Marriage is a matter of choice.
There are those who prefer to forge the knot either in civil or religious manner. It really depends on the couple’s preference. After all, either you pick one doesn’t matter at all. The choice is yours. But as gleaned from observations, it showed that there are couples who made it to golden anniversary without the blessings of the Church. Worse is that others succeeded in marriage even without going through both civil and religious marriage.
Others believed it is just a piece of paper. But the problem is that when you both agreed to this relationship, you are getting into a contract that entails a lot of complications later on. This makes it more expensive and tedious because when relationship gets sour, it is not that easy to part ways. Getting a divorce in the West is partly okay. What about those in other countries where divorce is not possible? And the only best option is legal separation. At best, others just go away and never heard of again.
What others do is just wait for at least seven years without communication so that they can apply for legal separation. However, in countries where divorce is a practice, paying the alimony is again another problem. Another thing is the child support, if you have minor children to take care of.
At times, it is ironical to see weddings in their grandest celebration. But it is sad to hear that some of them ended up in utter failure because of misunderstandings and incompatibility problems. Worse is when the problem is traced to cheating. That eventually leads to break-up.
Next time, it is still best to think as to whether to be engaged in civil or religious marriage. Whatever is suited and best for your convenience, then go for it. Marriage comes only once in a lifetime. To others, it comes in a variety of ways.