Definition of "getting weddinged"
Real Weddings: Western US
By
on July 10, 2008
46 Responses
Getting weddinged, verb
1. The act of having a wedding after you're already legally married.
2. See Jeannie & Aaron of gettingweddinged.com, who got married six years ago for the health insurance, but are now planning their fall 2008 wedding. Or rather, planning to get weddinged.
For more about getting weddinged, straight from Jeannie & Aaron's FAQ, keep reading…
Why do you guys keep saying you're getting "weddinged"? Aren't you getting married?
Aaron and Jeannie have actually been legally married for about 6 years now.
What?! What the hell?!
OK, calm down. See, when Aaron and Jeannie first moved to Seattle, Jeannie worked part time and interned at the local NPR affiliate part time. And because of that, Jeannie didn't have any health insurance. She managed to cobble together some expensive, lousy coverage. Her best option was to pray to every god she could think of asking that she never get sick. Aaron, on the other hand, had a job at Microsoft. He had awesome health insurance. So after watching Jeannie struggle through a year of no coverage, Aaron offered to get her covered under his Microsoft insurance. The only way to do this was to get legally married. Aaron and Jeannie knew they wanted to be together, but they didn't want to go through a wedding ceremony. And they thought it was really stupid that Aaron had the Cadillac of health insurance while Jeannie's coverage was for total crap.
So why are you having a wedding now, after all this time?
Because we're ready to now. Geez, you're nosy. Honestly, now that we're in a mortgage together it kind of feels like the public declaration of love and commitment thing is really not that huge a deal.
Related post: Should we say "I do" early for health insurance?
About Ariel Meadow Stallings
Author of Offbeat Bride: Creative Alternatives for Independent Brides, Ariel acts as the publisher of all the Offbeat Empire websites. She lives, loves, and dorks out hard in Seattle, WA.
Stephanie BP said
A lot of us international brides are getting weddinged.
jennifer chernoff said
Wow. Thanks for delving in to the mess that we call health care in the US and how it makes us rethink our decisions regarding marriage. We where married in a courthouse and a great selling point on why we should jump in to marriage right away as opposed to when we where "ready" was shared bennies. We have never got weddinged, so hopefully someday we will. Thank you HMO's partaking in the decision to make our marriage a non-event. lol.
amy said
Great. My friend just sent me a link to this, cause hubs and I tied the knot three years ago for health insurance, sans wedding. Dude, now I have a word for the post-marriage wedding I want:getting "weddinged". Thanks
Tsarmina said
We've just decided to get the legal ceremony done this year due to the health of his Dad… and Nanna isn't getting any younger. We are still going to do everything we had planned to do for our wedding next year. Most of our guests won't even know.
Sarah said
I am temping right now as I am going to school to earn my masters and my fiance has great health insurance. This idea is really appealing to us and has been discussed frequently. I love that it now has a verb
laura said
ha I'm getting married this fall, simple, private, court house, (using the first ring Mr. W ever gave me, out of a gum ball machine) its nice to get the legal stuff out of the way.
and then we are getting weddinged july 09.
(the party, the friends, the real ring)
Kate said
Ha! We did this.
But we both had health insurance, it wasn't for that. It was because we didn't want to wait 4 more months (our engagement was short)… we wanted to be married RIGHT NOW. 
So marriage at the court house with our parents it was, and we got weddinged later. And they were pretty cool with it. It was everyone else who was afraid they'd be let down by too simple of a "non-wedding" in May. Oy vey. (And by the way, we didn't disappoint. So there.)
Sarah M... said
Glad to know my husband and I aren't the only ones! It's funny how people really do seem to be confused by the whole situation, especially because there's not a word for 'husband but also sort of fiance'.
Kim said
You brought a smile to my face!
Do you think they will add 'getting weddinged' to the dictionary? I think they definitely should…
Tara said
Sarah- I call mine my "beyonce." It's kind of a shortened conjugation of husband and fiance. First he was "Husb-iance," and it kind of organically turned into beyonce because we thought it was funny.
He also likes to say that we're "engarried."
BrandyG said
We're actually in the opposite situation. We're from canada, and I'm disabled (thank god I'm canadian) so I'm on disability income assistance. It's a few bucks over $500 a month.
My fiance doesn't make alot of money, and my medication alone is over $400 a month that will no longer be covered once we get married. I loose the medical coverage and I loose my piddly government allowance that is just enough money for me to live at home with my parents.
