If you truly love your partner, does a ring and a ceremony really do anything?
I know there are certain legal situations where an official marriage changes who has certain rights, but aren’t those same rights available if you make other legally-official decisions E.G. a will or trusts, etc?
I’m generally curious why people get married beyond the “because I love them” when it costs so much money.
Where I live marriage is pretty close to being entirely symbolic. Not entirely, of course. It gives some legal rights concerning inheritance and rights if one partner becomes sick and you need power of attorney, but for a couple of 20-somethings nothing that registered cohabitation wouldn’t also provide.
People still get married. It’s a symbolic gesture, it means something to the couple and to society as a symbol of love and mutual commitment. It is just an expected step somewhere along the line.
The point, as you mention, is whatever you want the point of marriage to be.
Where I live I don’t think there is any difference between married and common-law, and even if there was most people actually get married at their city hall, with only a witness and government worker present.
The great big party that people still have is totally by choice.