getting married at the registry

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Is it bad to get married at the registry? I don't really like crowds, especially when I'm the centre of attention. I especially don't like paying thousands or tens of thousands of dollars for a traditional wedding.

But I worry that I'll upset my family if I don't have a traditional wedding. Perhaps they'll be upset if they don't see me get married. Perhaps they'll be confused if I turn up at the next family event and tell them I got married last week.

Should I get engaged first? I don't even see what the point of engagement is. Perhaps my family expects me to tell them I'm engaged and then get married six months later. What should I do?

My husband and I married at the registry. We didn’t invite anyone to watch and didn’t tell anyone until after. My son married at the registry, using a wedding package. Instead of in an office and away you go after, there were nice photos taken indoors and outdoors too. Only the witnesses were there. At first I felt bad that I didn’t get to see him take his vows, I realized that a private ceremony suited him. My nephew was married at a different registry office recently and their parents and siblings attended. They had a big, but not fancy, reception party a few weeks later.

In the case of my son, they weren’t engaged long and he only told me of the wedding a week before. We live quite far away though.

Me and my boyfriend plan to get married that way, and well if my family doesn't like it they are just going to have to deal with that...because neither one of us want a ceremony. I mean screw that stress mess, we would rather just sign the papers and then take a vacation to enjoy ourselves.

I mean we probably wont even tell our families beforehand, we'll just become married and mention it to people afterwards. I have had thoughts in the past about a metal themed wedding, but I mean we could also just sign papers and go to a metal concert. Why even spend the money on a 'wedding'? so that is my opinion.

And what is engagement...I mean with no ring or any crap me and my boyfriend have decided we would like to be married at some point....do we really need to exchange rings for that? Like I guess we are 'engaged' because we'd like to get married but we're not exchanging rings or calling each other fiance...we just know we'd like to stay together.

Last edited by Sweetleaf on 12 Apr 2019, 2:16 am, edited 1 time in total.

I got married in a similar fashion, it was what we wanted. I don't have a family and my wife clearly told hers that she's the one getting married, not them.

Retro, why don't you focus more on what you two want?

There's no right way to get married. You need to weigh what you and your spouse want versus what effects it will have on your families. Since I don't know your families I can't say how they will or will not react.

We never told anyone, took off to a lovely registry office in the City of York. The registrar dragged two witnesses in off the street. It was a great day.

I wanted an Elvis wedding in Vegas but Mrs Trueno wouldn't go for it.

What is your fiancee's opinion on this?
If you both agree, do whatever you agree on.

I would get married that way but my girlfriend insists on a small ceremony. It would be a long time before we'll get married thou cuz we're both disabled & it would screw up benefits & we have alot of debt rite now. I think it's better for us to be living together like we are now than for us to get married & file bankruptcy

How firm are your plans? It's about time after all.

I really want to be married to her, I just don't want to get married. I like the state of marriage, I just don't like the process of getting married. Anyway, rather than complaining I should just bite the bullet and do it.

As for my plans, they're about as concrete as all my other plans (not very). I'm bad at planning. I come up with ideas but then I spend ages procrastinating before I actually do them.

It's the same as our not very concrete plans to buy a house. I've been procrastinating those too. If it had been up to her, she would have bought a house in a tenth of the time.

In far less time than I've been dealing with this housing thing, she's started her business and she now has three or four employees under her. I was amazed at how fast she did it. It would take me about two hundred years to achieve that.

My husband and I got married at the courthouse. No one was there except the officiant. We needed to get legally married for insurance reasons. I'm not sure we told anyone.

Later, we had a Quaker wedding so that Friends witnessed our vows. This is quite different from most weddings, but we did it because it was important to me. It was an amazing experience. Quakers get married "under the care of the Meeting."

If this type of ceremony appeals to you, you can also get married "In the manner of Friends," without being a Quaker.

I can't imagine a typical wedding ceremony with all the guests and hoopla, etc.

quiet , weddings are less taxing on the nerves , my husband and i got our licence , then found local
Courthouse had a few friends as witnesses and that was that , he got rings , and off we went ..
Honeymooned by a Casino .. and enjoyed a few days off from rest of the world. The day is meant for the 2 of you . So talk and figure out what works and go for it , btw Congradulations .

We got married in a registry office at the county hall: had about twenty guests, short civil ceremony followed by father-in-law (who was a pastor) giving a short speech, then had a meal at a pizza place.
Think it cost us about £300 all told.
We had a honeymoon for a fortnight in a holiday cottage paid for by the guests. Spent the time cruising the Scottish Borders on the lookout for ruins.

My parents had a registry office wedding too: they just dragged two friends to be witnesses out of the pub on their way there and didn’t tell anyone until the day after.

I think your focus on you want to be married, but aren’t that fussed about “the wedding” is the right attitude.

That seems to be the common attitude for guys but seems to be the opposite one for NT women. Some women see weddings as essential social events to impress everyone. It seems like some women invest more effort into the wedding than they put into the relationship. I've known a couple guys who's fiancees threatened to breakup with them because the women were wanting extravagant weddings & the guys were worried about affording it. There's a term for those types of women called Bridezillas. I'm specifically talking about some NT women. I don't remember ever reading online or hearing about an Aspie woman who was obsessed with having an extravagant wedding. Sure some Aspie women insist on having all their friends & extended family there & insist on having certain religious ceremonies, it is nothing like being obsessed with throwing a big fancy-do in order to impress everyone they ever met.

Yes, Mrs K has a friend like that: four weddings by the age of 35, each more extravagant than the last!
Goes without saying that the first three marriages were a mess that ended in divorce within two years
Hmmm... “I’ll break up with you if you don’t go into ridiculous debt for a one-off party”... charming. Hope those guys have managed to sort themselves big sheds to hide in!
I’m pretty sure I remember hearing something on the beeb about the success of a marriage being inversely proportional to the amount of money spent on the wedding.
Ours was planned by Mrs K with the objective of making it as simple, cheap and stress free as possible.

Needle scratch.

Have you discussed your communication issues? Her controlling behaviour and lack of space with her yet?

My Dad married the first woman he got pregnant and was never free again. He's almost 60 and she still controls his life. Be warned

If not things are not going to get better regardless of where you undergo the ceremony.