Secret Marriage

This really touches a nerve for me because I am married, have been "secretly" since January and am planning a church ceremony in January, my one year anniversary. The only people who know I am married are the people who are Very important to me and the people Very important to my husband. I do NOT feel like I am lying to anyone by not telling them. If they were to ask, then I would be lying, not telling is just that. There is no sinning involved. I am being "married" by a pastor and she believes this is totally acceptable and has done so before. I guess until you are in such a situation where things are out of your control, you will not understand the decision.

Yes, being married for a year and then pretending you are single and inviting people to what they think is two single people tying the knot is a lie. You say "If they were to ask, then I would be lying, not telling is just that." Oh yeah right. People always get invited to weddings and then have the good sense to ask the bride and groom if they are already husband and wife before the WEDDING day. Please. Why would anyone ask if the wedding couple is already married? That`s crazy!
You are exactly right tiffiny, you said it - it`s your one year anniversary. You call it what it is on here so I don`t see why you can`t call it what it is in the invitation. No one has yet to answer why the big secret? Why not do it and be truthful about it? Why a secret? What`s the reasoning for that?

The reason we have kept it a secret is because both my husband and I wanted a church wedding. We wanted a day to declare in front of god and our families our love for one another. We chose not to tell that we are already married because we both believe that is our own business. That is something special between he and I that we share and will share for the rest of our lives. I do not believe for one second that anyone in my family or his will be angry that we did not share this information. Our families and friends love us regardless and for us to keep a special secret would not pose a problem for them. Why it does for you I do not understand. I do not feel like I am deceiving them. I feel like my husband and I shared a special day together when we were married "secretly" and now we will share a special day with our family and our marriage will become more real to us. Like I said before we were married on the spur of the moment because he was leaving and we both felt we wanted to do it then just in case. We are completely and totally happy with our decision and not one day in my life will I regret our decision. The only thing that matters is that we are very happy and we will be married in front of our friends and family and all will be well.

Maybe some people choose to elope and then regret that they didn`t have the full day with the church and dress and cake and all the hoopala and attention and gifts. I know my sister felt this way. She and her husband eloped eight years ago. But she made the choice and lives with it. She and her hubby threw themselves a big anniversary bash at the five year mark and it was lots of fun. No they didn`t dress up like a bride and groom at the anniversary to make up for what they didn`t do in the first place. But you know you make a choice and you move on to the next phase of your life. I would say be honest with your guests about your marital status. You are a married woman so you should tell everyone. Then buy a pretty party dress and party your rear off for an aniversary celebration.

You know what, all of you ignorant people are really ticking me off. There are MANY circumstances, other than financial and health insurance, that may lead a couple into getting married secretly. My husband came to this country when he was a very small child, by his mother...illegally. This was not his decision-again, he was a small child. He grew up here and knew the US to be his only home. When he turned 18 and had to take the issue of being an illegal immigrant into his own hands, everything about his past became very secretive in order to protect himself from being deported before he had straightened out all of his legal matters in this country. When I met him he was still going through this process. When 9/11 occurred laws were changed that affected my husband. At that point I had been with him for three years. The law stated that if he didn`t do certain things he would be deported. One of the options that he had to make the legal process move faster was to get married to an americam woman. I was nineteen and he was twenty one at the time. Since we knew we loved each other and that we were eventually going to get married, we did it sooner than we had planned. The fear of losing him was such a horrible reality that we knew we had no other choice. We had to keep the marriage a secret from many of our family and friends due to his legal issue. You never know when someone will tell the wrong person that "so and so" is an illegal immigrant, causing my husband to be deported before he finished his legal paperwork. Now that he is a legal resident and going for his citizenship, we are planning on having a church wedding to celebrate the sacrament of holy matrimony with our family and friends. I do not feel that we have lied to or decieved anyone. We only protected ourselves and our love for each other. Before you pass judgement on someone, make sure you know the whole story!

I`m certain there`s an exception to every rule. For the most part though, there isn`t any good reason to not be truthful with your wedding guests about your marital status.

I think it is quite selfish of anyone to have a wedding after they are already married, even is if it was because of legal issuse. If your family and friends loved you so much, they wouldn`t care. If all the legal paperwork is finished and there is no reason for him to be departed then why keep it secret? You made choices in your life and got to stick with them. You can`t just choose to ignore some choice and pretend they didn`t happen. Seriously that is way to selfish. But I guess to each their own.

Muchinlove, marrying secretly isn`t the problem. There`s nothing wrong with eloping secretly for whatever reason. The problem is afterwards pretending to family and friends that you are not married and inviting them to a "wedding" under false pretenses.

We had secretly gotten married and everyone ended up finding out about it. I got pregnant in the middle of planning our original wedding and had no medical insurance and we were temporarily living 350 miles away from family and friends. We didnt even know one person in the town we lived in. So we got married secretly. No one was there we wore black pants and off white sweaters. I was two months before I even told my own mother in fear that no one would come to the wedding we were in the midst of planning. When everyone found out all the rumors about being pregnant and not married stopped those people felt like jerks for alienating us from their "perfect worlds" and began to accept what we did. We postponed our wedding until April 2004 and all of our guests know the story and all of them are excited to come and watch us reaffirm our love to one another. My only regret is that I was ashamed about my pregnancy and I felt like my family and friends would be so judgmental and not want to come to a wedding that we now call in good fun " the Do-over" Everyone knows about us being allready married and have been completly supportive. Anyone who feels like what we are doing is selfish or decietful I dont want at my wedding anyway. Why would I want to pay for their dinner and fun for them to pass their judgement on me. Forget that!