We got married at a court, but having wedding / ceremony this June. We are asking a friend to be our "officiant," how can we ask him?

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Thank you Jessie for the positive comments and your advise. I do agree that its not guests business to know when and how we made it paper official. We will definitely talk to him tonight, and let him know our situation and hopefully he understands!

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Thank you Sarah for your comment. I understand it is a lot more than "just paperwork," and I definitely think thats true! what I meant was that for US, going to courthouse and sign, and say " i dos" were not that meaningful as we internally decided to "think" its not official for us. thanks again for your comments!

View Quoted Comment I wasn't legally married until the officiant signed the license and filed it with the courthouse.

View Quoted Comment Yes a vow renewal would still apply because you in fact already married and even though they weren’t the vows you imagined. You did legally get married. In order to be legally wed, to do still have to make a verbal promise, a vow, to be considered married. Even though it’s only been a few, you are still technically renewing your vows to each other in a ceremony, it’s just not being done as a legal ceremony anymore, more a symbolic one. This is true whether you’ve been married 6 months or 6 years.

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Wow... so you are saying I can get arrested for calling my "husband" fiance because we choose to make our actual wedding day more special by staying as "fiance" until then? really? Do you have a source for this so that I can learn more about it?

Is there a certain "wordings" that everyone must use to marry someone, and if its used outside of official wedding by officiant or judge, it will be considered as fraud? Our friend is not officiant, nor we are not asking him to get any type of license.. we simply want him to perform the ceremony. lol and was simply asking how we can approach to him to ask him to perform the ceremony although we are married already. We have no intention to make our marriage a fraud. fraud is something when someone conduct cirimnal activity intentionally for a personal gain. I am not gaining anything for doing this.

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Thanks Hulahoop. So maybe I need to educate myself better.. is there a certain wording that I am not allowed to use for my ceremony because we are technically married already? If we use normal wedding script (we can find so many wedding ceremony scripts online), it would be considered what? what are difference between vow renewal and actual wedding vows? Would we get in trouble if use actual wedding vows at our wedding ceremony? or you are just saying its ethically wrong? sorry for the questions, but i am pretty confused. Why can't we just use normal wedding vows at our wedding ceremony? is it legal matter or ethichal problem?

View Quoted Comment Okay, could you seriously not read the sarcasm in the first part?

Fraud is literally "a false representation of a matter of fact". Sooooo having a huge ceremony where a fake officiant performs a fake ceremony and fake pronounces you as married despite having already been married prior to the ceremony seems pretty much like a textbook definition.

Im not up for the legal research tonight but if you want to google the marriage laws of your state go for it. I just don't understand why it is absolutely critical to *lie* to your guests. Why not call it a celebration of marriage or vow renewal? Why start your life together lying to everyone closest to you? Gifts? Cash? A big party?

I just know if I were a guest and saw the couple lied to us I'd be pretty upset.

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Your friend is not ordained, so you don't have to worry about the legality of having this symbolic ceremony. You can call it a wedding if you want. There's no fraud committed. The "problem" they're talking about is ethical.

If I were you, I would just ignore MrsDeG's comments calling your wedding fake/fraud.

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I didn't realize that was sarcasm. lol English is my second language, my apology.

It is not critical to lie, but it is critical that we want our wedding to be the day we become husband and wife despite the fact that we got married at courthouse. We want to feel it that way. We want to feel like we are "newly wed" after the wedding, and go on honeymoon. We don't want to consider that the day we got married at the courthouse is the day we got married. We had no choice but to do it this way with my visa issue. It's sad to think that people out there (like yourself) may think that we are lying to our guest and faking the ceremony. But of course you don't know me, and I don't know you and I guess as third party opinion, i understand. I hope non of our friends and families think like that, and understands our situation. thank you for your opinion.

View Quoted Comment Oh man I feel like a "donkey" now.

Im sorry you didn't understand the sarcasm.

Hey, I get it, my DH and I pushed up our wedding date by 3 years because of visa stuff. We had to cancel our honeymoon and lost thousands of dollars because of the constant change in rules with the permanent residency paperwork (we filed in Nov 2017).

You can call yourself whatever you like. The vow renewal would be a nice compromise of a "ceremony" and honesty because you get to say vows in front of friends and family and being honest that you are already married. I just like to be honest with everyone in my life.

OP, my cousin and his wife had something very similar happen when they got married in terms of the visa. My cousin's wife was here on a work visa and it was expiring. He fell in love with her and knew that he could not lose her since neither was sure when she would be able to get back. What they did was have a very small and sweet ceremony in their backyard with just parents, aunts and uncles. Everyone else understood. They didn't have another ceremony and I'm reasonably sure they won't. There really should be no reason to lie to your loved ones about the fact that you are legally married.

Up until a few years ago, not everyone could legally get married in this country.

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Hi M.Hand - I don't believe it is a lie. We chose to not openly share this to everyone, just so that we can make wedding day more special for us. If they ask then we will provide the truth. Wedding is still wedding. To your point, if we say we are already married, people would not spend thousands of dollars to attend our wedding? That's strange, and very sad. I sure hope none of our families and friends are like that. Everyone comes to wedding to celebrate the day for the couple's new start. What is wrong with making a commitment (even if its legally unofficial) to everyone although we are already legally married? Maybe I think differently because where I came from (no one gets legally married on the day of the wedding, but still does ceremony / wedding to make vows front of the families and friends). Anyhow, I really wasn't asking whether our decision is right or wrong. I was asking for advise how to approach my partner's best friend to perform the ceremony. But thanks for sharing your thoughts.

