Secret Marriage

I would like to say that my husband and I have been married since last January and plan to have a formal wedding in April 2004. We secretly married because I was pregnant. I had no health care and I am very glad we made this decision. I could have gone on government based programs for insurance and still had to pay, but chose not to. Would you rather someone get married and get career based insurance or use the government insurance. My husband has a great job and great medical benefits that I feel our child deserved. If we had paid for the insurace every month we would have paid colse to 460.00 a month. I had him c- section and when we got the receipt for what our insurance paid it was close to $30,000.00 I do not regret getting married secretly at all. As far as our wedding remaining a secret, it was only a matter of time before it got out, our famlies are much to nosy. So within about two months we told our parents and the news spread like wild fire after that. We are planning a what we like to call in good fun " the do over" in April 2004. Where most of all of our guests know that we are allready married and no one really cares. Instead of making the invitations look like we are two people joining for the firt time in marriage we wrote a small verse and my first and middle name with no last name and my husbands full name (example: Jane Marie and John Jacob Smith.) invite you to share in their joy as they vow thier lives to one another.
I don not however think that if none of your guests knew you were already married what the harm in keeping the secret. Its not about "duping" your guests in to beliveing a lie its just about not sharing extra information. Would you really be that upset if you were an unsuspecting guest and were later told the truth or what if you never even found out. Who cares there are much larger things in this world to be concerned with. You have to do what makes you happy. Why should we have to give up the wedding we wanted because we got pregnant earlier than planned. Were paying for it, if our guests find it that offensive that we are allready technically married, then I dont want to pay for thier dinner and fun anyway!

My first marriage we got married at the courthouse then got married in church 2 months later. I don`t understand it needing to be a secret though. We got married at the courthouse to satisfy his mother. My house burned down, we were getting married in a few months so I just moved in.... In to my own room. Yes, really.... But his mother had a fit anyway. So, since it really wasn`t important to us, we went to the courthouse and married. But I never felt married until I walked down the aisle and got married in God`s house. Yes, I believe God is everywhere and saw us get married the first time, but it wasn`t the Holy wedding I wanted.

So, right on the invitation I wrote something like, "On April 29 we were joined in a civil ceremony. Please join us on June 16 as we join together before God, family and friends in a Holy ceremony."

I wrote it out in plain English. Some people thought it was stupid. Guess what, people who cared about me and my feelings understood even if they didn`t agree and joined us on our special day.

We never once celebrated our Legal wedding date. It just didn`t exist for me.... And it was strange seeing it on papers 12 years later.

Unfortunately, that marriage ended for reasons I still don’t understand. But that’s how we handled the double wedding issue.

Good luck!