A man says he feels deceived after discovering that his cousin’s wedding — which family and friends spent thousands of dollars supporting — wasn’t legally binding.
He took to Reddit’s “Am I the A——” forum to ask if it would be wrong to demand his cousin pay everyone back for what he called a “fake” wedding.
“I just feel like this was extremely disrespectful to make people think you’re getting married and accepting gifts if it’s not true,” he explained.
According to the post, the cousin, 44, and her partner, 40, held a large wedding nine months ago. Guests contributed “a good amount of money” toward food, drinks, decorations, and gifts. The man and his girlfriend alone spent over $2,000 on gift cards for the couple.
Recently, while discussing relationship problems with his cousin, she accidentally revealed that the marriage was never legally registered.
“My cousin let it slip that they are not actually legally married, it was just a ceremony they wanted to have,” he wrote. “I’m upset and thinking about telling her to reimburse me. Not sure if I should tell the rest of my family.”
When pressed, the cousin confirmed again that her marriage wasn’t official and brushed off his concerns, laughing and saying, “Everyone had a good time.”
The man, however, felt that wasn’t the point. “Everyone put in a lot of time, effort and money into making that day special, and it wasn’t even real,” he said.
Although the couple had planned to legalize their marriage later, their relationship began unraveling before that happened.
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“I was immediately upset about it because my gf and I took the time to get some really nice gifts for them. My mom and aunt spent a lot of money and time on food … it was a complete waste,” he continued. “We made sure we had time off from work, we spent our energy doing all of this stuff for them… for nothing.”
Now he’s debating whether to confront his cousin and demand repayment or just walk away.
Most Reddit users sided with him, saying his cousin was wrong to “lie and manipulate” loved ones into spending thousands on what was essentially a party. Some even argued he should warn her to come clean or they would expose the truth themselves.
“What a crappy way to extort money out of your loved ones just to have a self-serving party,” one commenter wrote. Another added, “She conned family and friends out of all this money for a party!”
One user went further, calling it fraud: “They received finance and goods under false pretenses. Give her 24 hours to tell everyone the truth, then tell everyone you know who was roped into the fake wedding.”
