When we asked if any of you had been married in secret we never expected such a huge response. Here are just a few of your stories

The anarchists

Having lived together a very long time, my husband and I, aged 80 and 67, decided to get married for reasons of inheritance tax. Harry was an anarchist, and as such felt we did not need the approval of the state to do so, and wanted it not to be known by his fellow-thinking friends and family that he had committed this heretical act.

Where to get married? We knew the local registrar so that was out of the question. Gretna Green was the answer. A charming and moving ceremony took place with a young Asian couple from way down south (who we thought were probably running away) as reciprocal witnesses. Our wedding breakfast was tea and scones at the Tebay service station on our way back home along the M6.

We kept it a secret until just before he died, when our respective sons were given power of attorney and the marriage had to be admitted. A daughter-in-law declared: "Gretna Green – that's what teenagers do!" Gwendoline Goddard

The unwanted guest

One person. That's all it was. One rotten apple in the family barrel. Not even very present in our lives, but the day we married was shaped by him. Like a secret wedding planner he determined the place, the number of guests, the mood and the disappointments.

In the very first moments of contemplating a wedding day with ceremony, family and friends, his spectre rose up above me like a black crow. The idea of sharing even five minutes with this particular relative, let alone the entirety of my most special of days, was unthinkable. It would be tainted, blighted.

I'd hidden my loathing carefully over years; no one but my partner knew the extent of it. Well you have to, don't you? For the sake of family sensitivities. Let's all just pretend and be nice to one another.

So rather than including The Unwanted One, we invited no one. Register office, smoked salmon bagels and one bottle of bubbly at home. To everyone's bewilderment we professed a need to keep it simple, to do it our way and sacrificed the shared pleasure and celebration with everyone we loved to avoid saying the unsayable, "We don't want YOU at the wedding." Anon

The mother-in-law

We married in secret because we couldn't stand the thought of my wife's mother being in any way involved with our nuptials. If she had been implicated she would have made our lives a misery with her interference and irrational opinions. This was substantiated by the events surrounding both of our children's christenings, where she in one case threatened not to attend, and in the other, did not attend at all. This was made all the worse as she was the sole-surviving grandparent.

So to avoid any hassle we got married in secret in a register office with just two friends and their young daughter as witnesses. We had a lovely winter wedding on 30 December 1988, with no stress, celebrated with a meal at the pub afterwards – and had a wonderful honeymoon in the Yorkshire moors. On New Year's Eve we visited our respective parents and announced our marriage. They were all very pleased although my wife's father did not believe we had done it until he was shown the actual marriage certificate.

We have now been married for 22 years, and we have never regretted marrying in secret. Trevor and Pippa Watson

The backpackers

I was working on a street corner when I met him ... but it's not what you think! He was an Aussie eco-layabout and I was a British backpacker. We found each other "chugging" for Greenpeace in Melbourne.

After an outback romance we wound up in a windowless classroom in South Korea teaching English to unruly infants. Our plan: to head to the UK with a house deposit. Cue the dullest, most depressing, soul-destroying of years. We needed two things: to have some fun, and for Paul to get a UK visa. The answer … a family-free wedding.

On a lunch break in Seoul we tried to organise our marriage papers. A ticket machine, chain-smoking bureaucrat and a rubber stamp later we found ourselves unexpectedly married. No dress, no romance, but it was official.

Skiving off our afternoon lessons, we headed to a park and sheltered from a storm. Tears flowed as we caught our breath to exchange the most heartfelt of vows. Paul snapped a DIY wedding portrait, and we raced off to call our equally shocked and delighted parents.

Ten years on, and our five-year-old twins continue to delight in the story of our "secret wedding". Tess Chodan and Paul Ralston

The civil partners

It was the minibus that tipped it over the edge. Our intimate civil partnership got bigger and bigger as we were told, "You can't not invite her if you have invited them." Trying to manage the logistics of getting family from Spain, Yorkshire and elsewhere to Brighton proved to be a planning nightmare. "How will we get from the register office to the reception – will there be a minibus?" No, there would not be a bloody minibus! Overwhelmed and defeated by the demands and costs, we cancelled the wedding. Later that day, my partner said in a sad, small voice, "But I really want to marry you", and I wanted to marry her, too. So we went ahead and had our civil partnership on a glorious spring day, witnessed only by my son and his partner, and went afterwards to fabulous Terre a Terre in Brighton from where we rang everyone to tell them we had done it. It was one of the least stressful and happiest days of my life. Lel Meleyal

