Legally married one day before ceremony

Amyzen83

in response to 
"You need to give me an example here.  It still stands that you are married when your marriage certificate says which is the legal date."

Ok ex: some churches are very strict about sex or living together outside of marriage and will not allow you to be involved in certain ministries. I had a friend who got married really young in life and ended up getting a divorce because his ex wife was immature and decided she wanted out. So they divorced. He eventually got engaged to his now wife and it was two weeks before the wedding, everything set up and paid for, and it turned out that there was an error with the divorce papers from wife #1 and was being reprocessed. What were they supposed to do because one lazy govt employee didn't dot all of their i's and cross their t's? They didn't know how long the process would take, they wanted to be recognized by the church as a married couple and be able to do the things married couples do without the church raising their eyebrows. So they went through with the ceremony and reception and about a year later the paperwork got fixed and the couple drove to the courthouse to make their marriage legal.

GoodLuckBear14

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_etiquette_legally-married-one-day-before-ceremony?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding BoardsForum:9Discussion:f17a176a-435d-4ab6-b489-ec040c3b611fPost:6fa346ab-4a07-4693-831e-5196620f968c">Re: Legally married one day before ceremony</a>:
[QUOTE]in response to  "You need to give me an example here.  It still stands that you are married when your marriage certificate says which is the legal date." Ok ex: some churches are very strict about sex or living together outside of marriage and will not allow you to be involved in certain ministries. I had a friend who got married really young in life and ended up getting a divorce because his ex wife was immature and decided she wanted out. So they divorced. He eventually got engaged to his now wife and it was two weeks before the wedding, everything set up and paid for, and it turned out that there was an error with the divorce papers from wife #1 and was being reprocessed. What were they supposed to do because one lazy govt employee didn't dot all of their i's and cross their t's? They didn't know how long the process would take, they wanted to be recognized by the church as a married couple and be able to do the things married couples do without the church raising their eyebrows. So they went through with the ceremony and reception and about a year later the paperwork got fixed and the couple drove to the courthouse to make their marriage legal.
Posted by Amyzen83[/QUOTE]

Or one lazy ex-spouse did not do his job and make sure he was divorced.  I have no idea how they even got* their marriage license considering you have to show proof of divorce if you are in fact divorced.

ETA * were planning to get

GoodLuckBear14

Okay Amy, now that I have had a couple of minutes....

First.  It is the responsibility of BOTH parties to ensure that the divorce is finalized.  If he had a  copy of his Final Divorce Decree, then it was final.  If he didn't then he was an idiot for not  following through.

Second, if there was a Final Divorce Decree, it does not take a year to process it, it takes about two minutes.

Third, there is so much more to this than they are telling you.

Fourth, they absolutely had a responsibility to inform their guests that they would not be attending a wedding, they would be attending a commitment ceremony because the groom's divorce was not finalized.  The other option was to cancel the wedding, eat the money for the deposits and try it again once all their ducks were lined up.

Fifth, I canot tell you how offensive your characterization of government workers as lazy is.  There are no more lazy workers in government than there are in private industry and the ones who work in the Courts are some of the best.

GoodLuckBear14

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_etiquette_legally-married-one-day-before-ceremony?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding BoardsForum:9Discussion:f17a176a-435d-4ab6-b489-ec040c3b611fPost:23a1c055-b61d-408f-ad11-46882af8332d">Re:Legally married one day before ceremony</a>:
[QUOTE]<strong>The marriage license being lost is an extreme example and not premeditated. It is a red herring.</strong> The whole "whoops my divorce didn't go through" is another BS reason because I firmly believe you shouldn't be actively planning a wedding until you are divorced. I'm sorry, but it's just a dumb thing to do, especially when there are 10 Billion random little things that can hold up a divorce.
Posted by StageManager14[/QUOTE]

It would also be dated by the officiant for the date he performed the ceremony unless htey had to apply for a new one.

Amyzen83

Ok, thank you for explaining the process to me, I have never been divorced and don't know what it takes, sounds like friend was trying to cover his own arse. And no I don't think government employees are lazy no more than anybody else with a job, but there are a few duds in every line of work, but that's a completely different topic that I don't care to discuss. 

It sounds like the friend did try to hide things from the guests and that was his bad, but either way, I would never ever tell someone especially the new spouse that they have to eat however much $$ was spent on the wedding and reception just because the husband was lazy and didn't get all of his ducks in a row. Either way both were eventually taken care of. For EXTREME cases, I wouldn't get hung up on someone wanting a PPD and I'd still be a good friend and go and participate in planned bach parties, and shower.