View Quoted Comment The reason it is considered a lie is because legally, you are husband and wife, even if you only call each other fiancée/fiancé. You signed paperwork to legally obtain the benefits of marriage, something you couldn’t have even done years ago if you are a mixed race couple, or that gay/lesbian couples couldn’t do. You are by law, husband and wife.

As far as guests, we had a mother on here not long ago find out that her daughter had been married for a long time, and was using her parents to find her “wedding” which was in fact a vow renewal as they were legally married. The mom was devastated and felt used. That’s why it’s important not to lie.

It's not illegal or fraud to have your friend perform a legally non-binding ceremony. You can have the mailman do it if you want.

Just tell him the truth, and that you'd be honored if he would conduct your ceremony. Best wishes to you and your husband.

Whether you think you are or not, you are lying to your guests by omission. And then, you are trying to figure out how to ask your friend to lie to the rest of your friends/family, too. I honestly think your guests would be just as happy to celebrate even if they knew you were legally married already. It is finding out you have been deceived that can cause hurt feelings. At the very least, you have to explain the situation to your friend and see if he is still willing to do it (personally, I would have reservations if a friend approached me with this) So, I would be honest with him and emphasize how special this ceremony would be for you. I would leave out any "legal language" from the ceremony and not call it a wedding on your invitations. I know someone who got married at the courthouse in the morning and then had a ceremony "officiated" by a friend in the evening, no big deal, but it was the same day.

View Quoted Comment A lie of omission is still a lie.

That being said, if people will still ‘spend thousands of dollars to attend’ your ceremony whether you’re already married or not, why lie (by omission) to them?

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I don’t know… I had no idea having our guests officially (with government official) or unofficially (no government official) witnessing marriage was that big of difference, and that by us doing this people would call us a liar. This is not lying. We are not being dishonest with people. People don’t do this because they think it’s a bad thing. I am not ashamed that we got married at a courthouse, but will still have full wedding in June. I have no issue for to telling everyone the truth. I don’t think it is anything wrong with introducing my partner as fiancé to people. I have three couples who did this our way. was I upset? Nope. I 100% respect their decision, and if that’s what makes them happy, then I am happy for them too. . I think it is a personal problem that that you would feel sad and upset if you found out later from your friend. You’re friend didn’t lie to you on purpose. Especially if you are his/her best friend, then please support your friend why they had to do that. There is absolutely no reason to think “oh why did you keep such a secret from me.” It is not secret or anything. Totally overthinking in my opinion. I never in million years thought this was a lie until I read all these forums from weddingwire. Its crazy to me that people get so upset about this. We all make decisions for a reason. Now I understand there are people out there like yourself, would feel betrayed. That’s sad to think like that though, that the only answer you can come up with is that they lied to you. You gotta respect them why they chose to not advertise they got married before the wedding day.

I realized that the word “wedding” are taken in different ways. My thoughts are, why does “wedding” have to have government involved? Why can’t I call it as “wedding” if we are not legally signing documents (I mean, says who?! Who makes the rule?) ? Why can “wedding” just be us committing to each other for rest of our lives front of our friends and families? It’s that simple to me. Signing legal document doesn’t mean much to me at a wedding. If someone do happen to find out, I will say, it is still my wedding day. I will remember the day I wore my dress and walked down the aisle with my dad, and said vows front of everybody. I didn’t lie to anyone, because I believe this is a wedding. We chose to stay as fiancé/fiancée until June wedding. Yes, we are legally husband and wife. But I we still chose to stay as fiancé/fiancée. Why would anyone be so upset about that. What is the reason they would be upset by this. I can’t imagine anyone would think that we “tricked” our guests.

The June Wedding is a 100% commitment ceremony. I have always dreamed of being a bride, wearing fluffy white dress, walking down the aisle with my dad. Have bridesmaids and groomsmen and the flower girls. Do the father/daughter and mother/son dances. Cake cutting. So many exciting fun things to do at a wedding. You definitely cannot call vow renewal. That would be extremely weird. My partner’s family is religious. There is no reason they need to know about this. I think it will cause way more problems. I would’ve been kicked out of my country by June wedding if we didn’t get married and filed green card for permanent residency. This was a practical move for us.

To ME, paperwork is just a paper work. Being able to file tax return together, or get insurance under your spouse means nothing to me. Marriage is so much more than that. Announcing and pledging to friends and families is what it matters. I call that a wedding. If I want to count MY wedding as the day I took vows with our loving families and friends, then that’s what it is. Not the day I signed government documents. I read everyone’s comments, and for those who said we are liar, I feel truly sorry that you that you think this is called lying. I think if you were in my shoe, you would understand. I don’t want anyone congratulating us yet until our June wedding. That is my decision and that is ok by me and my partner. So everyone, thank you for your opinions.

I am sorry this got really long, but I really wanted to express my feeling.

P.S. We talked to my partner’s best friend last night and he 100% agreed with us and that he has no issues at all performing the ceremony for us!

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Thank you, and I am sorry too for not getting the sarcasm... I am terrible at sarcasm!

I am sorry you had to go through all that, that must've been hard. I appreciate your comment / opinion.

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Thank you MrsBlah. I didn't realize at first, and never thought what we are doing is unethical until these posts. I think biggest difference is that I came from different country that is completely acceptable. I understand in America, that is not the same case though!

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I really do wish we didn't have to with this route. To respect American culture, I would've def picked to have wedding and have real officiant and have reception afterwords on the same day. But as you know, my situation didn't allow us to do so. My side of families and friends lives in Japan so they can't just come here you know. My side of friends and families def knows. just my partner's side. He doesn't want to share because he wanted to wedding to be very special day and we want to enjoy being "engaged" phase. I 100% agree with him. Legally married, and announcing our friends to commits to each other at a wedding is different for us.