Getting married and not telling anyone

Torry_Quine

Mojisola wrote: »

When a marriage was a big rite-of-passage ceremony of two young people leaving home and starting a new life together, I think people would have found it very strange to have done it privately.

Now many - most? - people who get married have been living as a couple for years. There usually isn't a "do" when couples move in to together and the marriage doesn't change the way they live, apart from the legal results, so it doesn't have the same significance. Although relatives and friends might like to have a party, I can envisage a lot more couples just doing the legal privately in future.

That's a good point, well made. I would think that marriage when the couple have been living together although still significant doesn't have the same feeling of two families joining together. For many it's merely a legal process and so inviting lots of others seems superfluous.

I do think though that it's better than getting into debt for a big wedding.

That said if my sibling had married secretly I and my parents would have been upset.

duchy

I think there is a world of difference between having a very small ceremony and literally telling no-one and keeping it a secret.

I think if you have a functional relationship with your parents and siblings it would be very odd not to tell them -even if it is to say "We're "eloping".

Maybe it is generational and due to the order of things changing from engagement,wedding,home ,baby to home,baby, engagement, wedding that weddings to many people now are simply about the party and securing legal rights and nothing to do with families and friends gathering to celebrate the start of a life together. Couples feel they are already established and don't need the "rite of passage" or announcement of status change that marriage previously conferred ?

Stephb1986_2

Do it! Do what makes you happy. Sod everyone else!

Good luck

Steph xx

securityguy

Person_one wrote: »

If they have a good relationship with their parents, they know the parents would love to see their children married (I think most would) and it would be simple and uncomplicated for the parents to attend, I'd wonder why they'd be so opposed to having them there.

An acquaintance of mine had the entertaining experience of their mother refusing to attend their wedding on the grounds that it was in a registry office, which isn't a "real" wedding, and then after staying away subsequently telling all and sundry that they had been "excluded" "deliberately".

In that case, the mother is being an absolute !!!!, and their regret about not attending their child's wedding is entirely, one hundred percent, their own fault.

And on a less dramatic scale, the people I know who have got married in secret have done so because of hysterical mothers who believe that the wedding is about them and their friends, not the couple actually getting married. We did invite our respective parents, but only after the whole event was booked and paid for, and they were invited simply as guests. That seems a reasonable compromise, but when batshit-crazy mothers start throwing their weight around (see above) then excluding them is the only real solution.

jackieb

If i'd have got away with getting married in secret I would have. In the end we had a very small wedding, just our parents and siblings. I don't go in for all this big weddings. Half the time, the couples who have huge flowery wedding end up divorced anyway (we're still married 27 years later ).

My parents knew when my brother was getting married, just not where, and I know that hurt them. I do think they could have invited them to the registry office though. They had a party a couple of weeks later where everyone was invited, but I do think they should have let my Mum and Dad see their only son get married.

I'd say go for it, but i'd probably tell your parents, even if no-one else. x

missprice

If I ever get married again ( not actually been asked yet, but it has been discussed)
Then my dream is to elope to gretna and do it quietly, with either our kids or just random off the street strangers as witness.

As pointed out above, its not the same rite as it used to be, and if we don't want to tell anyone then its our choice. I have no family to tell and I can't see OHs family kicking up a stink as they don't much like me. And as they don't like me they should not want to be invited

globetraveller

MissTickle wrote: »

Hi folks, could do with some views on this, me and OH been together for a long time, lived together for years, had 2 kids, etc, but never got round to marrying, now he decides he wants to, but only on the condition that we just book and do it on the cheap and not tell anyone, just grab 2 witnesses off the street and get married in secret so to speak.

This appeals to me as I am not the type to want any fuss and would just like to go and get it done but has anyone ever done this and what were your relatives reactions when/if they found out afterwards/ were they hurt? and do you wear a wedding ring? people would notice this and ask questions.....

how much input did you have? Shouldn't it be "we decided"?
Regardless, you know how your relatives will react and so are obviously happy with it.
the last bold- this reads as if you are never wanting to tell people you are married. Is this the case?

daisiegg

jackieb wrote: »

I don't go in for all this big weddings. Half the time, the couples who have huge flowery wedding end up divorced anyway

I will correct that for you. Roughly 42% of the time, all marriages end in divorce. I have yet to see any evidence for this 'the bigger the wedding, the more likely the divorce' nonsense that people always trout out on this board. It just feels like reverse snobbery to me and is quite unkind to those who have chosen a 'big' wedding.

FWIW, my parents and their generation of siblings and cousins all had big (not necessarily expensive, but big in terms of hugely celebratory) flowery eighties weddings with giant meringue dresses and hundreds of guests. 25-30 years later? Marriages all still going strong. But that is purely anecdotal and proves nothing,........just like when people say they know lots of people who had big weddings and then got divorced...that also means nothing.

System

I had a big white wedding first time round. It took a large glass of something alcoholic before the ceremony to steady my nerves.


I definitely didn't want that second time round.

jackieb

daisiegg wrote: »

I will correct that for you. Roughly 42% of the time, all marriages end in divorce. I have yet to see any evidence for this 'the bigger the wedding, the more likely the divorce' nonsense that people always trout out on this board. It just feels like reverse snobbery to me and is quite unkind to those who have chosen a 'big' wedding.

FWIW, my parents and their generation of siblings and cousins all had big (not necessarily expensive, but big in terms of hugely celebratory) flowery eighties weddings with giant meringue dresses and hundreds of guests. 25-30 years later? Marriages all still going strong. But that is purely anecdotal and proves nothing,........just like when people say they know lots of people who had big weddings and then got divorced...that also means nothing.

I'm not being unkind. I don't mean to anyway. As this thread was about secret weddings I didn't think there would be much people in here to be offended by it. It's not like i'm in a thread where someone is talking about buying a £3000 dress and i'm putting my opinions on that out there.