Anyone getting legally hitched before Mexican wedding?

We're also getting married before we go to Mexico . But we're informing people (some) of our decision and will be listing on our invitations "symbolic wedding". The legal "ceremony" will be done , literally in jeans if they permit this. I don't want this become the day we celebrate over the actual DW and therefore we're not inviting people to this.

We went and got legally married in Vegas (super cheap and easy) we took a witness off the street and it was only the 1 witness, me and my fi (i won't call him husband til the mexico wedding) and the person who officiated it. The whole process cost $110 including the officiant and marriage license fees..... I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to get married before they go and it doesn't take away from the wedding. We don't even feel married!

I am "married" - we got married at city hall a week ago. We completely down played it on purpose, though, because we did not want it to take away from our wedding.

 

In my heart, I believe saying, "I do" in front of friends and family - the people you care about, your own worst critics, the people whom you care about what they think, the ones who are there during the good, the bad and the ugly, the people that "matter" is truly what is going to bind my husband and I together - and make us "married". To me, the piece of paper and kiss after waiting in a crowded room with 20 other couples at city hall is just a formality to get me to the real thing in Mexico!

I will be getting married at home before we head to Mexico as well. We are actually going to have my Gpa be our witness and such because he won't be able to join us in Mexico so it will be very special for him. He lives in a very small town and I think we will find a cute place around there to share our marriage with him.

We're doing the same as well. No one except a few people know. We're signing papers, notice I didn't say 'getting married' , the Friday before we leave. I want to be in and out of the courthouse and when they ask "do you blah, blah, blah" we're just going to say "yes"! the i dos will be done in Mexico!!

Jennifer, did you guys go to city hall in manhattan? This is what we'll be doing in May & I'm curious about your experience. How long did the whole thing take? Were the 20 couples all in the same room with you for the actual legal ceremony? I'm wondering what to expect. What did you guys wear? Part of me just wants to wear jeans or something really casual to downplay it, but another part wants to wear a fun dress & heels (not wedding-ey though).
thanks!

We got legally married the day after we returned from Mexico.... for pretty much the same reasons as everyone else (much less expensive & the hassle of having the documents translated). To us this "legal ceremony" was just paperwork and we will celebrate our Mexico wedding as our actual anniversary.

 

We went to the municipal building here in Brooklyn and it was SUPER easy! Luckily my husband's best man had the day off so he was able to be our witness. We were able to walk in get married (I think we got there around 9 and they open at 8:30).

Hey Karen!

I'm not sure how it is in Manhattan, but it was super easy in Brooklyn. It was just us (me, my husband, our witness, & the officiant) in the room with us during the ceremony. The whole thing (from paying to the "first kiss" )took around 20-30 minutes.

We decided to dress up. I wore the white Lily Pulitzer dress that I worn to our rehearsal dinner, my wedding jewelery, and a white paper flower in my hair (that I had worn at my wedding shower).My husband wore a black suit with the same tie that his groomsmen had worn at our wedding in Mexico. We wanted to incorporate our actual wedding into our legal wedding. He also bought me one of the bouquets that they sell in front of the building since we weren't able to buy fresh flowers first

Here's what we did.....

We applied for our marriage license on line and got a confirmation number a few days before we planned to "get married".

We knew going into it that you are supposed to wait 24 hours from the time you receive your marriage license to the time you get married. Honestly, I really did not want to spend two days at the marriage bureau so I learned that you can get a judicial waiver which allows you to get your marriage license and have the ceremony on the same day. We opted to go that route.

We arrived at the marriage bureau shaprly at 8:30am. We were out of there with our paperwork to see the judge for the judicial waiver by 9:00am. I do have to add that my FH works for the city and pulled some strings so we got to bypass the line.

We drove to the court house to get the judicial waiver. This process was a pain. We went to one room and filled out the form. We were then sent to another room to get the form notarized. After that we went back to the first room so they could arrange for us to see a judge to sign the waiver. After we went back to the first room we were sent up to one of the judges offices. She gave us a little bit of a hard time about the waiver but did sign it. We were out of there by about 9:30am.

Next we had to go back to the marriage bureau with the judicial waiver to have our ceremony and get married. Again, did not have to wait on line. We filled out the form for the ceremony. My husband's mother came with us as a witness. We had the ceremony in a private room in the back of the marriage bureau. Kenny and I were married by 10:15am.

Kenny wore slacks and a button shirt and I wore a cream colored sweater dress. We did not really get dressed up because we wanted to down play our legal day since we consider our wedding day to be the day we get married. There were a lot of girls and families there with gowns on (at 9am in the morning) for their ceremonies. Many of them also brought bouquets.

The city hall thing is pretty simple. The only thing which, in my opinion, is a pain was that you needed two days to get it done - one day for the application and license and the next day for the ceremony. The only way around this is to get the judicial waiver like we did.

Good luck!

Thanks so much MAK & Jennifer & congratulations on being married! I really appreciate you both sharing your experiences - it helps a lot to get an idea of what to expect.

I know, the whole 2 day thing is really annoying but I didn't know that we could really apply for/receive a waiver.

And how sweet, MAK, that your hubby bought you flowers!