An Imperium Nobleman marries a commoner.
***...
Planetary Governor Donald Elon Zuckergates watched disapprovingly as his distant 3rd cousin on his mother's side, Rupert Midas Koch, brought shame on Donald's entire bloodline.
The wedding between Rupert and some gutter prostitute was one of the biggest scandals to rock the Noble Virtuous Class in recent years, and everyone who was anyone had turned up to gawk and disapprove. No one approved of the bride, but everyone got such sick fascination from the whole debacle that they couldn't keep away.
Investigators had dug up all the information on this "Jessica Lincoln" that they could find, but hadn't learned much. What little they had learned was utterly disgraceful!
She was not only poor, but rock bottom, born in a gutter, live in a landfill, level heretically poor! The recent anti-poverty purges clearly had not managed to kill off all of the heretically poor after all, and the few survivors like this creature had crawled out of the cracks like cockroaches as soon as the purges stopped.
Her birth was unrecorded, always a bad sign, and the tax office had over 20 million women named "Jessica Lincoln" in their databases, without any photos or fingerprint records to know which one she was. Until she became a registered employee of one of Donald's brothels, there had been no paper trail of any kind to follow.
In the general chaos of the recent purges, deaths and murders and other local happenstance had not been recorded and record keeping in general had been appalling. The truth was that they had no real paper trail about this woman to really work with given recent events and her lowly origins.
The investigators had interviewed everyone who knew her at her work in the brothel, and the testimony gathered about her was far from encouraging. According to some of the gathered rumours and hearsay she might possibly be a HOMOSEXUAL! This rumour alone could get her the death penalty with the right judge and should have been enough to convince Rupert to call off the wedding.
According to the woman herself, she had spent her entire life until very recently in such poverty that she was eating TRASH out of LANDFILLS! What a disgusting animal! This woman was literally trash, she was born in trash, she lived in trash, and she ATE trash! Just the worst excesses of heretical poverty!
The wedding venue was packed with Virtuous Class gawkers, and Donald himself had had the good sense to ban "friends of the bride" from attending the wedding. He had even banned the two homeless whores that the woman had chosen as bridesmaids, it was bad enough to even have the bride at this wedding.
When he first heard about the wedding, Donald had wanted to have the bride shot to stop it. She was heretically poor so she should have died in the anti-poverty purges anyway, and would easily be charged with something like maybe tax evasion and executed. She was also vaguely rumoured to be a homosexual, which was another death penalty offence. He had wanted to have her shot but Rupert would have kicked up such a huge stink about it that he would never hear the end of it if he had the man's "bride" shot.
As Donald's 3rd cousin, Rupert was only just highly placed enough to be a pain in Donald's ass for years to come if Donald had the woman shot, and no matter the failings of the bride, the GROOM at least was Virtuous Class, and it was considered a bit of a dick move to have a Virtuous man's bride killed. Rupert's social position entitled him to this basic respect, if he REALLY wanted to degrade himself by marrying some creature dug out of a landfill, then as a Virtuous Class man it was Rupert's prerogative to do something so unwise.
Rupert was standing up the front of the wedding venue, all by himself next to the rather reluctant Virtuous Class wedding celebrant. No one had agreed to be Rupert's best man or groomsmen, normally a man like Rupert would have had a full wedding party of friends standing by him if he had only chosen someone APPROPRIATE, but given WHAT Rupert was marrying, it was no surprise that no one approved enough to stand by him.
The wedding music began, indicating the arrival of the bride, and the entire assembly of guests booed loudly. The bride who was just coming into view blinked in surprise at her negative reception, and looked satisfyingly offended the way the crowd had hoped.
Rupert himself was almost crimson with anger at the way his bride was being treated. He had only himself to blame from digging up his bride in the local rubbish tip. Donald himself had been reading up on the various types of worms, arthropods and vermin that an entomologist could find in landfills, and had used these anecdotes to write a fine reception speech that was sure to have the audience crying tears of laughter.
The bride looked absolutely furious now, and shook with indignation as she walked down the aisle alone. Donald had forbidden her entire bridal party from attending and no one Virtuous had volunteered to walk her down the aisle.
Donald did have to admit that as landfill creatures went, this particular specimen was rather attractive. Scrubbed up out of whatever rags she probably usually wore, and put in a Virtuous Class wedding dress, she did admittedly cause a slight stirring in Donald's general trouser area. She was fuckable, Donald had to give her that at least.
The boos continued and the bride was almost in tears by the time she walked all the way down the aisle to stand beside Rupert. Donald chuckled as he noticed that the bride and groom were both trembling violently with rage. This was already one of the most entertaining weddings he had ever attended.
The celebrant eventually coaxed the guests into silence, and dived into a hilarious sermon about the sinfulness of being poor. The sermon quickly reduced the bride to angry tears and Donald hoped that she would storm out and call off the wedding. The audience was blinking away tears of laughter, and Rupert's face was becoming visibly redder and redder over time.
The celebrant tried his best to make one or both of the betrothed angrily storm out and cancel the wedding, but the rather crimson looking couple stayed their ground, and just endured through all the humiliation without causing a scene. To everyone's considerable disappointment, the betrothed couple refused to be baited and just stoically turned the other cheek to every provocation.
The room exploded with shouting noises of objection when the Celebrant asked if anyone present objected to the marriage, and it took a full 15 minutes to get the audience quiet enough to continue.
"Do you Rupert Midas Koch take this, ah, homeless prostitute, to be your lawfully wedded wife?" The celebrant asked, to everyone's laughter.
"I do", the bright crimson and badly shaking Rupert managed to say through his rage.
"And do... you, take this Virtuous Class man who is far too good for you to be your lawfully wedded husband, bearing in mind that "no" is a perfectly acceptable answer?" The celebrant asked the thing that was dirtying the fine wedding dress.
"I do," the woman squeaked through her angry tears.
The celebrant sighed loudly and face palmed, generating laughter and similar groans from the audience.
"Couldn't say no huh? Well I regretfully pronounce that by the Emperor yadda yadda, I now pronounce you husband and future ex-wife, try not to dig your next wife out of your toilet or dustbin. In the interests of hygiene I would not recommend kissing the bride," the celebrant said sadly.
"Can we punch him yet?" The bride angrily asked the groom loudly.
"I would dearly like to but no we mustn't," the groom replied, trembling to restrain himself.
The celebrant gestured for backup and men in the audience stood beside him to show the bride and groom that they were outnumbered if they tried anything.
The celebrant then gave the couple the paperwork to sign, but Rupert paused and read the papers very carefully. He then looked up and glared at the celebrant.
"This is a fake form," Rupert accused angrily.
"Ah you noticed, wait I mean oh dear, are you sure?" The celebrant blurted out quickly.
Rupert had apparently been expecting this trick and pulled out wedding paperwork of his own from inside his wedding clothes. The bride scratched some illiterate scrawl on the paperwork and Rupert added his own signature. The celebrant tried to be as difficult as possible about signing it but eventually he did as well, as did everyone else required to sign the damn thing.
Rupert then snatched back the paperwork and tucked it away in his wedding clothes to keep it safe, and he and his new wife angrily left the venue. The audience loudly booed them up the aisle and out of the room as they left.
This whole debacle had at least been entertaining.
They still had the reception to look forward to too, the day's entertainment had only just started!