This year is our 32 anniversary.

I think marriage in part puts the commitment up front

When you live common law, which is mostly the same thing legally, you take it day by day. Kind of like putting the commitment at the end of the relationship

When you marry you are making a commitment

I hope that when my children , now 22 and 25, find true partners they will choose to make that commitment' rather than the easier "live together" option.

Cheryl and I have been married for 40 years. We knew each other for about 6 months before we decided to marry.  We were in love.  She was gorgeous.  I wasn't so bad myself and I couldn't imagine living without her in my life.  I knew she felt the same way too.

 We have worked together as lawyer and assistant for most of my career in law.  People ask us how we manage it.  I think it is easy. When I look across the room at her I still have really tender feelings of love.  We have made each other stronger.  I know it is a bit of a cliche but we really do complete one another (and God knows I can use all the completion I can get!)

We have had all sorts of adventures together and we are still having them.  We have struggled together too.  I don't really know how it is that I had the tremendous good fortune to meet her.  I could easily have missed out.  I don't know what I would have done if I had. I can't imagine that my life would have been nearly as good or for that matter what it might have been at all. I just feel really, really lucky. But it was more than good luck.  We both had the good sense to commit to one another ... unwaveringly ...  and to forgive one another too ... as often as necessary. In other words, we had the good sense to marry.

We got married because we were in love, we wanted to make a commitment to each other, and the Spirit of God told us to. 

There are different parts to marriage.

Legal, social/community and spiritual.

In some provinces living together is more and more like legal marriage, although it's not completely there.  I wanted the legal recognition/responsibilites/benefits etc. of being married to Chemguy.

When it came to social and community I wanted the commitment to him and from him and to have the support of our families.  Our friends and family now see us as a family.  Without getting married, some wouldn't see us the same way.  The wedding also falls into this part.  Celebrating our union with those close to us was important.  We joined each other's extended family.

The spiritual aspect was important to me, not to Chemguy, but he respected what I wanted that way.  To me, creating a new family is pretty spiritual.

I can give a perspective on why my partner and I never married. 

Legal - For the legal stuff we've made sure we are both on pretty much everything. Both our names are on the mortgage for our condo, both our names are on the paperwork for the car, we file our taxes jointly, I'm on his health benefits and he's covered on mine, we are each other's beneficiaries on life insurance.  So I don't see a lot of differences between what we have done and the way most married couple set things up. We don't have joint bank accounts but the neither do a lot of married people these days.

Community - In a lot of ways a marriage ceremony is as much a rite-of-passage for the community that the couple are a part of as it it is for the couple themselves. It's the community gathering to celebrate and recognize a change in the couple's life status.  I hate to say it but we don't really have a faith community. I am a solitary pagan, he's an agnostic. I am not a part of the Pagan community in my city, I don't even know very many other pagans in the face-to-face sense.  And he isn't part of a faith group with a definable set of beliefs and practices.

Family -  The simple fact of the matter is that I can not think of how to invent a wedding ceremony that would be meaningful and acceptable to both myself and my partner that my family and his (both different flavours of Christian) would actually attend. 

Spiritual - To us a very private and obviously non-legally binding set of promises are just a spiritually valid as any piece of paper. We've made a commitment to each other and we've stuck together through the easy times and the rough time for nearly 12 years.  I call him my husband, he calls me his wife and in the sense of being established life partners it's a true enough definition of what we are to each other.

We got married for the reasons everyone else mentioned. Because it felt like the right thing to do- especially after finally meeting his parents who live abroad. We felt like a family and we felt called to do it. Also, it felt like (although we're late bloomers) a part of 'growing up'. For both of us but maybe even more for my husband. Before I had resigned to the idea that we'd just keep living together unless he felt like popping the question-when he was ready in his own time- because in my husband's culture where he comes from marriage is a huge deal so not something we take as lightly as we do here, and not something to be done on a whim. Not that I take it lightly- not at all-but I am as committed now as I was the day he proposed- and now I know for sure that he is too and our families see us now as married- not just my 'friend' as my dad and grandparents used to call him when they didn't know what else to say- he had become part of the family by then but they were still a wee bit old fashioned I guess.

We married because we felt that's how we wanted to define the relationship. There are benefits and liabilities both ways, but for us being married to each other was something we felt was important to us and that was what made the decision rather than some kind of legal or financial cost-benefit analysis.

One thing to keep in mind on the legal front is that while Canada recognizes common law as equivalent to marriage (at least for some purposes), not everyone does and it is not recognized for every purpose. A couple we know who had not planned to get married originally (they lived common law) ended up doing so because she got a job in the US and had to be married to him to sponsor him when he moved down to join her.

Mendalla

We celebrated or 50th wedding anniversary last year. We got married because we were madly in love with each other.

Our granddaughter will get married in four weeks—for the same reason.

My wife and I just celebrated our 22nd Wedding Anniversary.  For us it was about the commitment and the understanding that teamwork is what makes relationships last.

When couples come to me wondering if I will preside over their weddings we chat about things.

