Cold feet cost groom €14,408

A man has been ordered to reimburse his ex-fiancée’s parents for expensive wedding preparations after getting cold feet just a month before the wedding date.

In a judgment handed down today, judge Lawrence Mintoff ordered the 40-year-old man to reimburse the parents of his former fiancée to the tune of €14,408.

The man had been in a relationship with his bride-to-be, who was 17 years his junior, for several years before they decided to tie the knot in June 2014. But as the wedding day got closer, the groom had asked to postpone the wedding to September, citing his new job and longer working hours as the reason behind his change of plans.

But that August, just over a month before the wedding, Cana Movement officials informed the woman that her fiancé had sought the help of a marriage counsellor, with whom he had confided that he could not go through with the wedding.

The fiancée's parents filed a civil suit against the man, saying they were €16,000 out of pocket due to expenses they had incurred for the wedding preparations.

The figure was the total of the costs of buying the wedding dresses, catering, flowers, music, invitation cards, souvenirs and hiring the wedding cars, as well as a deposit for the wedding reception venue.

The court was told that the man's previous marriage had been annulled on the grounds of partial simulation of consent – the part of consent relating to fidelity. He had been prohibited from contracting a Catholic marriage without special permission, but this ban had already been lifted to allow him to marry another woman and this marriage had also not been finalised.

The man told the court that he had not been ready to get married at that time and had not contested that the parents of his former fiancée had paid all the wedding expenses, although he had said that the amount claimed was excessive. He had taken a message from the woman's parents, asking him to sign a document to the effect that the couple would have to reimburse the parents if the wedding didn't take place, as a threat and had contacted the Cana movement to inform them that he was having second thoughts.

The judge observed that the existence of the betrothal and the legal capacity of both parties to enter into the engagement had been uncontested by the parties. The pre-nuptial paperwork and administration had also been completed with their respective parishes.

It remarked that the man had shown “great irresponsibility and immaturity” by first requesting a postponement, just weeks before the wedding date and then failing to go through with the wedding at all, observing that this had left his bride-to-be traumatised.

The court held that it had been amply demonstrated by the evidence that, putting aside the pique that was created between the couple and their families, the pre-nuptial anxiety and even the interference of the bride's parents, the defendant had lacked the intent to enter into a marital bond again. This had been confirmed by the testimony of a psychologist and marriage counsellor, as well as by the decision of the Ecclesiastical Tribunal which had annulled his first marriage.

“Although it emerges from the evidence that there was indeed certain excessive interference by the bride's parents...this interference was not the true cause of the breaking off of the engagement.”

Ruling that the man had broken off the engagement without good reason, the court ordered him to pay €14,408 to his ex-fiancée’s family, as well as interest on the sum and nine tenths of court costs.