As he stood before the altar at his wedding last year in Oak Brook, Dave Broucek knew there was no way he could be stood up: He and his bride, Laura, had already been married three months before.
The Brouceks of Schaumburg are among a growing number of couples who privately–and often secretly–get married, then exchange wedding vows at a large, public wedding.
Since most people keep this a secret, it is difficult to know how many couples have multiple weddings, said Antonia van der Meer, Modern Bride editor in chief. However, the magazine conducted an online poll and found “lots and lots of brides and grooms who were doing it,” she said.
“It definitely seems to be a nationwide trend, although many couples may go to Vegas to perform the secret ceremony,” van der Meer said.
Oddly, the pressure of planning a big wedding sometimes drives the couple to elope, she said. However, whether it’s a first marriage or a second marriage, there are many practical reasons for couples to get married before a planned big wedding.
The numbers increase
Rev. Jim Rehnberg, who has been officiating at weddings in the Chicago area for 23 years, describes the movement as “getting legal before they get hugely ceremonial.” In the past year he has performed ceremonies for about nine couples who had been married privately before they exchanged vows again in public wedding ceremonies. Before this, it happened only once or twice a year.
Sometimes an unplanned pregnancy or illness, a need for health insurance, or even tax advantages lead a couple to tie the knot quietly ahead of schedule, he said. Couples who plan destination weddings may get married legally at home first, because of complications with foreign marriage license requirements.
If the bride or groom is divorced and has children, the couple may want to be married quickly before the ex-spouse can turn the children against the new spouse, Rehnberg said. Family disapproval of the spouse may also be a factor. Sometimes the couple does not want to wait for the six months of counseling that a church requires, or simply may want to get financially set first, and have a big wedding later, he said.
War can push plans
Military men and women may feel pressure to get married quickly when they think they will be sent to war. That’s what led the Brouceks to the Cook County courthouse in Rolling Meadows for their civil marriage ceremony on Dec. 1, 2003.
“We were already in the process of planning a February wedding and my military unit was getting scheduled to go to Iraq,” Dave Broucek said.
Their plan was to keep their marriage secret, then proceed with their February wedding if Broucek was still at home. However, as they were driving back from the courthouse, Laura’s brother saw them and realized something special had happened.
“At that point we pretty much had to tell everyone,” Dave Broucek said. Their parents had some mixed reactions to the news.
“My Dad was kind of happy but wanted to know when we were going to have the `real’ wedding,” he said.
As it turned out, Dave Broucek was not sent to Iraq and they were able to have the planned event. The fact that they were already married did not diminish the feelings that Laura Broucek had when they exchanged vows again on Feb. 28.
“It was like we were going through it the first time because it was such a different situation–different words, having more people there,” Laura Broucek said.
Who normally knows
Usually the bride and groom’s parents are part of an “inner circle” of three or four people who know about a secret wedding ceremony, Rehnberg said. When the parents are not aware, Rehnberg takes extra care to keep the secret at the big event. Over time the secret usually gets out and hurt feelings heal, he said.
Sometimes the secret lasts a lifetime. Eleanor Bonham never revealed to her mother that she and her first husband, Gene Fischer, legally had been husband and wife for almost three years when they exchanged vows in a formal church wedding in Chicago on June 8, 1940.
“To her dying day she never knew,” said Bonham, now of Sycamore.
Bonham said her mother did not approve of Fischer when they eloped on July 24, 1937. Determined to be together, the couple “slipped away on a date” to Crown Point, Ind., where they were married just before midnight. They returned home to Chicago “as if nothing had happened,” she said. Bonham, who was 17 at the time, finished high school, attended business college and got a job.
Then in 1940 they were married again, this time with about 100 people including her entire family in attendance. Although Bonham shared the secret with some family and friends, the couple never told her mother or the minister who performed the second ceremony, she said.
“We just kept our mouths shut and got married again. And we had a wonderful life. We had 28 years of wonderful life,” Bonham said. “We were just very much in love.”
Fischer died at age 48 and two years later Bonham remarried.
Twice in one family
Bonham is not the only member of her family who has eloped. About a year ago, her grandson Andrew Schwab of West Chicago revealed to the family that he and his girlfriend of many years, Krysia, secretly were married at the courthouse in Sycamore on March 5, 2003. They had been living together but had had trouble fitting a wedding into their lives, Schwab said.
“There were always plans for a big wedding and this and that, but things always happened and it got put off. We just decided to run off and do it,” Andrew Schwab said. Then the couple did not know how to tell people what they had done. Finally, a week before the couple’s first anniversary, Schwab sat down with his parents and “blurted it out.”
After the “initial shock,” everyone was okay, he said. However, the Schwabs have no plans for a second wedding ceremony.
Many people apparently are dealing with a secret marriage, said Sheri Stritof, who with her husband, Bob Stritof, have run the Marriage Guide at About.com since 1997 and co-authored “The Everything Great Marriage Book” (Adams Media Corp., 2003).
“We get a lot of e-mails on that issue from people who have already done it and then feel, now what do we do? How do we break the news to our family?” Stritof said.
“Some let their families know. Others never tell and the second marriage is the only one the family ever knows about,” she said.
If a couple want to keep a marriage secret, it is pretty easy from a legal standpoint. Even though the marriage license becomes a matter of public record in the place where the marriage takes place, you have to know specifically where to look. There is no central record-keeping for marriages, said Mary Anne Case, a law professor at the University of Chicago.
“If one wanted secretly to marry, one could pretty easily go to some unpredictable place, some place that one is not generally associated with, and enter into a marriage. It would be very difficult for anyone to track that down,” Case said.
In addition, in some states there are circumstances under which marriage records are sealed.
It is important for the wedding officiant to know that the couple already has been married so that he or she understands that a marriage license is not needed, Rehnberg said.
However, not all officiants are receptive to performing a wedding ceremony for a married couple.
“I’d want to suggest that we talk about what this event is,” said Rev. John M. Buchanan, pastor of Fourth Presbyterian Church in Chicago. “In fact the wedding itself is the making of a holy covenant.”
While there are many appropriate ways to celebrate a marriage, at Fourth Presbyterian, the actual wedding only happens once, Buchanan said.
