Court Marriage vs. Traditional Marriage: Why the former is better?

Marriage is an intimately private affair and therefore, everyone’s priorities might differ in this regard. While some couple may choose to get married in the traditional/customary way, others might prefer to get their marriage registered by applying for a court marriage certificate. However, the focus of this blog will acquaint our readers with all the aspects in which a court registered marriage might fare better than a conventional and traditional marriage.

1. First and foremost, the factor that cannot be ignored is that of expenses. Money or the show of wealth plays a huge role in traditional Indian weddings. The upper classes and in many cases, also the middle class of the Indian population finds pleasure in making a huge display of their wealth on the weddings days of their sons and daughters. This, they believe plays an important role in their image building within the society. So much so that even those families which cannot afford to put up a grand wedding a couple of hour-long ceremonies often come under peer pressure and often end up spending way more than their means. This is unfair, and such tendencies must be discouraged in our society. We as a community must be sensitive towards the financial capacities of our peers and must be conscious in our day to day demeanor to not put too much pressure on our peers to throw a grand and expensive wedding affair. No one should feel the pressure to throw a wedding which is both grand, as well as an exquisite affair. Court marriages are a good way of avoiding this immense societal pressure. Court marriages provide an appropriate escape mechanism for this burden imposed by society.
2. By choosing to get married in a court, the couple will not have to bother about the several nitty-gritties that are involved in a traditional wedding ceremony. Traditional weddings, in addition to being very expensive, can also be very stressful. The various kinds of stresses involved in a traditional wedding ceremony range are
   1. Travel arrangement for the guests
   2. Arrangement of accommodation for the guests
   3. Arranging a caterer- This is important keeping in mind the fact that many people come to the wedding only for the purpose of having good food.
   4. Booking a venue big enough to comfortably host all the guests that have been invited
   5. Purchasing flamboyant dresses for each of the several ceremonies involved- this number may escalate a little too much, keeping in mind the huge number of ceremonies involved in a typical Indian wedding.
   6. Buying sparkling items of jewelry, possibly for the female members of the family so that none feels left out.
   7. Calling the band for the baarat (the groom’s procession).
   8. Arranging for a horse if you are from the groom’s side.
   9. Giving gifts to relatives. This is very important because it is not uncommon for relatives in a traditional wedding done as per all the customs and rituals, to get upset and feel offended if they are not given the presents they expected to receive. They consider this to be an insult and in some cases, it might also lead to spoiling of the relationship.

Apart from these, there can be several other miscellaneous arrangements that will have to be incurred during the course of all the wedding ceremonies.  Managing and organizing such an exquisite affair is not everyone’s cup of tea. Though it is true that nowadays there are a lot of wedding and event planners that are available, who are more than willing to take this burden off your shoulders,, their prices are exorbitant. Also, since they consider each wedding to be only another project, they work on it objectively and may not be able to add the personal touch that one may be able to add if one is making all the arrangements oneself. But in today’s times, not many people will be willing to voluntarily take on this headache of making sure that all arrangements are done flawlessly. Instead, a court marriage could be a more viable alternative. If the couple wants to celebrate their wedding with their near and dear ones, it can just throw a reception function after the court marriage has been done.

There are many other factors in which a court marriage is better than a conventional customary marriage. Traditional marriages involve a responsibility to involve all your relatives, regardless of whether they are close or distant. Once the relatives get to know that a wedding has been planned, expectation grows in their mind. They feel offended if they don’t receive an invitation. Post the wedding, if they come to know through some other relative, there also exists the possibility that they might break all ties. In fact, in today’s times of social media and stronger connectivity, it is not very improbable for one to find out about the fact of marriage. Therefore, all distant relatives are bound to get upset.

To avoid this hostility in one’s life, it is advisable to have a court marriage. In such case, even if a distant relative finds out about the marriage, they would know that it was done in a court and hence no expectation or resultant disappointment would arise in their mind.