The sisters

We have friends who got married on beaches in Thailand and others who plumped for large meringue-fuelled gatherings in the Cotswolds – but neither appealed to us. We wanted a magnolia-walled register office in Brixton town hall to be our secret nuptial paradise. We decided in February 2005 to get married and asked a couple of close friends to be witnesses – nobody else knew. The date was set for 9 June. Two weeks beforehand, I got a phone call from my younger sister. "We've just got married!" she said. "You can't because I'm about to!" I replied. Quite what Mum thought of her two daughters both having secret weddings a fortnight apart I'll never know. We still have our own surnames and no wedding rings – and I wouldn't have it any differently. Although my mother-in-law might not feel the same way. Rebecca Evans and Chris Smith

The furious bride

We tell our daughters: "Your father and I are not married for three reasons: philosophically, how can you know you'll love someone for ever? Morally, we don't believe you should 'belong' to someone. And it's the end of the movie: no film begins with a wedding and ends well." We met in 1967 and have been together since, our daughters the proud product of the only unmarried, still-intact, parental unit of their peer group. A relationship, like life, is taken day by day: enjoying, evolving, and inspiring.

Last year, my husband (shudder) and I had to get married for tax reasons. Bloody Cameron. It was the single most unromantic day of our life, having to prove our relationship to a system that refused us a civil partnership, as we were a straight couple. We didn't tell our friends, too ashamed to admit our defeat to a ceremony we opposed. We sneaked off to our local town hall, inviting our daughters as witnesses "to a lunch meeting". There were no rings exchanged, he struggled saying the word "wife", and the registrar told the girls off for giggling. Our friends still don't know. We do our best to forget, until our eldest asks, smirking: "How's the blushing bride?" Fucking furious. Anon

The grumpy father

Nearly 24 years ago, Chris and I met at a 5 November bonfire party. We discovered we had both received decree nisi papers that week. Fireworks! (We also saw some at the party.) We bought a house after nearly seven years living together, and decided to get married to complete the deal.

A register office wedding was the only option. We started to think about guests and a reception. "Hang on," we thought, "this time around, getting married is for us, to celebrate our feelings for each other." So, two bachelor friends were recruited as witnesses and sworn to secrecy. Chris and I cried while saying our vows during the ceremony. We drank Cava. Lots. It was good.

Later, I phoned my elderly parents. When my gloomy father asked what I had done during the weekend, I told him I had got married. "Why did you do that?" he asked querulously (my heart sank). "I really liked Christine!" (Well, he was elderly and gloomy.) I told him that Chris was the bride, and he was happy. All other calls produced instant congratulations. Roy Faithful

Chip off the old block

(Pictured top) After my then boyfriend drunkenly let slip to an aunt that we were planning to get married, we both realised that we didn't want a big family affair and that we wanted to "be married" rather than to "get married". We asked two friends to be witnesses, bought a dress the night before, got hitched at the local register office, had wet autumn leaves thrown at us rather than confetti, drank far too much champagne, and had fondue and schnapps at an Austrian restaurant while being serenaded by a Yorkshireman in lederhosen singing his Ode to Maggie Thatcher. The following day I had a slightly awkward conversation with my mum about what we had been up to. Not wanting to tell her over the phone, I think I replied with "nothing much" and then waited a week before we saw both my parents in the flesh. They were surprised but had no comeback because they had done exactly the same themselves 26 years earlier. We have now been married for 16 years and have very fond memories of getting married. Jane Woodyer

The romantic parents

My mother, Bobbie, and my father, Peter, married secretly in 1954. I think they did so because Bobbie likes to tell a good story. Her story starts with her delight that her wedding ring had been hanging on the kitchen rack for many months, unnoticed by Eddie the cleaner. Bobbie is proud of her indigo patchwork skirt and is pleased it is raining so they wear wellington boots, mackintoshes and carry their shoes in a rucksack to walk across the fields to the church. Once at the church, they are both anxious to get inside before the local bus drives past at 9am. As Bobbie changes into her red espadrilles, to her glee, the verger greets them with, "Sorry, you can't enter, there is about to be a wedding."

There are no photographs, only the celebratory pottery plate made by my father at the time. Their golden wedding was a wonderful celebration with family and friends, but it took until my mother's 80th birthday for a photo of their honeymoon to be forthcoming. Dad, you are doing great at 93, please hang in for the diamond celebration. Harriet Cox

The kids' stag night

I never thought of marriage as mandatory and, as much as I love being a guest at weddings, it was never something I dreamed about happening to me. We had been together for 17 years and had four children, but Nick had long since given up proposing to me. A few days after the birth of our fourth child, Nick turned 50, and, as I had no present prepared, I wrote "YES I WILL!" on a card.

In February 2009 we had a holiday booked on Dartington Estate and thought it would be a good time and place for a discreet wedding. We kept the whole thing just between ourselves, only telling the children on the drive to Devon. The boys – then seven, 11 and 13 – and Nick had a stag night in watching TV, while Betty, five, and I poached some flowers from the grounds and had a drink outside the White Hart.

