Symbolic vs Civil ceremony?

what are you ladies doing? I am starting to think the best thing to do is get married here in Canada at the courthouse, and just have a sympbolic ceremony in Punta Cana...this would save us money on getting the documents prepared...does anyone know if we would still need the judge to attend the symbolic ceremony, or would the wedding coordinator just renew the vows?

You have a Master of Ceremonie at the Symbolic (appears just like a legal judge to guests) and at our resort the MofC is $400 as opposed to $750 for the judge.

I'm heading out for a dr's appointment but there are a few GREAT threads about this already on here if you can do a search for "symbolic."

I went back and forth on this a ton....what it came down to is I really wanted the "I Do" to be the moment the marriage was official. Playa Del Carmen Mexico is different from other parts of Mexico and Punta Cana probably but here's the gist of what I need to get together for everything to be legal:

- copy of birth certificate ($13 obtained from Sec. of State)

- translate the birth certificate ($40 fee from a local place in Chicago)

- Apostille certification from Sec. of State ($2)

- then after the wedding in Mexico I'll eventually have to get marriage certificate translated back to English...(maybe another $40?)

All of this shouldn't take more than 2 hours in terms of getting to the places and waiting in a line. To me that extra 2 hours and $100 was worth it. It's a personal call though...hope this helps.

We are doing a symbolic too.... we are saving about $1000 this way.

Ocean Blue does not charge to have someone stand in as a ''judge''. But are requested to tip them $40.

We are doing symbolic too. Too much hassle and headache and $$ to bring the judge in.

Your guests will not be able to tell the difference. They have someone from the resort do the ceremony, and the coordinator translates (just as she would for the judge).

In orangeville you can just get the city clerk to do it.

check out this link: http://www.orangeville.org/cms/docum...pplication.pdf

That's how it works here anyway, you can have someone special (who's qualified) or just the town clerk. It takes 10 weeks they said to get the marriage cert (which we need to get the symbolic wedding for free) so time is ticking!!