What are the reasons to get married?

I mean a lot of shit mentioned here can be mitigated with a pre-nup, I had worries and mentioned it. Went down like a lead balloon, her dad didn't believe in them. Hilarious. And here we are 11 years later divorced.

Listen to your gut people.

Prenups aren’t completely legally binding in the U.K. though they can potentially help your lawyer out a bit.

If you own a home together or have loads of cash then it’s worth getting married to avoid inheritance tax, spousal transfer is non taxable. Especially if you have kids. Getting married could be the difference between staying in the family home, or having to sell the house to pay the tax bill shortly after one of the parents dies

You get to force your friends and family to sit through an interminable 'party' and often make them pay for the privilege of doing so.

We actually had a really good party. We had a fish and chip van and my brother in law's Notting Hill Sound Set played great music. Our friends and families all get along really well, everyone danced loads and had a ball. It was genuinely good fun.

Honestly, I don't really see any downside to having got married. We both get a small tax break, I get to wear a wedding ring and hopefully, there's going to be people there to look after me as I slowly decline into the inevitable madness of old age. In the event of the worst happening (a divorce, I mean), she has almost exactly the same rights as she would have had under common law anyway.

Plus, she's been my best friend for 20 odd years. Even when we were apart (working away etc), we were always there. It just made sense. I would have been ok with either way, honestly, but it made her and our families really happy and it was definitely worth it for that.

We already had a house, so we didn't spend any money we needed for a deposit. In fact, it was pretty much done on the cheap, which makes it all the more pleasing that it was good.

Well they'd be wrong on both counts.

It's alright, they don't think that. Pretty fucking weird to separate people into "people" and "ladies" to be honest

You'd have never forgot my wedding, I got so drunk I ended up in hospital having my stomach pumped. God, I'm such a douche.

You'd think a marriage starting like that wouldn't last, and you'd be right, we got divorced in 2011.

Weirdly we got back together a couple of years later, thanks to amicable shared access to our child, and to be honest it's been good, even if we struggle to 'label' our relationship.

It's also a bit weird when we do anniversaries.

Weird flex, I'll admit. It's also the Disney story you never knew you wanted.

Yeah, I was trolling a bit. I just went to a series of very long and boring weddings in my twenties.

Her dad was a baptist minister when we got married (no, he didn't do the service). I would have been quite happy to "live in sin" but there's no way her family would have stood for it. To be fair he paid for the whole reception, which would have eaten up our first home deposit if we'd had to foot the bill. And yes, the legal and financial benefits for me far outweigh the spiritual, or the day itself.

I don't feel like I need a will for any reason except that I'm worried about who would care for my kids if me and Mrs. hedben both died at the same time. There are members of her family who I definitely wouldn't want to be involved... but we've never really addressed it and we'd probably disagree on what to put in a will about that anyway.

Well it wasn't a reason but as a non EU citizen I now have nearly the same rights as an EU national. I can live and work here visa free and have access to French nationality should I choose to. Likewise she would have access to Australia which is notoriously difficult to move to and the kids will get the benefits of being dual nationals, whatever those benefits may be.

So there is that.

Love going to a wedding. They're usually memorable, though that's because of the carnage that ensues during the evening drinking. Couldn't tell you a thing about the ceremony rubbish other than that they said I do.

For the record there's no such thing as a "common law marriage". Being in a long term relationship, cohabiting, and even having kids together confers no additional rights whatsoever.

I've been with my partner for 17 years and we've never really discussed getting married. We got engaged after about 6 years together as it felt like the thing to do but we are both of the opinion that getting married and spending an insane amount of money on the wedding is not how we'd do it.

I did mention marriage last night after reading the thread and she looked at me as if I was mental, totally felt the love then.

I think if we do the marriage thing it'll end up being something proper cheesy like a chapel in Vegas or Disney World so the kids can get a holiday out of it.

In my case, it was the only way I could get to be with her - same reason as Paz. I'd rather not have had to get married, but life is pretty good, much better than I'd envisaged. Speaking from experience, there's a stability and understanding that you don't really get in a common-law relationship. Maybe that's partly due to the fact you both know how much of a fucking ballache it would be to split, but there's something to be said for sitting down and working out those relationship annoyances like adults. It's also a good platform to raise a family on as well.

Just mind you find the right girl, there are some right pieces of shit out there and your dickhole can be far more persuasive than your brainhole.