Gabriella L

Our marriage was never Registered with Home Affairs

We used John, The Wedding Guy as our marriage officiant for our wedding, as he came highly recommended and was seen on all the right wedding sites etc. First impressions, he looks wonderful, has all the information and YouTube links on ceremony types and seemed very helpful. He provided a good wedding ceremony, but sadly that’s where it ended. A few weeks after our wedding, we discovered our marriage wasn’t registered. I had followed up with John on numerous occasions and via different platforms (cellphone, WhatsApp and email) to ask him for a copy of our Marriage Registry and to follow up on when he would register our marriage. He didn’t respond to any of my emails, messages or calls. He even rejected some of my calls. With no luck of getting hold of him ourselves we got our wedding coordinator to follow up with him. She too had no luck as he simply blamed Home Affairs for the delay. A few weeks later, however, we were still unmarried and no response from John. With no other option, we had to contact and pay a 3rd party to assist us with our marriage. Such a pity as at first he seemed like a genuine person but never followed through on his service. We are yet to receive an explanation/response from John as to why he withheld our documents or didn’t register our marriage in the first place. Registering our marriage was part of the service he offered and that we had paid for. Based on my experience, I wouldn’t recommend him as an officiant.