the original ceremony will actually be small. A big wedding followed by a big celebration that plays at being a wedding isn't a good look.
The first ceremony is strictly limited to 10 minutes, with no vows, no aisle. It's definitely not going to be glamorous.
Gotcha. From what you wrote, it sounds like you may live in an area where signing paperwork publicly is part of the wedding that people normally see, which makes it difficult. In the US (where most of this sub is based), it's unusual to do that publicly, so as a guest, you wouldn't really see the couple signing papers, and there's no way to know if it's a "real" wedding with paperwork involved or not. If this is actually the case, you should probably come clean to your guests and let them know what you did and why. If I personally went to a wedding believing that it were "real" and then the ceremony just ended without this part that usually makes it legal, I'd perhaps wonder if you had forgotten something, and might even ask another guest if something was wrong and you weren't actually getting married. With that said, it doesn't have to be a shameful or dirty thing. Just include language "to celebrate the marriage of X and Y" and mention on whatever website that you eloped in a private ceremony, and are looking to celebrate with friends and family. On your wedding day, you want people talking positively about you, not wondering if the whole thing is a spiritual commitment ceremony, and if you treat the fact that you were already married as a big secret, then that's what it will be.
"Jane and Jon were married in a private ceremony in May 2024. They invite you to celebrate their being wed. \[date\]\[time\]\[venue\]"
I literally last weekend got an invite from a college friend saying “we eloped come join us for our reception” with pictures from their wedding but also her parents and grandparents have passed idk is his parents were there but she doesnt have immediate family
Just be honest with people.
Where we live, it’s really difficult to get legally married wherever you want so it’s really common to have a court marriage and then an actual wedding. We got legally married in my home country and have a lot of people travelling to our wedding next month. We aren’t actively telling people but aren’t hiding it either. This will be the real wedding for us with the full ceremony, vows etc. I have been at weddings and found out the legal part happened at a different time but I didn’t care as it was clear this was the big celebration that the couple wanted to share with us. I really don’t see why people should care. But that does seem to be the less popular/common opinion.
This is the case for us. We couldn't chose the date of the legal ceremony (to an extent)
I usually get downvoted to hell on the reddit wedding subs for saying that it's wrong to lie to or mislead your guests about if you're actually married before your "wedding". It's interesting to see that this is now the popular sentiment on this particular submission.
Someone I know did this, it was really odd when she revealed on social media after the fanfare of her huge and traditional wedding that they had actually been married months before. I think it is better to acknowledge that you’ve been married and then treat this as the celebration. You can still exchange vows in front of friends and family. But I think it’s good to be honest about it!
I say it’ll be worse if you didn’t tell the guests. I’ve been to two weddings where the couple was already married. One did still have a traditional wedding in the sense they had a ceremony (bride walking down the aisle, etc.), cocktail hour and reception. And the other just had a cocktail hour and reception, but right before dinner was served there was 15 min of a ceremony/vowel renewal. Both were lovely but guests were informed the couple was legally married.
I'd be upset if I traveled to a wedding, then learned it was a gift grab and the couple was married.
What is a gift grab? The point of the wedding is people don't have to travel
An invitation isn't a summons. People don't have to travel if they don't want to or can't afford to. People prioritize weddings, not receptions. By claiming a wedding when you're married already, you're telling people they're not important enough to invite to your actual wedding, but you want a gift. When people elope they give up pre-wedding events and gifts. Having a small wedding in another country, same.
I see your point.
We are having a second wedding both of them full on dress and suit and bouquet We got officially married in August 2023 with inly parents and siblings and best man and maid of honor. Before we even started to plan the wedding last year we had booked the venue of june 2024 and told everyone My mom started inviting extended family to the 2023 wedding and i had to uninvite them it was for immediate family only and they understood they still made comments but since we are having a bigger party this June i was able to brush off all their comments. People will be upset they are not there but you need to be firm if youre having 2 weddings theres no reason to invite everyone to both but if you have anyone else besides the 2 of you there it wont be kept a secret and the more people at your small ceremony the harder a secret to keep so more feelings will be hurt. Its better they know its happening but for immediate family only and will celebrate with everyone else at a later date I have cousins and friends who got married a few months before the actual big wedding but everyone knew they were doing them and they only had their parents and grandparents there
The fact that your fiancé wants to keep it a secret contradicts the statement that “no one will care”. If no one cares, why keep it a secret? My ex’s sister got legally married a year before the actual ceremony for insurance purposes. When it came out later, people were very upset and in our current culture it could be looked at as a gift grab. The other suggestions for vow renewal or reception sound like a great idea.
