Fake Wedding - Advice Request

[cocked&locked]

This post is long – sorry. The following is the jist of the post:

Me and wife go to wedding. Wife is bride’s maid. Turns out bride and groom were already married and hid it from everyone. We were not informed of this. Me and wife laid down bucks for this. I am mad. Bride and groom are scum. OOT help me with next course of action. Am I being a baby here?

Below is the unabridged version with the details.

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I like the way most people on this board critically analyze situations, so I think I'll give this a shot. I'm in need of advice for something that might be considered trivial, but has nonetheless been irritating the hell out of me for the past few days.

Early on this past summer, my wife and I went to a wedding. She was one of the bridesmaids. I'm a not friend at all with these people, but my wife has known the bride for quite some time. They aren't the best of friends. In fact, my wife hardly ever sees or talks to her. My wife feels uncomfortable around her because she (the bride) has had a somewhat hard life and constantly makes my wife feel bad about the fact that she had parents, etc growing up (we are typical middle class America).

So I find out the other day that the bride and groom were married last year (one year prior to the "wedding") by the JP. They hid the fact that they were already married. They had a ceremony and everything, just like they were never married before. My wife only found out from her best friend (the Matron of Honor) during the rehearsal dinner and just mentioned it to me in passing the other day. I can only assume that they kept it a secret from everyone on purpose for an entire year. I am absolutely livid about this. They purposely deceived the people they invited to this sham (presumably their best friends). My mother-in-law shares my sentiment. My wife was not initially as ticked-off, but after I laid out the circumstances, she has become miffed as well.

Here's the deal. My wife was lied to, had to contribute money to throw this bitch a "wedding" shower, had to buy a gift for the "shower", had to buy an expensive dress for the "wedding" and had to give a "wedding" gift. The "wedding" sucked anyway.

The icing on the cake is that one of my better friends was getting married and his bachelor party was in NYC that same night (boobies, booze, batting cages, boat rides, etc.). I had to miss the bachelor party for this sham! I would do pretty much anything for my wife - I went to the wedding for my wife, not these degenerates, but it shouldn't have happened anyway.

If they would have been honest about the situation, I probably wouldn't be mad. I probably would have questioned their motives for the event, but would have went along with it - given a gift, and been ok with it. It’s the fact that they lied that irritates me, and makes them despicable in my eyes.

Oh - one other thing, I'm not big on thank you cards - but we still haven't gotten one three months later. The least they could do is take some of that scammed gift money and buy thank you cards.

So I've been thinking about my best courses of action here. I've come up with some possibilities. I'm contemplating doing one or more of these:

1) Next time I see them - call them out on it. I want to avoid this because my wife was told in confidence.

2) Act like a complete prick towards them from now on.

3) Find the guest list and inform everybody else that went to the wedding the circumstances.

4) Write a nice little "thank you letter" to them laying out why I think they are scum. Also include in this letter an itemized bill for the costs we incurred. I know I wouldn’t get the money, but my point would be made.

Any suggestions. Am I being irrational about this? Should I be this mad?

[RunDownHouse]

[ QUOTE ]
Me and wife laid down bucks for this...

...had to contribute money to throw this bitch a "wedding" shower,

had to buy a gift for the "shower",

had to buy an expensive dress for the "wedding"

had to give a "wedding" gift...

I had to miss the bachelor party for this sham!

I probably would have questioned their motives for the event, but would have went along with it - given a gift, and been ok with it....

Also include in this letter an itemized bill for the costs we incurred. I know I wouldn’t get the money, but my point would be made.

[/ QUOTE ]
It seems pretty obvious that you're more worried about the money than anything else, with a healthy dose of selfishness on top, despite your weak protests to the contrary. Instead of being a jackass and sending them an itemized bill - an itemized bill! - why don't you ask them, discretely, why they delayed having a ceremony. There are many good reasons for a couple deciding to do this, and many less-good reasons that don't include trying to scam friends and relatives. Greed may very well have been a factor, but it sounds like you're such a cheap, greedy miser yourself, that you flew off the handle and could only see dollars flying out of your pocket before examining other alternatives.

Also, consider that the reason for a delay in having a ceremony might be somewhat private or embarassing, and since you and your wife aren't close friends or family, they didn't feel comfortable telling you what their motivation was.

Props on the summary bit though.

[Zurvan]

This happens fairly often. One of my wife's friends got married almost a year before their 'wedding' so that they would both be covered under their health insurance. They still wanted to have a wedding, and their friends and family obviously wanted to celebrate with them as well. They didn't tell anyone, because people get stupid about these things. Like you are. Get over it, it's not a big deal.

[BOTW]

Was the reception any good? <font color="white"> Two antennas go to Vegas to get married. The wedding sucked but the reception was awesome! </font>
Maybe they regretted not having a church wedding--what religion are they or the parents? Did they have a child in the intervening year? Did one of them have to leave the country or area for an extended period? Do either of them tend to have difficulty in social settings? Who paid for the wedding as they can definitely cost more than the gifts? There are a lot of reasons they could have done this that are not about screwing over their friends and family.

Not getting a thank you card is a much bigger faux pas than having a second wedding, IMO. Write them a nice note thanking them and asking if they got your gift would be my play if I had any desire to follow-up. Which I wouldn't. There's a lot better things to waste time and/or anger on.

[jaydub]

Weddings are expensive and thus a very poor way to "scam" money from friends and family. In fact it is quite possible that the wedding was delayed until it could be afforded.

If it still bothers you, none of your choices are the correct course of action. You should politely decline and avoid opportunities to socialize with them. All of your options make you the bigger [censored].

You're a nit.

[ QUOTE ]
Am I being a baby here?

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes. Let it go.

[IndieMatty]

First, I really like how you summarrized this on the top. And then got into the full story. Great posting.

Second, you're being a baby. They probably had to save up for the wedding considering it sounds like the Bride doesn't have a family to help her. Weddings cost WAYYY more then what the couple receive as gifts. In all fairness you (and 75% of the populace in my estimation) didn't even cover the cost of two plates. Last wedding I went to it was $145 per plate.

[cocked&locked]

Ok - I guess the concensus here is that I'm being a baby. I can accept that. In general though, I just find it disgusting when people lie about something like this - especially to people that they figure are close enough to have in their wedding. I am being 100% honest when I say that the money isn't the main factor - it is the obvious deceit. It's hard for me to say for sure (the situation has passed and I might be a bit skewed in my thinking), but I am nearly certain that I would not have objected to anything or been irritated if they had been honest.

Still, I realize now that I am being petty. I guess I'll go do some breathing excercises and worry about something more important - like bad beats or something [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] (oops - snuck in a p*ker reference).

[Paluka]

I don't think the issue is that you are being a baby. The issue is that you never took 5 minutes to go over the millions of good reasons these people may have had for doing what they did.