Planning a wedding abroad

shezam

Where do I start?

We weren't originally going to get married abroad, then after some chat at the weekend we both decided its what we want. I really don't know where to start, we can't even think of a place!

Pretty sure after we have our location is just sorting it out over there but any help would be appreciated!!

Thanks

Suzi x

twirlypinky

We decided on our location by discussing places we've been to and would like to go to, by deciding we absolutely did NOT want a wedding in a hotel (we've both seen a few of these and wanted something different) and by deciding how far we were willing to travel. It's all well and good chosing somewhere 12 hours away because we like it, but not much good if we're expecting people to cough up the reddies to fly out, or for h2b's mum who isnt' well enough to deal with a flight that long.

For us that narrowed it right down basically to Southern France, Italy or Greece. Neither of us fancied france much, and as much as i love Italy, a) it's expensive and b) friends of ours did that last year and we don't want to repeat their day.

So once we decided on Greece, we popped into our local friendly agent (Thomson) and then after looking at all the pictures and prices we knew this was the place for us:

celyn90

Congratulations! First thing - find a venue/country and check their local procedures.

It depends on your loaction what the required but for us, we had to bring paperwork with us. Your venue should be able to advise you on the specific documents you need.

We got married in Finland and as UK resident I had to provide:

A UK certificate of no impediment to marry (local registry office) which had to bear an apostile (was legalised at the Milton Keynes office)
A certified copy of my passsport - certified by a UK notary and bearing an apostile (legalisation done a Milton Keynes office)

OH, as a German national had to provide the above as well, legaliastion of his documents was also done in Germany. We had hassle as in order for OH to get his certificates, I had to provide an awful lot of documents, all of which had to be officially translated and notorised, but if you are both UK then you shouldn't have that issue

We then had the forms to fill out from the magistrate in district in Finland. All of the original documents had to be in the hands of the Finnish authorities one month prior to the wedding so they could check them over. We sent them by courier.

Make sure you know the district abroad in which your marriage will be registered - when I went to ask for the certificate of no impediment from the local registry office, the registrar told me it was really important if you are marrying abroad as he has seen cases where people had got the district wrong on the form so couldn't get married when the arrived at their venue (as they had written x beach, rather than the registration district for example). The lady who did my Apostilles in Milton Keynes told me it was not uncommon for people to arrive at the office all stressed out because they didn't realise that the documents had to have an apostile for them to be legal and thought just the certified copies/documents produced by the registry office would do.

cel x

Fawny_2

Hi,

I am getting married at St paul's Bay in Lindos next year too. Pefkos/Lindos was the first place me & H2B went on holiday together & we have always loved it there & go back every year. So when we decided that we wanted to go abroad there was no question of deciding where we knew! The next thing we did was to contact a Lindos based wedding planner as I did not want to arrange it myself & get loads of info from her. I knew which planner to use as i'd seen loads of good reviews about them on trip advisor etc & she answered all our questions & more, so we sent the booking form off & she managed to secure the date we wanted:j We have not yet booked the holiday to go with it as, they are not relased until later this year but we know where we want to stay so will book as soon as they are released. We will be meeting with our wedding planner in the UK in the winter but already have a pretty good idea of what we want.

So I guess for you, you need to think about if there are any special places you have been etc.