A Melbourne couple’s marriage has been annulled after the bride told a court she thought her wedding was nothing more than a social media hoax to boost her Instagram followers.
In an October family court ruling released Thursday, a judge annulled the December 2023 marriage after determining that the bride “believed she was performing at a social media event,” rather than at a legally wedding ceremony. binding, reports The Guardian.
The girlfriend, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, told the court that she met the boyfriend on a dating app in September 2023 and they met in person the next day at a church. At the time, she was in her twenties and he was in his thirties.
For the next three months, they kept in touch, before she said the boyfriend invited her to a “white party” in Sydney in December. When she arrived at the place she was “surprised” to find out that the man had “organized a wedding.” Although she felt uncomfortable and wanted to leave, the boyfriend told her that “it was just a joke.” “When I arrived and didn’t see anyone in white, I asked him, ‘What’s going on?'” he told the court.
«He told me that he was organizing a joke wedding for his social networks. To be precise, Instagram, because he wanted to boost his content and start monetizing his Instagram page,” he continued.
Footage of the ceremony was played in court, showing the couple exchanging vows and rings. Although the bride seemed to participate “with enthusiasm” in the ceremony, she assured the court that it was “quite an act.”
She said she only discovered the “fake” wedding was legal after he asked her to add his name to her permanent residency application. She claimed the boyfriend told her he was not a permanent resident and had “arranged the marriage to help him.” She felt “furious” because she had been “lied to from the beginning.”
The bride said she would never get married without her parents’ permission and presence, nor without a wedding dress or a reception party.
The boyfriend, who has 17,000 followers on Instagram but denied being a social media influencer, refuted her version of events. He testified that immediately after they met, he had told her he was bisexual and that she “was fine with it” and moved into his house.
The groom told the court that he had proposed to her a day before the wedding. However, she couldn’t explain why the wedding had to happen so soon after the proposal or why they got married in Sydney instead of Melbourne.
The court also heard he had signed a notice of intention to marry on November 20, weeks before the proposal. He said the wedding was intended to be “intimate” before an “official” wedding ceremony in his home country at a later date and that “they both agreed to these circumstances.”
However, the judge said the statement was “so devoid of detail as to be almost meaningless.” She also rejected the boyfriend’s claim that they had moved in together, concluding that the couple had instead maintained separate residences. For the judge “it is incredible” that the bride married the groom “less than two days” after accepting his proposal. “The plaintiff did not have a single family member or friend present at the alleged wedding ceremony. “She was religious,” he wrote.
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