Married abroad.... have you?

luv_or_h8_me

Hi all!
Just an idea really at the moment....
What have your experiences been? Pros & cons? Legal documents? Where did you go?

Advice and discussion very welcome xx:)

gadgeteer_2

Originally this was going to be our plan. We were going to fly to my wife's home country and get married there on the beach.

However, what put us off was two things:

Firstly how many people could afford to fly out and stay for a few days just to see us get married.

Secondly how do you organise the practicalities when you are thousands of miles away? I mean who do you trust to do your photographs? How do you make sure stuff arrives when they say it will etc. We could have relied on her family of course but it's a big ask and still you have the issue where you cannot see everything take shape so it becomes a huge leap of faith.


I guess if you aren't too bothered about details, are happy with a package and having a few select guests then it's a great idea.

Oh and having spoken to a few friends who did get married abroad. The idea of standing on a beautiful beach/sunny place is romantic. But in reality you are stood in 30+ degree heat, squinting due to the sun and sweaty.

In the end I priced up getting married abroad against a reasonable UK wedding. There wasn't much in it at all so we chose to do it in the UK instead and have more guests.

bossymoo

Yes, Cyprus, very easy. Had to sign a statement with a solicitor that neither of us were already married, Thomas Cook wedding did the rest. bliss. Beautiful day, too

MrsC....tobe

We got married in northern Italy, all organised by a fantastic friend who lives there (but there are wedding planners if you don't have anyone to help).
It depends if you want people to go with you or not? Realistically, if you don't mind if they do or not, and there are other reasons for not getting married at home then why not?
We chose to go abroad due to a number of issues at home and people we didn't want at our wedding. We also didn't want to feel pushed into having the huge party and spending thousands on a day when we could use it better elsewhere, and we could have our wedding and honeymoon in one. We spent about £2000 in total including all clothes (inc bridesmaids dress), fees, rings, meal, decoration, blessing at home with an immediate family meal, jewellery, hair, photos etc etc and it was exactly how we wanted it.
All family knew we were heading abroad to get married and all that we would have liked there looked into going but didn't in the end (and we respect their reasons).

You can find all the information you need about paperwork on the foreign and commonwealth website, but also contact online wedding planners or travel agents for further advice to see if it is right for you.

Good luck whatever you choose.

kacie

Currently planning my wedding, which will take place in America. It's not easy, when you can't go look around at things and have to rely on photos and the internet to do things. Then there is the issue of how many people can go, as it's not cheap. I plan on going there in the next few months to get as much sorted as I can though, so I will plan some from there but most will be done from England.

I do have the added thing that my fiance is American so he is able to go look at the things I want and book appointments at places for when I go there.

Fruit_and_Nut_Case

Got married in USA while working there. Easy to arrange because we wanted it low-key. Just coming up for our 41st anniversary next month.

Just realised how appropriate the location was, given the new Royal Sprog.

angelil

I got married in France, BUT I live here. Frankly that was difficult enough (even with speaking the language, marrying a Frenchman, and working/paying taxes here). Most people will not be able to just hop over here and get married as there is a 40-day residency requirement. You may be able to manage it if your parents have a holiday home in France. Sadly lots of people have seen Halle Berry et al get married in France and they think it is easy :mad: That really makes me cross as it's incredibly difficult even when you have genuine practical reasons for wishing to marry in the country. Paperwork is extremely complicated. You can have blessings in France, but these have no legal meaning even for French people (all weddings with legal value conducted in France have to be done at the town hall...anything you wish to do after that - in church/mosque etc - is purely symbolic).

I have heard that it's easy enough to get married in Italy.

continualdiamond

I got married here in the UK which was a breeze, the difficult bit was getting my name changed back home in Australia, complete nightmare.

Because I got married overseas I had to pay to get my name changed back home. My sister who got married in a different state in Australia didn't have the expense at all.

It was a complete nightmare as my parents live in Perth, Western Australia and I did before I moved to the UK. However I was born in Adelaide, South Australia and this is where I needed to get my name changed.

They wouldn't accept foreign payment methods so I had to fill in all the forms and provide the right documents to then send them to my parents for them to fill in with Australian payment details for them to then post them to Adelaide.

I got my 1st lot of forms back as using the postal service to get my ID checked was not on the list of people they accepted, even though I had asked via email and got this service confirmed to be okay. (they wanted the police, solicitor, judge etc etc - I had asked at my police station but they wouldn't do it).

I eventually was able to contact the person who had confirmed using the postal service was acceptable and had to send the forms back marked at attention for them and then they processed everything for me.

£100 later I had my name legally changed. I had no choice to do it of course, as my Australian passport will only be issued in the name that is held on file.

Extremely annoying and even more disappointing was my original birth certificate had to be sent back and I was issued with new documents that stated my name at birth and then stated my change of name.

clrat25

We got married in Orlando in 2011 at Harry P. Leu Gardens - it was super-easy!! Already a party of 11 of us going on holiday together so we just hijacked one day of this. Paperwork was really easy , just had to show up at the courthouse beforehand with our birth certificates, application form for licence and about $100 - if we had wanted to we could have gone back to the courthouse later that day to get married, but we already had a notary arranged to meet us in the garden, then we all just went out for a meal after. Brilliant day, very low-key and relaxed.

miss_renegade

We will be doing in January in Thailand. I think if you're pretty laid back then it's ideal. I'm not one of those people who wants to spend days looking for a type of flower or if the table cloths match the flowers. I'm happy to have a simple wedding and let the beauty of where we will marry stand out
That said, if you are someone who wants to plan all the details, then you might find it frustrating trying to plan it from the other side of the world.

mercede5

We got married in Lapland this year, and we had an indepandant wedding planner who was brilliant - As the previous poster said I think it does help if your fairly laid back, we just told the wedding planner what we wanted and then you just have to trust that it will all happen as you want!

The paperwork was not too difficult - but did cost about £300 for all the documents by the time we had given notice of the wedding at the town hall and then had all the paperwork apositle stamped! But we were helped all the way through what we needed to do by our wedding planner.

Every couple is different - but we are still firmly agreed that we would not have swapped our wedding in Lapland for one in the UK.