Anyone getting married first and not telling guests?

As far as passport -- I won't be "legally" changing my name until we get back from Punta Cana -- so my travel agent told us today it won't be a problem and I won't need to get a passport for it (until after my name is legally changed).

 

Thanks for the ideas - I have to figure out how much time in Ontario you need to get the license and certificate done. My parents will know, but that's it, not sure what to do about witnesses since I don't think you can use parents as a witness.

 

Hmmm.

We got married the day before we left at City Hall with only my parents being there... we didn't tell anyone.
I felt really guilty about this initially, but we didn't exchange rings or walk down the aisle with my Dad.. saw each other all day and honestly I didn't even dress up for it... I tried not to make it very special to alleviate my guilt.
We will be celebrating the 20, not the 15 as our anniversary date as well.
I still was totally nervous on the 20, cried going down the aisle til my Dad kept stepping on my dress, etc.
We just said to anyone who asked about it being legal that we already signed papers with the WC/judge and had my BIL & SIL as our witnesses b/c there happened to be there.. then we did lie and say we were getting everything translated when we got home.. I even had a girl on our plane come up to me at the airport and give me her card because they are in the translating/notarizing business.. I told her to advertise here!

Anyways, I started to ramble ... hope this helps

That's great, exactly what I was looking for!! I was hoping that since it's a DW and docs need to be translated, that our guests will just assume we are going it before the ceremony.

 

So that's good to know that someone else managed to pull it off!

So you only had to go a few days before you left? Was that for the license or the certificate? I am still confused over that, leaving it to the FI to look into!

we are signing our legal documents but travelling with unchanged names. ppl may know but we are not exchanging rings until the DR ceremony.

This is what we did and for the same reasons too. We got married in Dec for the tax reason. When I called the court house they told us we did not need witness, but we could have them if we wanted. When we got there and told the JP that we were having a DW he said well then we don't even have to say the vows. I thought that was really nice of him. He told us it will make the DW mean more since it will really be the first time we have said the vows.

We plan on doing this but i DONT want to tell anyone BUT the FI won't keep it in he is going to tell his sister who will tell everyone else. I really dont care I guess, but I DO bc I dont want my mom to feel that its not a real ceremony. We are not having a religious wedding so she is already upset about that and I know she will feel worse if she thought we already got married without her. I just know that his family will tell her when we get there, so I don't know what to do.

Our JP did the same for us! we didnt even exchange rings! Which was nice because it wont take away from our real wedding!

i'm glad someone brought this up, we were away a few weekends ago and met a TA in which was more helpful than the one I had here.

 

While we were asking questions she did mention that if we got married here first "secretly" and then just have a renewal of vows there, keep it hush hush and no one would know the difference except for us and our witnesses.

 

I'm seriously thinking about it. My only question right now is if anyone has done this before, what's the ceremony like and can you actually tell the difference that's it's a renewal instead of the actual ceremony.

We will also be getting married before. We are going to have my Fs brother (can't come to the Dominican) there and any special friends that can't make it either (all of my friends are in baby making mode which is putting a damper on traveling). We will keep it quiet and small. I won't lie, but I won't bring it up and we definitely won't wear our rings. I also really won't partake in any traditions of a wedding, which to me are a large part of the day. So this is just legal mumbo jumbo - your guests will understand. Wouldn't it be the same, if you didn't get married before and it got so screwed up with translation and such, that you still had to do it after...think of it that way.

We are also doing the legal thing first. Only my parents know because my mom was insistent on "we want a legal wedding" I finally just told her we are signing docs before we go and our DW is our actual wedding. I couldn't lie to my mom. As for everyone else, I just say yup we're getting married here... Which we are