An Australian woman has called off her wedding after realizing she attended a fake wedding ceremony for a social media stunt.
The unidentified bride said her partner was a social media influencer who convinced her to attend the ceremony as a “prank” for his Instagram account.
He only discovered the marriage was real when he tried to use it to settle in Australia.
In a ruling released Thursday, a Melbourne judge granted the annulment after the woman admitted she had been tricked into marrying her.
The bizarre case began in September 2023 when the woman met her partner on an online dating platform. They began seeing each other regularly in Melbourne, where they were then living.
The man proposed to the woman in December of that year and she accepted.
Two days later, the woman attended an event with the man in Sydney. She was told it would be a “white party” – where attendees would wear white – and was told to pack a white dress.
But when they arrived he was “surprised” and “angry” to find no guests present except his partner, a photographer, the photographer's friend and a celebrant, according to his deposition cited in court documents.
“So when I got there, and I didn't see anyone in white, I asked her, 'What's going on?'. And she pulled me aside, and she told me she was having a fun wedding for her social media. , specifically, Instagram, because he wants to grow his content and start monetizing his Instagram page,” he said.
He said he accepted her explanation as “he's a social media person” with more than 17,000 followers on Instagram. He also believed that a civil marriage would only be valid if it took place in court.
Still, she was concerned. The woman called a friend and expressed her concern, but the friend “laughed it off” and said it would be fine because, if it were real, they would have to file a notice of intended marriage first, which they didn't.
Reassured, the woman went through with the ceremony where she and her partner exchanged wedding vows and kissed in front of the cameras. He said he was happy at the time to “play along” to “make it look real”.
Two months later, her partner asked her to add him as a dependent on her application for permanent residency in Australia. They are both foreigners.
When she told him she couldn't because they weren't technically married, he revealed that their Sydney wedding ceremony was real, according to the woman's testimony.
The woman later found their marriage certificate and discovered a notice of intended marriage filed a month before their trip to Sydney – even before they were engaged – which she said she did not sign. According to court documents, the signature on the notice bears little resemblance to the woman.
“I'm angry at the fact that I didn't know it was a real marriage, and the fact that he also lied from the beginning, and that he also wanted me to add him to my application,” she said. .
In his deposition, the man claimed they “both agreed to the situation” and that the woman agreed to marry him in an “intimate ceremony” in Sydney following his proposal.
The judge ruled that the woman was “misinformed about the nature of the ceremony performed” and “did not give genuine consent to her participation in the marriage”.
“She believed she was acting. She called the event 'a prank.' .
The marriage was annulled in October 2024.