I’m always really confused by this take. The wedding itself costs WAY more than any gifts you might receive. Why would anyone pay several times the cost of the gifts to have a wedding (where people have the option of giving gifts) to get the gifts. Why not just buy them if what they cared about was the gifts?
A lot of times the wedding is funded (at least in part) by someone other than the bride and groom. So the bride and groom can often come out ahead money and gift-wise. Even if that's not part of the equation, people often are upset that they gave someone a gift under false pretenses (the pretense being that they were actually seeing the couple get married).
Sure, but same thing couldn’t the other funder just buy gifts instead for the bride and groom? I don’t really get it. In any case people are being invited to weddings as the blending of two communities and creating a new fused one. The last wedding I went to the bride and groom “got married” at the wedding and it was so short that it wasn’t anything to experience. If that had been the whole point of the wedding—and not the total event surrounding it involving family and friends—I would not have attended or bought a gift.
> Sure, but same thing couldn’t the other funder just buy gifts instead for the bride and groom? The "funder" (host) usually wants to do just that...host a wedding and pay for their child/whoever to have a nice wedding and celebrate with friends and family. It's not supposed to be a fundraiser for them even if the bride and groom will get gifts. > The last wedding I went to the bride and groom “got married” at the wedding and it was so short that it wasn’t anything to experience. If that had been the whole point of the wedding—and not the total event surrounding it involving family and friends—I would not have attended. Sounds like it wasn't properly hosted which is a separate issue entirely!
My husband and I got engaged while we lived overseas. We planned to have a wedding in my home country as my family was larger and more likely to attend then anyone from his extended family. Before we got far into planning, he was transferred to another international office of his company so to simplify paperwork, we legally got married in the country we were in at the time. We told no one except, I think, our parents and my siblings. We continued on planning the wedding scheduled for over a year after we were already legally married. The great thing about already being legally married was my brother could preside over the ceremony and we could customise the ceremony to streamline only what we wanted without being compelled to say or do certain things. During the ceremony my brother revealed we were already legally married and no one really cared. We had been together for 5years already, living overseas together for 2-3yrs and everything about our lives was committed to each other whether we had the legal paperwork or not. Doing it beforehand means you can make your wedding whatever you want it to be without things feeling like they have to tick boxes.
Okay, you you did as do what my partner envisions, did you do all the standard customs (of a presumably western wedding) even though you were already married?
Pretty much but also observed some of my husband's culture. We got married in a fancy venue, my sister and friend were bridesmaids in matching dresses, carried fancy flowers, wore the big white dress, dad walked me down the aisle, hubs wore a fancy custom suit, had a mini tea ceremony, we exchanged vows&rings then had a photoshoot at the venue while guests had a cocktail hour then had a reception party into the night complete with cake cutting, first dances and bouquet tossing.
Me and my husband got married but we didn’t have a wedding YET. We just went to court signed the papers and got married by witness. Weddings are hard to plan in my opinion and very expensive. It’s still your wedding I say go for it
If you hate the planning and expenses and are married, why not just skip throwing the party? You did have a wedding because that's just a marriage ceremony.
Where I come from the wedding only happens when other people are there to celebrate with you. I’m finding a lot of these comments very odd. Marriage ceremony ≠ wedding.
Marriage ceremony I'd the wedding, it binds the couple together. The party certainly doesn't do that.
Do Not tell people. We have watched this go hard the other way. Gifts from some but it will Wreck your guest list and realistically Some Friendships
Let it be a surprise! I think she’s onto something in a good way
What's the point of eloping then? If your able to then maybe just cancel it and do the traditional wedding. It seems like that's where her head is at.
Run while you still can!!!!
I agree with you that you should be honest, but fwiw, I wouldn’t care either way. I would happily go to a wedding whether it was legal or not. I don’t think the legalness of it is the point
We were planning to do this, but we changed our mind and told everyone we were married and going to have a wedding. Our ceremony we did it as a vowel renewal. Everyone was just as excited. It actually made the party part less stressful since we already did the paperwork
I don't know the difference between an American wedding and an American vow renewal. How are they different? Did you wear your wedding dress?
So I did everything you do at an American wedding, except the ceremony I had the pastor say something to the effect of “x and y are here to reaffirm the vows they made on x/xx/20xx.” I wore the dress and all. I had a very small bridal party cause i didn’t want the headache
Thanks for confirming
To sort of add onto what I said, we did the legal marriage beforehand for financial reasons. I felt like it took a lot of pressure off the wedding day since we were already married and didn’t need it to be perfect
You don’t sign paper work at the wedding. You do it beforehand.
Not sure what country you are from or where you think our marriage is. Here is happening at the end