Bride tricked into marrying influencer in fake ceremony for followers – but it was actually an elaborate hoax

Here comes the bride – but the bridegroom lied.

Most newlyweds receive a shiny toaster or some fat checks in celebration of their holy matrimony.

However, the troubled duo just got an annulment at the request of the “frantic” bride, who claims she thought her wedding ceremony was a social media prank rather than a legally binding union.

“He told me he was having a prank wedding for his social media,” the unnamed woman, a 20-year-old from Melbourne, Australia, recently explained to a family court judge, according to The Guardian.

“Instagram to be exact,” the quirky bride continued, saying the boy had 17,000 followers. “He wants to grow his content and he wants to start monetizing his Instagram page.”

Neither she nor the groom, a Melbourne-based bisexual man in his 30s, can be named for legal purposes, according to reports.

But Judge Joshua Wilson agreed the girl had been tricked into marrying the man during a “sham” wedding in December 2023 in Sydney as part of a visa scam.

He gave the bride an annulment.

The ill-fated couple first connected on a dating app in September 2023. They reportedly had their first date at a church the next day.

After three months of dating, the man proposed in December and she accepted, according to CNN. Two days later, she claimed her new fiance invited her to a “white party” in Sydney.

However, after arriving at the venue in a white dress – a number she insisted was not a wedding dress – the woman was “shocked” to learn the man had “arranged a wedding”.

“When I got there and didn’t see anyone in white, I asked her, ‘What’s going on?'” she told the court, adding that her new boyfriend assured her it was nothing more than “just a joke “.

After agreeing to take part in the alleged stunt, the bride was shown “enthusiastically” taking part in the ceremony, via footage of their wedding, The Guardian says.

She insisted, however, that her abundance was “all an act”.

“We had to act to make it look real,” she said.

The woman – who was not a permanent resident of Australia – eventually discovered the wedding was, in fact, legal after the man allegedly asked her to add his name to her permanent residency application. Had she complied, the filing could have also increased his chances of becoming a permanent resident as well.Â

She claimed the groom told her he was not a permanent resident and that he would “arrange the marriage to help her”.

Outraged by the deception, the bride felt she had been lied to [to] from the beginning.â€

Doubling her fury, the woman asserted that she would not marry without her parents’ permission and presence, nor without a wedding dress or a reception party.

But the groom denied their hasty ‘I dos’ were all about digital glory.

Instead, he reportedly testified that shortly after they met, he came out to the bride as bisexual, and that she was “cool with him” and moved into his home.

He signed a notice of intent to marry on November 20, 2023 – just weeks before he popped the question. But the bride, via CNN, denied ever having seen or signed the document.

As for the quick and stripped-down nature of their union, the groom claimed the nuptials were intended to be “intimate” ahead of an “official” ceremony at their venue at a later date, adding that they “were both agreed with these circumstances.â€

But Wilson wasn’t buying it.

Arguing that it “beggars belief” the bride would marry the groom “less than two days” after accepting his proposal, the judge rejected the groom’s version of events and signed the annulment.

“The applicant did not have a single family member or friend present at the alleged marriage ceremony. She was religious,” Wilson wrote. “Exactly why she would attend a civil wedding and not a church wedding ceremony was left untouched.

“It made no sense to me that she would.â€