This isn't the only time that the famous Victorian team cheated their audiences of a good view of the altar. Their 1875 Trial by Jury, which concerns a breach of promise suit, presents another chorus of bridesmaids (not to be facetious, but when performed by Gilbert and Sullivan societies, they might well be the very same bridesmaids as in Ruddigore!), who accompany the jilted plaintiff to court. She proves so very convincing that the Judge settles the case by electing to marry her himself (and perhaps, legally, he might marry her -- in the presiding sense - himself, as well)...but we don't get to see it. Ten years later, in The Mikado, Act II opens with a chorus of Japanese friends helping Yum-Yum dress for her impending wedding to Nanki-Poo. But it soon looks as though the whole thing is to be called off when Ko-Ko, the Lord high Executioner who has graciously de-affianced himself from her for the love-match to proceed on a temporary basis -- Nanki-Poo is due to be put to death in one month's time, and Ko-Ko plans to marry his widow -- discovers that an obscure law requires that the wife of an executed man be buried alive. However, unable to go through with Nanki-Poo's sentence when he learns it must be...executed...immediately, Ko-Ko throws up his hands and orders the couple to be secretly married at once, by Pooh-Bah, who is always willing to perform a legal service if tipped substantially. The actual wedding is thus an elopement, and it is only an eleventh hour reappearance by the happy couple, alive and well, that confirms it has taken place at all. Although they and not just the audience have been cheated out of a ceremony and reception, the entire company concludes the operetta with the cheerfully confirmatory "For he's gone and married Yum-Yum," a past-tense reprise of Pitti-Sing's Act I closing lyric, "For he's going to marry Yum-Yum"!
