@ Emma - thanks for your response to that specific question I asked - I think it got to the heart of what I was thinking/feeling. 

We put so much emphasis today on the ceremony as being the demarcation as pre- and post- marital life, and I think in many ways, a couple has built the kind of covenantal relationship you discuss either long before the wedding - OR - hasn't really even committed themselves to them until far into their "marriage"