«Dear guest, thanks for coming to our wedding… which was not real, by the way.»

That is basically how I imagine this announcement happened: when a couple revealed to all their friends and family that they had been secretly married for the past two years.

As someone terrible at keeping a secret, I would have never been able to keep something this huge from the people I consider my loved ones. How can someone look at their parents’ eyes and not tell them they got married? Not only that, this couple then planned an entire wedding, fully knowing that none of their guests knew the truth about their real wedding, which happened in a courthouse two years prior. 

Despite my not being able to keep a secret, I can understand why some people refrain from telling others about big life decisions, even to those they consider family. What I don’t understand is why they went through all of the trouble of planning a wedding and then announcing the truth to everyone there. Why not just go through the wedding and let people think it was real? What was in it for them to tell everyone that they had been lied to for two whole years?

I am not the only one asking these questions. Many of the guests, including the groom’s parents and siblings, were asking the couple these exact questions, but the couple is not interested in explaining their actions. They simply thought everyone would be happy to learn that the wedding they’re attending is not, in fact, a real one.