Because we were young and in love and that’s what you do. (22 yrs later, we’re not so young, but still in love.)
Neither of us is River Song. That said, my husband’s nickname is Doc… 
About 15 minutes into our first date we were both thinking something might be special. Six months later we decided to live together.
Getting married wasn’t necessary, being “just a piece of paper” and so on, but we both realized that some family members (on both sides) would be terribly upset by our living in sin. Tough luck for them. But… if “marriage” is so meaningless and makes no difference, why not just go ahead and do it? So we announced a date and had a farcical little cheapo (but legal) wedding four months later. That was 45 years ago,* and we’ve never regretted it.
About ten years in, the “meaningless piece of paper” was one of many factors which helped us tough out several very rough years, and eventually end up closer and happier than ever, although we may have gotten lucky in that regard.
- this June
Stupidity.
I believed he was as nuts about horses and riding as I was. I believed he would really do the things he dreamed and talked about. I believed that feeling understood and safe would last beyond the wedding.
I was wrong on all counts. I waited 17 years for the man who courted me to reappear, then filed for divorce 15 years ago.
We were living together and heading toward marriage eventually, when he had an expensive trip to the ER without insurance. Suddenly marriage seemed incredibly important and like something we should have already done, so we did.
Oh, so many ways. Joe can’t work late, he’s got a family. Get Bob to do it, he’s single.
Only relatives can be in the family portrait/go on the vacation/get included in the will/come to the wedding, husbands and wives count, but not boyfriends and girlfriends.
If Jack was really serious, he’d marry Jill. Obviously, their relationship is not as mature as ours. We’re the real grownups, they’re just playing.
It was important to me to do the right things as a step towards starting a family, as I believed very strongly that you should be in a committed relationship before you have kids, and that marriage is a necessary part of that commitment.
When I met a man I loved and who said he loved me and that he shared my values, I married him. Then the children never came along and he got moodier and more controlling and erratic and then he very casually ended our marriage and walked away, was engaged again before our divorce even came through and married someone else.
It’s changed my view of what commitment is. Now I have children and I’m in a committed relationship, but marriage is on hold as there are more important things to focus our time and money on.
My parents got married to simplify the health insurance. They figured the commitment part had been adequately taken care of by me, my sister, and the mortgage, but Dad’s employer was a stickler for paperwork.
Twenty years on, I told my mother they really should have gone down to the courthouse with her father and both small children in tow. It would have made the photos much funnier. 
It’s a ritual people go through, that legitimizes a personal relationship, and the children thereof, in the eyes of the community and the law. That’s why we did it, anyway - we were already living together, it seemed the next step after buying a house and two puppies. Society is set up to make things easier for married couples than cohabiting ones, when it comes to children, property, taxes, insurance, travel - and I don’t see any real reason to fighting that tide, other than bloodymindedness.
Weddings are awesome parties, too.
I ask myself the same question at least once a day…
I would have been quite happy to stay unmarried with the personal commitment made between the two of us rather than a legal/public commitment. But we wanted to move countries and getting married meant I could get a visa and then ultimately residency. A bit unromantic, I know!
Because we made each other better people, we are best friends and madly in love!
I wish I knew why. He proposed when we had known each other only five weeks. It turned out to be a huge mistake, even though I dearly love our two (now grown) sons and the granddaughter one has given us. We were horribly mismatched temperamentally but I toughed it out for almost 20 years when he asked me for a divorce. We’ve been divorced 13 years and I am now engaged to a wonderful man who I have been with for over five years and will marry in May.
Taxes and health insurance. We got married on December 30 because that was the last day the courthouse was open that year. We timed it so that we could reap the tax benefit for that year, while keeping her SSA survivor payouts (she was widowed) as long as possible.
I mean, that and the whole being compatible and deeply in love nonsense…
I had been with Patrick for 27 years when DOMA was overturned. I am now on his gummint insurance.
This dude runs the long con (kidding)
It’s just a piece of paper, it only matters in terms of legality. Technically you can just buy rings can change the last name and consider yourselves married, it changes nothing for the couple outside of legal actions and in their minds.
My girlfriend and I were in our early 20’s, and had lived together for a few months. I knew I loved her, and we had been dating long past the rose-colored-glasses stage. We knew all each others’ annoying habits and mannerisms and still had a strong relationship.
One day she told me she thought she might be pregnant. My first thought was “oh no!” but not for the reason you think.
You see, I realized at that moment that if we got married because of a pregnancy, she would have a pretty good reason to wonder whether I had married her out of love, or a sense of duty. It was a pretty complex thought, and it happened all at once. So I brooded over this thought while we waited for the stick to tell us our fate.
I decided then that I wasn’t going to let the stick decide for me. I told her that I wanted to marry her, regardless of whatever the stick was going to say. I said I knew it wasn’t a very romantic moment, and I apologized for not having everything in order with a ring and flowers and a candlelit dinner or anything, but it was important to me that she knows how I feel. She didn’t say “yes,” because I didn’t ask her a question. She just said, “I would like that, too.”
The stick was negative. We both breathed a sigh of relief.
A couple of months later, we went to literally her favorite place on earth. It was kind of scary, because it’s about as “public” as places get, and I could feel everyone watching as I got on one knee and showed her the best ring I could afford on my shitty minimum-wage job.
She said yes.
This is completely charming and touching. Thanks for sharing it.
Legal actions can be pretty important in this life.
Because I’m the marrying kind. Also, as a same-sex couple, it’s helpful to be able to wave the law at, say, the charge nurse who won’t let you see your spouse in the ER because she disapproves of your “lifestyle.”