With a new dress for Betty and me, and new T-shirts for the boys, we had a very simple ceremony in Totnes register office, with two witnesses from the tax department upstairs. A bit of confetti chucking, a few photos, dinner in the White Hart and a Chinese lantern in the rain. Maybe we'll get around to a honeymoon one day. Mrs Siobhan Dwyer

The pragmatists

In 2004, my now husband and I lived together with our 18-month-old daughter. We had no intention of getting married. Then my husband found out from work that if anything happened to him, his dependents would receive nothing, whereas if we were married we'd be secure if something awful did happen.

"Campaign against it," I told him. He told me someone had been campaigning against the unfairness of this for 11 years now. "Better get married then," I said. So we did, for the most unromantic reasons ever.

On a dull day in December we arrived at our local register office with our daughter and two unsuspecting friends, who had come down for a Muse gig the night before. "You could've told us," they said, as they wore the same clothes. We put on jeans and went to Debenhams for a fry up afterwards (the only place with a play area for kids), then spent our honeymoon on a pre-arranged break at Center Parcs with my new in-laws, who didn't have a clue. We didn't tell anyone we were secretly married for years. But it was wonderful, it was our secret – like having an affair in reverse. Amelia Coughlan

The county hall clause

My wife is 24 years older than me, and we met when I was 17 and on a four-day residential social skills course she was running for sixth-formers. I was taking a lot of pictures the whole time and was very attracted to her from the moment we met. About a week later she rang my school and left a message for me to phone her back. She was genuinely interested in the photographs I had taken. I couldn't believe my luck, and started pursuing her immediately, although this may not have been obvious to her, as I was extremely shy.

Near Christmas I went on another course at the centre and our relationship moved on. I soon moved in with her and often stayed over at the centre when she was working. It became common knowledge at county hall, and when she was promoted to running the centre she was told that we couldn't live together on county premises. We married in the local register office with just two witnesses, and despite her pushing me to tell my mother I didn't until a few days later. Mum was devastated at the time, but was already having a good relationship with my wife and I think she had difficulty balancing her disappointment in me with the good feelings she had about my wife. Others also had – and still have – difficulties over our age difference.

This happened over 30 years ago, and I am now 50 with my wife 74. We have had our ups and downs, but I still yearn to get home to her at the end of the day. I consider myself to be very lucky – love's funny isn't it? Anonymous

Christmas surprise

On Christmas Day 2007, our respective parents opened the gifts we had placed under their trees just before we left Swansea for our "holiday" to New York. Inside were handwritten letters dropping the bombshell that we had secretly married each other on Christmas Eve in Manhattan.

This was our dream wedding but we knew that few friends and family could make the trip, so we decided to keep our plans secret.

A thrilling 12 months of mischievous preparation involved finding cheap hotel and flights, choosing rings from a local jewellers, buying a groom's outfit during a quick lunch break, and having an original dress made for just £50.

The ceremony took place in City Hall's Municipal Building and was over in 40 seconds flat. The paperwork took us from the bowels of the Supreme Court to the State Department at the top of a skyscraper. We ate our wedding breakfast in Greenwich Village and our wedding supper in Central Park.

Christmas Eve is now twice as magical for us, and we've even become life-long friends with the complete strangers who agreed to be our witnesses, Jose and Sanae who live in Japan. Oh, and our parents were thrilled. Owain & Elissa, Swansea

A guilty secret

We had no religious beliefs and regarded marriage as no more than a piece of paper. We thought there were some beneficial tax reasons but did not make inquiries. I was 25, she 26. We wanted no fuss and did not want people spending cash on gifts or my parents to fork out for a big event or give us money to set up home – something we'd already arranged.

The only people at the ceremony were a couple, who were my wife's friends, as witnesses, their two children and my wife's two children from her first marriage, the eldest seven that day, the other four.

My parents had met my wife only a few times, and her children even fewer. They were stunned into silence with the announcement that I was now a married man with two children.

My mother died this year. It seemed like every time we got together – virtually weekly – she'd say how upset and disappointed she and my father, who had died less than 18 months after my marriage, had been at not being at the ceremony or being told beforehand. This continued for more than 30 years after the event, and all during the 15-plus years after the marriage ended. She asked the same question each time: Why had we done it like we had, and each time got the same reasons. My father had told me before his death how upset my mother had been at the circumstances, with many tears shed.

At the time it was right for us to marry in that way. With hindsight it now seems selfish, hurtful and thoughtless. Would I do it differently if I had my time again? Definitely yes, if only because of the guilt I now feel. David Hedley