Dutch court annuls marriage after registrar used ChatGPT to write wedding speech

A court in the Netherlands has annulled a marriage certificate after it emerged that the wedding registrar used ChatGPT to write the ceremony speech.

According to The Independent, citing the court ruling, the speech delivered during the ceremony did not meet the formal requirements of the Dutch Civil Code.

The registrar’s speech included the following lines:

“Do you promise… to laugh together, grow together, and love each other whatever life brings? What is your answer to that? Do you choose… to keep supporting each other, teasing each other, holding on - even when life is bad? What is your answer to that? Then I declare to you with this: Not only husband and wife, but above all a team, a crazy couple, each other’s love and each other’s home!”

• The registrar reportedly aimed to create a relaxed and informal atmosphere in line with the couple’s wishes.
• However, under Dutch civil law, future spouses must explicitly “accept each other as husband and wife” and declare that they “will faithfully fulfil all duties which the law connects to their marital status.”
• Without this mandatory statement, a marriage cannot be considered legally valid.

Court documents indicate that the speech was generated using ChatGPT. The couple disputes this claim, saying a friend merely asked the AI whether the text he had written was legally valid.

The wedding took place in April 2025. The Overijssel District Court annulled the couple’s marriage certificate in mid-January 2026.