Woman discovers fake wedding on Instagram is real

A woman in Australia called off her engagement after realizing that the fake wedding she participated in as a social media stunt was actually real.

The unbeknownst bride said her partner was a social media influencer who convinced her to attend the ceremony as a “joke” on his Instagram account.

She only discovered the marriage was real when he tried to use it to gain permanent residence in Australia.

A Melbourne judge annulled the decision after accepting the woman was tricked into getting married, in a ruling published on Thursday.

The strange case began in September 2023 when the woman met her partner on an online dating platform. They began meeting regularly in Melbourne, where they lived at the time.

That December, the man proposed to the woman 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 clothes – and asked to bring a white dress.

But when they arrived, she was “shocked” and “angry” to find no other guests present except her partner, a photographer, the photographer’s friend and a celebrant, according to Her testimony is quoted in court documents.

“So when I got there and didn’t see anyone wearing white, I asked him, ‘What’s going on?’. He pulled me aside and told me he was organizing a mass. prank on his social network Instagram precisely because he wanted to promote his content and wanted to start making money from his Instagram page,” she said.

She said she accepted his explanation because “he is a social media person” and has more than 17,000 followers on Instagram. She also believes that a civil marriage will only be valid if it is held in court.

However, she was still worried. The woman called a friend and expressed her concerns, but this friend “laughed it off” and said that it would be okay because if it was true, they would have to file a notice of intention to get married first, which which they haven’t done yet.

Reassured, the woman went through the ceremony where she and her partner exchanged wedding vows and kissed in front of the cameras. She said at that time she was happy to “play along” to “make it real”.

Two months later, her partner asked her to add him as a dependent in her application for Australian permanent residence. Both are foreigners.

When she told him she couldn’t because they weren’t technically married, he then revealed that their Sydney wedding was genuine, according to the woman’s testimony.

The woman then found their marriage certificate and discovered a notice of intent to marry had been filed a month before their Sydney trip – before they even got engaged – which she said she did not sign. According to court documents, the signature on the notice bears little resemblance to the woman’s signature.

She said: “I’m so angry because I didn’t know it was a real marriage and that he lied from the beginning and that he also wanted me to add him to my application ”. .

In his testimony, the man claimed they “both agreed to these circumstances” and that following his proposal, the woman agreed to marry him at a “closed ceremony.” secret” in Sydney.

The judge ruled that the woman was “confused about the nature of the ceremony being performed” and “did not truly consent to her participation” in the marriage.

“She believed she was acting. She called the event ‘a joke’. Her display of a bride’s personality in everything during the ceremony was suspected to enhance the credibility of video depicts a legal marriage,” he stated in the judgment.

The marriage was annulled in October 2024.