So we are postponing the wedding for as long as possible to be able to have my coverage for as long as possible. Because he just can't afford to take care of me yet, and the government doesn't care. As soon as we're cohabitating, I'm cut off.
It's so painful to have to wait.
Pazz said
We are doing this too but not for insurance, my gran has terminal cancer
And I wanted her there at my wedding.
So legal stuff is happening in a few weeks with her as a witness, then a small family dinner to celebrate. Then next year we are getting 'weddinged' in Scotland just like we had planned all along.
Jeannie said
It's SO great to read these comments! I felt like Aaron and I were the only people to do something like this…yay! But I have to give credit where credit is due. My excellent co-worker Jenny came up w/ the phrase "getting weddinged" one day over lunch when I explained what Aaron and I were doing.
Liz said
We almost did this – for insurance reasons, naturally. Turned out that I was still covered under my dad's policy, so crisis averted…but we were all ready to get weddinged. It's a great option for people who need the legal benefits of marriage but aren't ready for the big party – or for those who want someone important to be there who might not make it otherwise.
melissa said
wow, the US health care system is seriously flawed…. i live in melbourne and i feel so gratefl of our healthcare system, it's not the greatest in the world, but it seems world away from you poor guys in the US…
Callen said
I'm getting weddinged in 2 months! I'm glad there's a name for it now, I've been calling it the fake real wedding for the last year.
Gerlinde said
Reading about the health insurance in the USA and Canada is quite shocking. Makes me glad I don't live there. In South Africa for about the equivalent of $130 a month we get full comprehensive which covers everything. And we think that's expensive. We may have a failing health system but it sure looks rosy now.
Ariel said
Gerlinde, to clarify: Canada has socialized healthcare. It's only here in the good ol' USA that we have privatized healthcare.
RC said
My husband and I got legally married so we could both live in the US. When I moved to Sweden, I lived with him and became a legal resident based on cohabitation. In Sweden, it's an official legal status called sambo.
When we were ready to move to the US, we got legally married. We had our wedding ceremony and celebration 3 years later when we felt emotionally ready to be married and could afford the celebration we wanted.
If either of us gets really sick, we may have to jump ship and move to the EU.
Sarah said
just wanted to leave a quick note to say how much i love your blog here. the brides that come to me for photography are usually looking for a wedding that is a bit out of the norm and i am always sure to send them here for ideas. keep up the great work!
lauren said
we did the city-hall-in-NYC thing before heading out to england for our loved-ones-and-a-party wedding, since the brits would NOT take our word that we were just trying to get married where we met and didn't actually want to emigrate. we didn't mind: as someone once said, there's the day you're married for caesar and the day you're married for your friends, and the second is the one that counts.
Supernetuser said
I'm not even married yet, in any sense of the word. Its just a day. I don't even know if I'd get weddinged, I can't afford anything right now but I can jump ship if I have a European passport.
Anusha said
I'm a Sri-Lanka born U.S. citizen, and married my husband, a Sri Lankan citizen, last July ('07), so that I could file for his visa when I returned to the U.S. It was a legal marriage at our (Buddhist) temple, followed by a little lunch for family at a nearby hotel. Three days after this, I returned to the U.S. for my job and to file his visa. Then, this past January I went back for our formal wedding. It was kind of weird to be in limbo between legally married and weddinged, lol! But, it was fun too.
This has actually been the practice in Sri Lanka for years and years. My parents did the same thing. The legal marriage is NOT called a marriage, but the "Engagement" or "Registration", and the wedding is held afterwards, usually several months later.
Not everyone does this, though, and nowadays people just do the legal marriage registration on the wedding day, right after the ceremony. But, the old way is still quite popular.
Regina B said
My husband of 5 years and I just got 'weddinged' as did a co-worker of mine, this year. We are all in the military and planning a wedding around our schedules is difficult to say the least. Our reasons for having a wedding later were a little different than Aaron and Jeannie's, but came from the same tree. Money. It was scarce to say the least, but we knew we wanted to be husband and wife, and weren't going to let that get in our way. So in a courthouse with my younger brother as the maid of honor/bridesmaid/videographer/ring bearer we said I do. And regret it? We don't.
Michelle said
We are doing this too, getting weddinged! We were married 15 years ago with a JP ceremony, and will be getting weddinged / renewing our vows this October!