One of the first questions I ask is if they have been living together and if they say yes I ask what a wedding will mean to them.  This always seems to catch them off guard, I guess the notion exists that clergy are just dying to marry folk who have already been living together.

The variety of answers runs from "We wanted to make it official" to "It seemed like the right thing to do."  Both are somewhat lacking in expressions of devotion and dedication.  Not that either are absent, they just never seem to be lifted up as the reason for getting married.

Grace and peace to you.

John

As individuals, all our lives my wife and I each had dreams of that rite of passage/commitment/covenant...

It was not open to us, so we lived together. Our status was about legality. All the commitment and covenant was done without pomp or circumstance or legal standing. So, yes I believe it (all that is in marriage) can be there without marriage, that includes, having God as part of it.
 

I feel I cannot say a word about folks living together or premarital sex, apart from advising them to make sure they are in love and there is commitment. I mean, wouldn't that be the height of hypocrisy?
.

So, why did we get married?

We wanted to make it legal, make it official. That does not mean either of us felt it was "just a piece of paper". It means we busted our humps to work for equal marriage.

INothing changed about our relationship, nothing. 

We wanted everyone else to know, honour and recognize what we had already done in our hearts. So, for me, "we wanted to make it official" can be a perfectly acceptable answer.

Although I understand what you're saying Rev John- but I think many people who decide to get married after living together do so because the devotion and dedication is already there and is being shown by taking the step to making it official- and maybe something happens that makes that really clear like a feeling of being part of an extended family who loves us, or coming through a hard time together still intact, we've learned and grown into sharing most aspects of our lives, it was very clear by then to both of us that we're in this thing called life together (although we have individual interests too)- all of those were indicators- we both felt it was time, all things considered, to make it official. It wasn't like we were just shacked up sleeping together and figured we'd better get married to justify having sex (which some young couples do). If the devotion doesn't get lifted up overtly, it's because it's already there, built up over time, and it brought us to the wedding stage-to get the license, to chat in the minister's office, and to the church on time- there was no longer any question of it- the whole reason to feel we wanted to make it official, actually. And it was the right thing to do because although the commitment was already there we wanted to go through that step together- which, given family squabbles around wedding details, did actually try our patience- it was another challenge to get through together too-as much of a celebration of how far we've come as it was about the road ahead- some conflict (on my side of the family) about minutia which we didn't anticipate (or maybe subconsciously we did and that's why we procrastinated- by marrying me my husband also showed me he had accepted his role as my advocate through some tough family stuff which meant a lot to me. His family is warm and close so no problems from my pov )- but when the day finally arrived- it was fun (and a relief)-we made it. :) And, once you're up there at the altar before God and everyone- there is a feeling of holy sacrament and as well as a rite of passage

Also wanted to add that before I got married I used to see (because my parents are divorced maybe?) the wedding as just symbolic- but in
our case it was a challenge as much as a celebration- further proof of our commitment because we survived it. Phew! :)

I got married, twice, because I desperately wanted to be married. I wanted permanency.

I was immature the first time - and still am after a separation in the second. I've accepted the fact that i shall never grow up.

Luckily, my best before date is well behind me - so I'm not likely to marry again.

As part of our courtship my wife and I decided not to live together, and not to sleep together, before being wed. We saw this as a way of honoring God, one another, and the love that we shared (and still do). That wasn't an easy commitment to keep, but empowered by the Holy Spirit we did it. I give God full credit. Looking back at it now, I believe that it was the right decision for us. I am very, very thankful.

For me it's about Family.  When my brother divorced my sister in law, my mother mourned because  she lost a daughter.  

My hope if I married would be to make my partner part of my family. That my parents, and siblings would love him as part of their family, as a son and brother. Not just by law, but by love.  They would be enabled to do so because by getting married it would show that we had the intention of making it life long.

Thus if something happened to me, he would continue possibly to have the benefit of being in my family.

You make a good point Alex.  Marriage is often not just between two people but often includes the entire family.  I have known people who have lost a spouse through death continue to be included - invited over for Sunday brunch and to family gatherings - and who continue to mow the lawn and drive mil to her medical appointments.  

It happens less soften in the case of marriage breakdown. Right now my daughter is suffering because of the coldness of her mil. I still consider her ex to be my sil, the father of my grandchildren, and I try to treat him warmly.

Why get married and why did I get married? I don't know I am still trying to figure that one out. Oh wait my wife posts on here also! Just kidding honey! I love you wifey! We will be celebrating our 15th wedding anniversary in a few months.

My husband and I will be married 4 years this October. He's 25 and I'm 29. We planned our wedding in under 4 weeks. I was pregnant and really wanted to be married to have a baby. Maybe silly but to me I really wanted to be husband and wife and start a family. Maybe partially from my Catholic upbringing too I don't know? But I know a lot of people our age who have kids and not married or even engaged. The way I always look at it, is if marriage isn't something that means anything to you then I wouldn't push it just for the sake of being married. But for me, I love being husband/wife and raising our kids together that way. I think being married is hard work! But I also think sometimes being married makes us work harder than we would if just bf/gf. Maybe not..but that's just how I think.