Talk with family members or other people involved in the wedding to find out if someone else feels similarly. If you want to stop a wedding it’s best to find legal reasons why it shouldn’t happen. Do not base halting a wedding purely on emotions like jealousy or hatred. Those can be worked through with communication and therapy.
Imagine how you would feel if someone tried to stop you from having your wedding. Go into your discussion with the couple thinking carefully about the words you use and your reasoning. Make sure to stay calm and collected to get your point across in the best way. Voice your concerns and why you feel so strongly opposed to the wedding, but also listen to them and hear their side. Offer solutions if you bring up legal problems and it’s more likely the couple will listen and cooperate.
This may be a good time to ask questions about how they are feeling about the wedding, and what their future looks like in their eyes; why they believe their significant other is the one for them etc. That kind of discussion could bring up uncertainty they may have about getting married and you can use it to enable them to think a little more, and possibly call off the wedding.
The expense of a wedding is a great excuse to need to wait to save up more money. Planning a wedding is a lot of time and effort. For some, schooling, athletics, or current hobbies may take up much of their time and you can use this as another excuse to wait. Another excuse to hold off until another year would be family events coming up such as grandpa’s 80th or the birth of a new baby. You could use these by saying how much nicer it may be to have a wedding when the celebration will be all about them. If none of these are true, and you feel the couple actually isn’t a good match, you can also tell them the truth if you think they will listen; you believe they should wait a year to see what comes of their relationship, and if they’re still together and happy its testament of their bond and they can decide to get married then.
Laws vary by jurisdiction, and each case is situation. Call or visit your local courthouse to discuss the steps you need to take once you have legal reasons the couple cannot get married.
This should be done as a last resort as it could be very traumatic, or it could actually bring the couple closer together in their possible attempt to escape and elope. Crashing a wedding is not advised. It is a dramatic and reputation-damaging route which may not even work since some couples are legally married by signing the marriage license before the wedding ceremony. The recommended plan would be to talk way ahead of time with the couple to avoid expenses and chaos and to have a rational discussion where you all share your sides.
The marriage was with a minor and required approval from the court and/or parental consent. The marriage was not consummated and neither spouse were able to have sexual relations. Either spouse were mentally ill or mentally incapacitated; involved with drugs or drunk. If the marriage was illegal based on incest If the marriage was fraudulent; one spouse marrying the other based on lies. If a spouse was forced or blackmailed into the marriage. If either of the two were still married to someone else at the time of the wedding. [2] X Research source If you know the wedding is going to happen on any of those pretenses then you may still be able to null out the marriage after the wedding. Talk with the person whom you believe should initiate the annulment and show them how they can escape the marriage.
Waiting is not a fantastic solution since there may not actually be an end in sight. This should be your very last resort. This could be a good plan if you believe the relationship is already particularly unstable.
