Woman discovers fake Instagram wedding was real

A woman in Australia has had her marriage annulled after realizing a fake wedding ceremony she attended for a social media stunt was actually real.

The unwitting bride said her partner was a social media influencer who convinced her to attend the ceremony as a “prank” for his Instagram account.

She only discovered the authenticity of the marriage when he tried to use it to obtain permanent residency in Australia.

A Melbourne judge granted the annulment in a ruling released on Thursday after admitting the woman 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 living at the time.

In December of that year, the man proposed to the woman and she accepted.

Two days later, the woman attended an event in Sydney with the man. She was told it would be a “white party” – where attendees would wear white clothing – and was told to pack a white dress.

But when they arrived, she was “shocked” and “angry” that no other guests were present other than her partner, a photographer, the photographer’s boyfriend and a celebrant, according to her statement quoted in court documents.

“When I got there and didn’t see anyone in white, I asked him, ‘What’s going on?’ And he took me aside and told me that he was going to organize a prank wedding for his social media. “More specifically, Instagram, because he wants to improve his content and start monetizing his Instagram page,” she said.

She said she accepted his explanation that he was “a social media person” who had more than 17,000 followers on Instagram. She also believed that a civil marriage would only be valid if it took place in court.

Still, she remained worried. The woman called a friend and expressed her concern, but the friend “laughed at it” and said it was fine because if it was real, they would have had to file a marriage notice first, which they didn’t do.

The woman calmly went through the ceremony, during which she and her partner exchanged wedding vows and kissed in front of the camera. She said she was happy at the time to “play along” to make it “look real.”

Two months later, her partner asked her to list him as a family member on her application for permanent residency in Australia. Both are foreigners.

When she told him she couldn’t because they weren’t technically married, he revealed that their wedding ceremony in Sydney was real, according to the woman’s statement.

The woman later found her marriage certificate and discovered a notice of intended marriage that had been submitted a month before their trip to Sydney – before they had even gotten engaged – which she said she had not signed. According to court documents, the signature on the notice bears little resemblance to the woman’s.

“I’m angry that I didn’t know that this was a real marriage and that he also lied from the beginning and that he also wanted me to include him in my application,” she said.

In his statement, the man claimed they “both consented to these circumstances” and that, at his suggestion, the woman agreed to marry him at an “intimate ceremony” in Sydney.

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

“She believed she was acting. She called the event ‘a prank’. “It made perfect sense for her to assume the role of a bride in every respect in the contested ceremony in order to increase the credibility of the video showing a legal marriage,” he explained in the ruling.

The marriage was annulled in October 2024.