Today viewers confused by Karl Stefanovic’s commitment ceremony

KARL Stefanovic and Jasmine Yarbrough had a commitment ceremony on the weekend and people are asking “why not just get married?”

KARL Stefanovic and Jasmine Yarbrough had a commitment ceremony on the weekend and the question on everyone’s lips seems to be, why?

Saturday’s commitment ceremony was held at a private house in Palm Beach with the Today show star telling the Sunday Telegraph afterwards: “We are very much in love.

“We clicked right from the start. It’s a commitment ceremony. It was lovely.”

Only a handful of guests attended the ceremony and one of them was Sylvia Jeffreys who described the event as “beautiful” on the Today show this morning.

“Very small day, very low-key affair but really beautiful and very them,” Jeffreys said on air. “Very full of love and full of laughter, and a very special occasion for the two.”

Jeffreys’s husband, Peter Stefanovic, appeared on Weekend Today the morning after the ceremony and said: “We had ourselves a little barbecue, a few XXXX Golds, Karl burnt the snags, usual.”

Photos from Karl Stefanovic's commitment ceremony on the weekend.

Among the guests were Stefanovic’s youngest children Ava, 13, and River, 11, who were surprised by the ceremony. Karl’s eldest son Jackson, 18, did not attend, according to the Sunday Telegraph.

The Today show’s Facebook page posted a photo of Stefanovic and Yarbrough and wished the couple all of the best, but fans of the show had a few questions about what the heck a commitment ceremony is.

“I just don’t get the necessity of a commitment ceremony,” wrote one person on Today’s Facebook page. “Surely an engagement is enough of an admission of commitment?”

“When did a commitment ceremony become a next step?” wrote another.

“Now there is a commitment ceremony?? Just get married already!”

Jasmine Yarbrough and Karl Stefanovic pictured together at their commitment ceremony.

A commitment ceremony is just like a wedding but it is not legally binding. It’s unknown why the couple chose to have a commitment ceremony and whether or not they’re still planning to have a proper wedding later in the year.

Industry insiders have suggested Stefanovic and Yarbrough may have opted for a commitment ceremony because his divorce from ex-wife Cassandra Thorburn might not have come into effect yet.

Thorburn, who was married to Stefanovic for 21 years, told Fairfax Media in October 2017: “The divorce has been finalised but a settlement has yet to be reached and it all happened on Tuesday and not months ago like some tabloids have suggested.”

Yarbrough and Stefanovic went public with their engagement just last month and the Channel Nine star told the Herald Sun not long after that they won’t be rushing their wedding.

“I’m not being evasive, it’s just slowly, slowly,” he said. “There are a lot of other factors we need to consider. It’s not the pressing thing in our lives.”

Pictures of Karl Stefanovic and Jasmine Yarbrough at the house in Palm Beach late on Saturday night after their commitment ceremony. Picture: Steve Tyson