Bride cancels wedding and holds party for poor kids instead

A New York bride has cancelled her wedding after being asked to sign a pre-nup, and held a party for needy children instead.

Yiru Sun, corporate vice president at New York Life Insurance, was due to get married on Saturday.

However, after being asked to sign a pre-nuptial agreement, she called the wedding off, telling the New York Post, "I don't want to sign things I don't feel comfortable with."

Unfortunately, she had paid a non-refundable $8,000 deposit for the wedding reception at Harold Pratt House on Park Avenue in the Upper East Side.

But instead of cancelling the event altogether, she changed the guest list and invited 60 children to lunch through the Salvation Army and local charity Inwood House.

"I cannot be the princess of my wedding day, but I can give the kids a fairy tale," she says.

A single mother herself, she themed it as a pre-Mother's Day party. The children were given balloons and ice pops and had their faces painted. Ms Sun even wore her wedding dress to the event.

With around half of marriages now ending in divorce, pre-nups are rising in popularity, allowing richer spouses to protect their wealth in the event of a split.

A survey last year carried out by lawontheweb.co.uk found that more than half of those aged between 18 and 21 would consider drawing one up.

"From originally being squarely in the domain of the rich and famous, our survey shows that prenuptial agreements are now potentially on over a third of the population's wedding to-do list," says the company's Bob Screen.

However, unlike in the US, pre-nups in the UK aren't necessarily binding. Recently, judges warned that in most cases they'll be ignored in the event of a divorce, as the focus is on meeting each spouse's needs.

Only in the case of the very wealthy - where there's plenty of money to go round - will pre-nups be taken into account.

"For the majority of couples, there is no surplus remaining after needs have been met, and so nothing in relation to which a pre-nup can make any difference," the legal team wrote in their report.

And, says Marilyn Stowe, senior partner at Stowe Family Law, pre-nups can actually damage the health of a marriage - and says she'd never sign one herself.

"Especially with young couples, sometimes one partner can feel trapped by the arrangement. This often happens if their partner or their family is wealthier and therefore is calling the shots and dictating the terms of the agreement," she says.

"The wealthier partner can feel that the agreement gives them carte blanche to do what they like, and that can seriously impact on the marriage."